newbie 10 gallon maintenance help

[bettamomma]

Hello,

i've had a betta for 9 months...was in 1 gallon for 8 months
now in a 10 gallon...and i need help with how to maintain.
with the 1 gallon every week..i did a 30% water change
took everything out..including gravel and rinsed well...

now with the 10 gallon...i can't really take the gravel out
and clean whole tank every week..
i got a filter and a gravel vacuum...i vacuumed today..and it
just seemed to stir up all the gunk on the bottom..i have tried
several brands....it doesn't seem to be very efficient..not sure what
to do...
the water looks a little better..but still needs to settle..and there are small
particles..that landed on the fake plants...

all i have is 1 betta in the tank..and he eats all his food...so the junk..is poop and whatever....i dont' want to screw up..and have my fish..which i'm very attatched to...suffer....

a 1 gallon was so much simpler..

please help me

 

[budrecki]

What kind of gravel vac? Maybe you arn't using it corretly? They do "stir the pot" alittle, but mostly you are sucking the dirty water and debis into a bucket.

 

[Holly9937]

All you want to do is place the vac. down into the gravel and let it sit there for a few seconds till the water runs clear. If you stirred up that much stuff you probably just need to vacuum more or feed less

And congrats on the upgrade, I'm sure hes very happy. I did the same thing a while back, I felt guilty about my pretty boy living in a 2.5g (although he seemed pretty content) and moved him to a 10g :dance:

 

[bettamomma]

Hello,

i have tried several brands from petsmart, i do the self starting siphon....thing..
shake it up and down, get it sucking...get it in the gravel, and move it up and down,
and around the tank, i don't overfeed..just 2 pellets am ,2 pellets pm-Bo Bo eats them all, and obviously while i was vacuuming, water came out..so i changed about 2 1/2-3 gallons of water

 

[Hannys_Papa]

Sounds like you are doing everything right.
If you dont have life plants just keep the substrate as thin as it seems possible while still being pleasing to the eye for you. The less substrate the easier it is to get the stuff sucked up.
Dont worry if you dont get it as sparkly clean as you did when you had him in the 1G and basically rinsed the whole thing out at once.
Some "bio material" (poop and by bacteria processed poop = mulm) is ok. The more your tank matures the bigger the variety of organisms in your tank.

Also read about the nitrogen cycle - now that you have the 10G with a filter the tank is eventually going to cycle and will create a much stabler and healthier enviroment than the 1G. You did the right thing - i also have a betta in a 10G.