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So today I want to answer for you the question, do better fish prefer still or moving water
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Hello friends, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Richard and I'm a fish and shrimp keeper based in the UK. So do better fish prefer still or moving water
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So in the wild, better fish have evolved to live in very slow moving streams or even stationary
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pools of water. And in fact, they belong to a member of fish called the anabantoids. And
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anabantoids, which include bettas, paradise fish and gouramis, have developed the ability to actually
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breathe air from the surface when they have to. They have a specially evolved organ internally
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which allows them to gulp in. It's like a very primitive lung, essentially
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Now, the reason bettas develop this lung, for want of a better word, is because they do naturally
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occur in slow-moving or stationary borders of water, which typically have lower levels of
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dissolved oxygen. So wild bettas can survive in water that has a very low
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concentration of dissolved oxygen They can survive in very slow or even stationary bodies of water But typically in our aquariums we don want our bettas to survive we want them to thrive we want to be happy and healthy and bright and colourful and active
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We don't want them just surviving. So really for most of us we do want to add movement to our better
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tanks. Now typically we will get that water movement from our filters or from placing an
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air stone, a bubbler in the aquarium and as the bubbles rise to the surface they take with them
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water and that brings in fresh water from the sides into that column and give you circulation
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or of course your filter is just naturally circulating it as it sucks the water in
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The question then is how much circulation do our bettors want? Well for most of us we have
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bettors with the long flowing fins. We have over the decades we have selectively bred our bettors
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to have long flowing colourful fins and long flowing colourful fins are not great for swimming
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against strong water movement. So whilst we do want some movement in our better tank
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we don't want too much. If we have too much, our bettas will become exhausted. They will often sit on the bottom of the tank and become stressed and stress leads to ill health and bacteria and parasites taking over our fish So we do want some movement but we don want too much So how do we know what
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is the right amount? Well typically the more powerful our filter is the more movement it will
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create. If you keep a small five gallon aquarium with a batter in it and an air stone bubbling
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away in the corner or a sponge filter that typically creates very gentle flow, very gentle circulation
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that's perfect for a better. If you have a small hang-on back filter, typically they are often okay
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as well. They just draw in the small hang-on back filters, just draw in a small amount of water
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passes through and trickles back down. And typically they're absolutely fine as well
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Now if you're keeping your better in a small tank but you have a canister filter, often they're designed for much larger tanks and they create far too much circulation
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And they can lead to your better being worn out. They can lead to your better struggling to swim
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against the against the flow. So my advice is to create some flow
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but keep that to a minimum. Don't exhaust your better by making it swim
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against the current the whole time. It's not a salmon at the end of the day. It essentially a small long fin fish that struggles to swim at the best of times So what can you do if you think you do have too much circulation if you do think you wearing your better up Well if you can turn your circulation down if your filter is adjustable and you can control the flow then that one way
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you can do it. But you can also add rocks and pieces of wood and live plants to the aquarium
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What you might end up with is a pile of rocks or some large pieces of wood. You will have on one
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side of the tank you might have fairly high flow where the filter is but the rocks and the timber
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slow that flow right down. So your better fish can spend some time in the high flow if it wants to
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and also some time tucked away in the rocks and behind the decorations, behind the live plants
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where the flow is a lot slower. Essentially the answer to this question is can a better survive
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in a tank with no flow? Yes but who wants our fish just to survive? For a better to thrive
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it wants to have some flow but not so much that you wear it out. If you have water thundering
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around the tank wearing your better out and exhausting it all the time, its lifespan will
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be dramatically increased. In fact, if you want to know how to give your betters the longest life
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possible, check out this video here. Thanks for watching
