My husband surprised me with a betta fish tonight and a little 1/2 gallon tank for him (I'll eventually get him a bigger one all to himself and a hammock thing). I keep a couple gallons of perfectly room temperature reverse osmosis water in the house for drinking. We added a bit of the water conditioner to it and let it sit for probably 30 minutes after adding some of the new water to the cup he came in. He's in the new tank now swimming around. He didn ' t appear to go into shock at all, was actually quite happy.
Is this safe for the fish? Do I need to treat the water with anything?
Actually, use tap water, with the water conditioner, it will generally be better.
The problem with RO filtered water is that it contains NO hardness or buffering, no trace minerals, nothing but water. As such it has practically zero hardness and is not actually good for fish. It wont kill them outright or anything, but the pH can do all sort of weird things over time, but no harm done.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Water conditioner will do nothing to RO water, as there is nothing in there to neutralise. You only need to use it on tap water as that often contains chlorine residue.
Ian
I have had 2 beta fish from walmart over a year now and all I did was get a basic fish bowl, tap water changed once a week with nothing else, just water, and with the beta fish food feed them only 3 pellets. If you get more than one beta get a divider or a separate bowl because they will attack and eat each other. If you get a male and female keep them separate also because if it is not mating season they will eat each other too,
you don't need to treat it with anything other than dechlorinator, you can ad some aquarium salt if you want, but you don't have too. yes it is safe. RO water where i live has a ph of 6 which is a little low for some fish, but as long as you adjust him gradually you should be fine.
