Aloha Betta Acclimatizing
Once you received the shipping date for your fish, it is time to start aging water for the new arrivals. Use Prime by Seachem or Amquel+ by Kordon to dechlorinate your tap water and removes other harmful compounds that it may contain. Bottled or spring water are not ideal for betta because they lack of certain minerals. If you are new to Betta while you are finding your feet you may want to add aquarisol to the water as well, this is a good external parasite preventative.
When you received the box open it as soon as possible, try to do this in a dim lit room. The fish has been in an enclosed dark area during shipping, a sudden bright light causes more stress. Please send us an email to let us know that you have received the fish and the condition they are in. I use almond leaves extract with the shipped fish, that is why the water is brown. Almond leaves extract controls ammonia and nitrate spikes within the bags. I do not feed my fish 2 days prior to the shipping date, their ammonia and nitrate excretion should be minimal.
Open the bags and float them in the container of aged water for 30 minutes. Over a period of a few hours slowly add your water to the bags until they are just about full. Pour the fish and all the water from the bag into your container or just the fish and throw away as much of the old water as your can. If the fish has been in transit for 3 days or more, just float them in the water until the temperature equalized and immediately released them in the new water and discard as much of their bag water as possible. In about 4 hours, feed the fish a small amount of food and slowly increase the amount each day. We feed our young bettas with black worms but has also trained them with Hakari's micro and mini floating pellets.
It is normal for new arrivals not to have any colors for a few hours and to be scared or lethargic. Within 24 hours they should be flaring at their neighbors and it may take a few days before the fish are comfortable with their new surroundings.