Keeping water warm - ideas

Ok so some of you may know that I do not have a heater for my betas yet and will get one when I get the money to upgrade...

But right now my main concern is the cold of night making them TOO cold. Their homes are small enough to fluctuate temperatures rather easily and with the heater in the house out of order till my stepdad heals enough to fix it. So question is....how do I keep them warm??

I thought about letting their rocks warm up gradually in the sun while it's still light out then wraping them in towels to trap the warmth in. Then I thought that may not be enough. We don't have any heating pads to put under them either nor a light strong enough to give much heat.

So then I got to thinking......frozen meats thaw quickly if I put them in the sink with warm water. So should the same concept be able to keep the fish warm enough at night?? Like put one home in each sink then fill it with hot water just up to the level of the rocks? Let the heat sink in to the rock layer and therefore gradually raise the temperature of the water?? The hot water will cool down as the fishy homes heat up so it won't get tooooo hot. What do you think?? Should I use very warm water instead and fill it higher up the glass or should very hot water at rock level do the trick, or is this a VERY bad idea?? My bettas don't jump and even then I keep a hole-poked cover on at night to stop any gnats and dust from contaminating the surface.

IMO thats not really going to work as the water in the sink will have cooled in an hour and you be back where you started. Fill the sink and see how long it last with slightly hotter water than you would use. Never tried it, but that would be my guess.

I tried it last night.....the water in the bowl changed faster than I thought so I slowly let them cool off just a tad then made the water in the sink only slightly warmer than I wanted it to. I added a bit more hot water every 1/2 hour or so to keep the temp up. They survived and are very active today. It's gorgeous outside so I think some time in the window will do them good, but I read somewhere fish should be kept away from windows??

Anyway, even though it's a lot of work it's worth it to keep them alive. It gets cold enough to kill them...I was under 5 blankets last night and still freezing.

I haven't heard any reason other than sunlight helps promote algae to grow. Since you have to do w/c's frequently I don't foresee it as a problem. Best to keep them warm IMO.

I know money is an issue right now but have you taken a look on eBay? You can pick up some reasonably good bargains there if you check regularly enough. Just a suggestion!

Irish_Lass wrote:I know money is an issue right now but have you taken a look on eBay? You can pick up some reasonably good bargains there if you check regularly enough. Just a suggestion!

Thats what i was about to say but there in the US so it would be aquabid lol.
Not sure theres much else you can do apart from keep them in the warmest part of your house. A hot water bottle might work but you would have to check the tank doesnt get to hot.

I thought the US had eBay too??? No???

I think they do but most people dont use it from what ive heard.

We do!

Mesatalia,

Tell you what I'm considering at the moment.. If I find some work this week I have a
little Betta tank someone gave I don't use. I have one of those little flat heaters I described earlier. I'm filling it with water in just a couple minutes and I'll see what the temp. is in a few hours. If reasonably compatible I'll just ship it to you.

It has a a little undergravel filter and I have some blue or red gravel I can toss in with it. You will still have to do the regular water changes as it won't be cycled. But in time it will be as the gravel works as a media. There isn't any carbon but thats not necessary if you are careful!

F.Banks, that's a really really sweet gesture!

Well to quote an old character Will Rogers, " Not one of us is going to get out of this thing alive!lol! One of my favorite sayings!

OMG thanks F.Banks!! That would really help!! Right now I have like 3 dollars to my name and that has to go towards my son's birthday party tomorrow. We DO have E-bay and I've gotten things off E-bay before back when I had a job and actually my grandma got me my laptop off E-bay too just 6 months ago, lol.

But anyway yeah that is SO sweet of you!! It's really appreciated and I'm sure my betta would appreciate it too. ^_^

I'm giving it a test run right now to see where the temp. tops out. I hope it doesn't
peak out to hot. I'll know in several hours.

Red or blue gravel, or would you like a mix since Alpha (if you stuck with the name) is red and blue! Makes no difference to me what your preference is.

You'll need a small old style screw in Xmas Tree light bulb. Hopefully its not the switch. Also an inline check valve($2) for the pump as a safety measure if the power goes out. That prevents the water from draining out!

Okies, I can handle that no problem!! My grandma has a stash of those old lights and they still work and the valve I can get easily once another payment comes in. ^_^

A mix is fine though I have rocks-a-plenty. Right now he's in a mostly black rock with yellow, pink, purple, and blue neon rocks in it. It really plays well against his scales. My cousin gave me the few little things I have besides the food and stress coat drops, including the first fish. But she doesn't do anything special with her fish...she keeps them in large vases like the two I have with just rocks and fake plants, 4 pellets a day, and nothing more than water changes and she doesn't even treat her water or anything...regular tap water and actually the fish I have I'm slowly getting him accustomed to treated water because I didn't want to shock him from tap water to treated water, but he's lived without treated water for a year. I noticed a couple of his fins have a weird twisted kink in them.

You didn't have to worry about that as its important that theres no chlorine at all in the water. The fish stores treat their water for chlorine trust me! Either they do or they would be having a fire sale on dead fish! lol!

There's chlorine in my tap water though and the veil tail has been living in it for a year...but he's gonna have treated water while he's with me, lol. I know the stores do but my cousin didn't, lol.

Is there a chance you can put a room heater on low in a small room and keep the fish in there - that way the temp will be more stable. Stability is the biggest thing, big variations can cause their immunity to be compromised and they get ich/infections etc

We don't have any room heaters and the one at my grandma's house tends to overheat and blow fuses :/

It shouldn't take long for our heater to be fixed....I just gotta wait for my stepdad to get back from Washington DC.

Mesatalia, I just checked the temp and its at 75F. I'm hoping it'll climb a little higher, but even at this rate its going to be an improvement. I'll post the temp in a few hours if it goes up! If not it may be in the AM.--FB

I'll need an address when I get ready to mail the beginning of the week. We have a couple days to iron that out! No hurry as I won't be able to before Tuesday!

Alrighty and TY!! 75 would be a HUGE improvement, especially at night. I'm not good at judging temps or anything but I know what 101 feels like and I know what ice water feels like, lol, and the water temp at night goes down to approx low 60's, maybe down into the 50's even. Average is high 60's I think unless it's a good warm day then it can get into the 70's but average is about 68 I think, also seeing what the temp inside the house becomes, good gusstimate without a thermo.