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My betta girl, Arora, was sick for about seven days, only laying at the bottom of the tank. I have her in a simple tank, since bettas are soft swimmers, and currents can make them depressed from having to fight to swim all the time. Anyways she just started being active again, her water temp stays between 75-80°F (24-26.5°C) and so I'm now scared to do a partial water change only because she just started eating and swimming again without my help.

Any advice on handling water changes without causing stress and further illness?

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    Did you test water quality? You don't necessarily have to change the water as often as you might think or read somewhere. This heavily depends on the actual inhabitants as well as your local water quality (e.g. to keep the proper hardness grade).
    – Mario
    Oct 19, 2015 at 7:20
  • @Mario's comment is the answer. Not knowing is the danger, here. Maybe you don't change out of fear of stress but it turns out the water quality is so awful that it does more harm!
    – rlb.usa
    Oct 19, 2015 at 21:35
  • I'm just scared to change her water only BC she was just recently sick.. You don't think it would stress her!? And yes I keep track of her water quality
    – user5975
    Oct 20, 2015 at 1:15

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I highly doubt that water change would stress her that much. However here is what you do. Prepare gigantic batch of good water, get two tubes and another empty bucket. And then use dripping method. Let water drip into the tank from the good batch of water, and out of the tank into empty bucket. This will ensure that water is changed at an extremely slow pace. It might take a whole day if not more depending on your tank size and will cause least amount of stress to fish. I used it in emergency cases previously and works perfectly.

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