My mother’s basketball team randomly gave her a betta fish as a thank you for being their coach (they are young kids so I guess they thought that was an acceptable gift) so now I have a pet betta fish. The tank it’s in is the one they gave to us but they didn’t give us any other supplies or even food. I’m going to the pet store soon and I would like to know what I have to buy to make this little fish thrive. I’ve never had a fish before but I’m willing to spend what I need to make it have a good life. Please give me advice on how to take care of this little guy.
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1ro4zii
Posted by ScarTheCheetah
9 Comments
I’d start by getting a whole new tank. This one looks small. New gravel and plants. Heater and real plants!
at minimum a 5 gallon tank, filter, and NO gravel, especially colored. opt for substrate and sand. real plants as fake plants will tear its fins, since you don’t have time to cycle the tank, buy water conditioners etc. don’t buy the standard betta food. bc it’s so bad for them and they can’t digest anything with wheat. i use the fluval bug bite pellets of flakes and they love it, also bought some dried blood works and frozen brine shrimp and alternate giving that to them once or twice a week. good luck and im glad you are trying to be educated!!
Start off by getting a real tank (at least 5 gallons for bettas and if you want tankmates, 10 gallons or more) and by what I can tell, this is a 1.5 gallon cube. Too small of a tank. And get some substrate and real plants. And do a nitrogen cycle your tank once you get it too (the nitrogen cycle is where harmful ammonia produced by fish waste or food gets converted to nitrite and nitrate by beneficial bacteria then the plants consume the nitrites and nitrates and it usually takes 3-8 weeks for enough beneficial bacteria to be established and if you put any fish in an in cycles tank, they could die of New Tank Disease and please get a monitoring kit (no not security cameras, but get a test kit to monitor your parameters and don’t use test strips, use liquid titration kits for your betta) And since you’re gonna need to do your cycle with the fish in since you already got it, you will need to do daily or one every 2 days water changes and monitoring for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels daily. And also get a heater and a filter suited for larger tanks (like if you’re going for a 5 gallon use a 10 gallon sponge filter and if youre going for 10, use a 20 and so on, but make sure the current isn’t too high for bettas. They don’t like currents that are over the recommend limit of 2-5x gph more than your tank volume. And I highly recommend getting a sponge filter! They’re super easy to set up and are cheaper. You just need airline tubing, an air pump, and check valves (Safety tool) and I recommend buying the Imagitarium sponge filters because they come with air stones. And don’t use that rainbow gravel. Use black gravel or sand. Oh and also, if you use tap water, using a water conditioner (I recommend high quality ones like Seachem Prime) is mandatory. It removes chlorine, chloramine, and heavy metals and if you use straight unconditioned tap water, their gills will be burned. And please note that you cannot have multiple bettas in the same tank. And as for tankmates, you can or cannot have tankmates. It depends on the betta’s temperament
Please make sure you leave the betta in its current tank while the new tank cycles. It will need like 3-5 weeks. If you put in a snail, it will go faster. YouTube how to cycle a tank. It helps if any of your friends have a tank. You can ask them for some of their filter media so it hurries the process. Get SeaChem Prime to help clear nitrates. You should get that now while you’re changing the water in this tank. Change it only 1/4 at a time. 1/4 every week starting right now.
Drop a comment if you have more questions- but definitely YouTube betta care.
https://preview.redd.it/k6qhsqpbwtng1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b23db5e805baf0842091b5e0cc291c1402419d7c
Try to create something like this. In a 10 gallon tank minimum. You need aquasoil, sand, aquatic plants, cycle it for a couple of weeks at least. Check the water parameters with test.
This is a cool guide
https://preview.redd.it/ai8jaanfytng1.jpeg?width=2100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2585b157ad3756adef4e8abd70285d4f006fc59a
https://preview.redd.it/58rp53niytng1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40b430e8cddc74bbcc6b409fb9a2ff896635fd56
Make sure you have water conditioner, tap water out of the faucet is extremely toxic to fish due to its chlorine content.
If you don’t have conditioner and need to add extra water in an emergency, bottled water will usually do in a pinch.
Id at least take everything put of that tank for now, switch to sand if you can and find him a good hide. Netya fish are tropical and would like a heater. Id also recommend live plants has they wont tare her fins like the fake ones
It’s generally recommended to habe a fish in a bigger tank you can normally fond 5-10gallon tanks for cheap on market place
If you cant get a bigger tank right away thats ok do your best untill you can change it over