Hi everyone! My young kids were recently gifted bettas. (I was not aware beforehand, hence why I was not prepared.) I am not an experienced fish keeper, but I want to give these fish good lives and I’m feeling kind of lost at where to start. I’ve done some research, and I know they need bigger tanks. I’ve added pictures of their temporary tanks, which I’m trying to make comfortable for them in the meantime.
I also know that a planted tank would be beneficial but, again, have no clue how to even get that started. Any tips on getting an appropriate tank set up would be appreciated!
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1rp76o9
Posted by Jumpy_House_421
5 Comments
Aquarium Co-Op on YouTube has info for pretty much everything you need from the nitrogen cycle to community tanks.
i’m sorry this was put on you 🙁 i’ll never understand why people gift live animals. Main tips from me, get rid of the spongebob decor, these are called death decor for a reason 🙁 and also get rid of the colorful rocks as they leak toxins from the paint covering on the rocks. Use a sand-like substrate, and get some real plants 🙂 that floating log you already have is great for bettas!
Definitely want to get larger rectangular tanks for swim space, but bring everything with the fish to maintain the bacteria colony initially, then you can swap stuff out over time.
Anubias and Java Fern are easy plants that can take nutrients from the water so you don’t even need to put them in the gravel etc.
I think the plants you already have so far are looking lovely but, of course, like you said definitely when you can get them slightly bigger tanks. If they’re both male bettas then naturally they’ll need two separate tanks given their aggression.
There’s also a possibility – if for affordability-sake it’s not viable for you to buy two more separate tanks – you could do one large/wide tank with a divider in the middle but it would either have to be entirely shrouded by plants or an opaque/nearly opaque divider. I’m not all too familiar with this though (as I plan to keep a female betta) and I’m a beginner myself who is still learning, but hopefully someone could either enlighten on this possibility of doing a divider or if there’s any resources online about it!
But to note, I *believe* bettas are horizontal swimmers so they prefer wider/longer and shorter height tanks vs taller and narrower tanks! They can obviously also do great in cubes, though 🙂
[Here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantedTank/s/wy4P3St5oK) a link to a comment I wrote to someone about live plants etc.
Also would recommend (whilst they’re still in/using these tanks) to top up the water to about an inch/just less than an inch from the very top and keep the lid on always!
Also make sure you have a good read about fish-in cycling if you haven’t already! Here’s a [link](https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-short-guide-to-fish-in-cycling) to some info on it; I’m doing a fishless cycle currently and the advice this page/blog has on fishless has been really helpful for me so I hope the fish-in guide is just as helpful!
For what it’s worth, for this being put on you ‘at random’ as it were, you’ve done well so far with even getting a few real plants and keeping them as comfy as possible until you learn a bit more on what to do next 💕
Get a API test kit from pet smart/petco and research about levels of the tank and how to do water changes. horizontal space is better for bettas than vertical space. 10 gal is kind of the sweet spot for tank size.