Betta Fish: What am I missing?

skip the test strips, the silk plants, the planting tools, and use that savings to get an API Freshwater test kit. the test strips are notoriously inaccurate, and you wanna make sure you can accurately measure ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to help keep your betta healthy. you’re going to be doing a fish-in nitrogen cycle, so I would recommend familiarizing yourself with that process and the water changes needed throughout 🖤 gorgeous fish

Ok so you need a 5 gallon tank you should get the 5 gallon starter tank kit. They come with a hang over back filter , a lid, a light, a thermometer 🌡️ to be able to check the water some of them come with a heater mine did not. The hang over back filter sometimes has a strong output so all you have to do is block the output with a sponge filter and a rubber band you can actually watch YouTube videos on how to block the flow. You need a couple products that are basically essential products such as 1) prime by seachem, 2) stability by seachem. Or 3) api aqua essentials . Those two products such as prime, api aqua essentials block ammonia, nitrites, nitrates heavy metals and chlorine and chloramine, so you have to get one that does that and I believe those are the easiest to get and the best ones . I used to use prime but it stinks so I now use api aqua essentials. You are also going to need a gravel vacuum siphon I use top fin brand there cheap and work great and making tank maintenance a breeze I use mine once a week in all of my tanks to get poop and left over food. Also feeding your bettas frozen food is so much better for them pellets are actually quite bad for your betta they cause bloat, constipation, prolapse , swim bladder issues and all kinds of bad stuff I feed mine Frozen omega one carnivore, omega one bloodworms San Francisco Bay four foods and San Francisco Bay mysis shrimp for finicky eaters and alternated all of those. Easy live plants are anything with Anubias in the title , Java fern , El Niño fern , bacopa , Rotala , I’ve always had great luck with those and I don’t use special substrate just gravel and I super glue gel the to rocks and drift wood . All u need is a liquid fertilizer like api leaf zone . Easy !!!!! Also some catappa leafs are good to have and good to add a couple in the tank. Another thing is buy an api master water testing kit the strips don’t work and there expensive the kit lasts for up to 900 tests so it’s worth it and it checks for all the important things like ammonia , nitrite, nitrate , ph . Betta leafs are great to have so betta has a resting spot near the surface.