I Love My Boys

please making a welcome tiny orb smallfriend, crucifix toad

he tiny

he round

sometimes, he sad

sometimes worry

an Orb of Melancholy

he hide a lot

more hiding

but it’s ok!! he have friends!!!

they also very round

very bright

away he goe!

How I keep my parameters at 0

My tank is 2.5 gallons. It currently houses one betta and a bunch of red cherry(?) shrimp. While not horribly so, it might be regarded as overstocked. However, I have absolutely not problem keeping all parameters at 0PPM.

First, I’d like to say that bigger is better when it comes to tanks. An animal is spending its whole life in a box after all. However, I am going to college next year and got my fish planning to take him with me. I would never go any smaller than 2.5 gallons. Having studied betta stress signs for my research, I am confident in saying I believe he is living a very happy and healthy life. All the animals in the tank are active and show signs of being healthy. I feed my pets a mix of two high quality foods (omega one pellets and bug bites), and have vitamins I dose every week as well.

As for the nitrates, I have tons of plants that grow super fast due to a special light and a fertilizing schedule I created. This allows them to soak up nitrates very quickly. I also run two small sponge filters in the tank. I do 1 gallon water changes every week, but I can go much longer and still have 0s across the board. This tank has been set up for 8 months and never crashed once. Paired with the readings I’ve done and the citations I used for my dissertation, I wouldn’t call 2.5 gallons detrimental for a betta and a few shrimp

In tanks like these, the same level of care and detail hasn’t gone in to research. I would not be comfortable recommending these tanks to anyone because there’s going to be next to no stability.

OPs tank is what an acceptable 2.5 gallon tank looks like. Heavily planted, filtered, and an owner that’s willing to go the distance and do the research needed to make sure that it’s a healthy setup. It is so much harder to keep good parameters in a small tank, and if you’re not going to do it right, near impossible.

That said, if you aren’t going to go into this level of detail, if you aren’t going to ensure you’re keeping an eye on parameters and if you aren’t going to plant a tank heavily enough, then a 2.5 really isn’t practical. Upgrading to a 5 or a 10 can do so much in terms of water quality, stability and over all quality of life for the fish. Like OP said, bigger is better!

TLDR: I agree with OP, a 2.5 CAN be acceptable to keep a beta in, IF you’re willing to do the research and pay close attention to it over a long period of time.

It’s far from perfect – I’m missing some dates towards the end where I misplaced the book – but this is the most recent page of my log book.

I am 17, and I’ve been keeping fish in this fashion for the past three-four years. keep meticulous records, I bought an external thermostat for my heater as an extra precautionary measure, I get vitamins and the top quality foods to mix in addition to supplements, and I grew a jungle to make life better for my animal that cannot make life better for themselves. Of course, a bigger tank is improving their life, but there are more factors that contribute to their quality of life than that. Don’t cram a fish in a tink jar,  but there’s more to fish keeping than upgrading – I personally believe. 

Let’s talk bettas!

Did you know that bettas need to be housed in at least a 2.5-5 gallon tank? Yep! Those bowls need to go! Did you know that bettas require heat in their water for sufficient living? Did you know that bettas require more then pellet food?

Let’s talk about this! I would like to start by talking about heat requirements. Bettas require at minimum a water temperature of 72-82 degrees. They originally come from Thailand where they live in swampy, marshy, pools of water. So heat makes sense!

Secondly, let’s discuss feeding! Commonly bettas are fed pellet their entire life, but let’s be honest. Boring and totally not healthy! Bettas require frozen bugs and other frozen things. Like blood worms and brineshrimp. Be sure to supply these 1-2 times weekly in place of a serving of pellet. Then continue with feeding pellet the rest of the week. Now, if you want your water quailty to stay cleaner, consider feeding your betta every other day. It’s fine to do, but I however feed my betta each day.

Lastly, let’s discuss fin rot! Ahhhh the big betta fish scary! Fin rot is a baterial infection in which the bacteria eats at your bettas fins and skin. This is most common in bowl kept bettas who are also housed in dirty water. Yuck! To prevent this health issue you can practice good house keeping for your little swimmer. Filters can be added in tanks 3.5 and up. Why 3.5 and up? Well if you have too small of a space for your betta with a strong filter, it can suck in their fins and damage them or kill them.

Recommendations:

If fin rot appears, try API BETTA FIX. I use it for all of my betta rescues!

Thanks for reading!

Then vs now

1) sick/poorly treated fish becoming healthy kind of thing

2) young fish maturing kinda thing

3) normal regular fish magic colour changing thing

But many bettas have a gene that causes them to marble as they age! So while you will see color changes from a sick/stressed fish to a healthy one it usually looks more like they went from pale to fully colored so like you may see one go from this

To more like this: