Betta Question

I've seen how some *expletive* people have put betas in little vases with plant roots all around and know that is really really bad for them but mine is in a 2.5 gallon tank with a very soft artifical plant and a UG filter with a small air pump but ive heard that as long as you change the water enough 1 beta wont really need a filter of any sort? could anyone tell me if that is true or not?

 

Yes, that's true. Although a filtered tank would be better (you can do 25% water changes as opposed to 100% changes), bettas can live in unfiltered tanks as long as they're large enough and you keep an eye on the ammonia.

I wouldn't put a betta in anything smaller than 2 gallons because otherwise they don't have much room to swim and the ammonia will build up fairly quickly. With a 2 gallon tank/bowl/jar, you can go about 1 - 1 1/2 weeks between 100% water changes.

Personally, I keep a betta in a 3 gallon jar. It doesn't have any filtration but I keep an eye on my ammonia and do a 100% water change every 2 weeks. Bettas can breath atmospeheric oxygen so they don't need an airstone or surface agitation, and my room stays between 75* - 80* so I don't need a heater for him.

That being said, I abosolutely HATE those betta vases (aka betta torture devices). Not only are the vases generally less than 1 gallon, the roots take up a lot of swimming space and can tear up the betta's fins. And on many of them that I've seen, the directions make it out to be a completely contained, self suficient little ecosystem with the betta living off the roots and the plant removing the betta's waste. That is TOTALLY FALSE. Bettas are carnivores and need protein. They will slowly starve to death if all they have is roots to eat. And although plants are good at removing nitrAtes (not present in the betta vases since they're not filtered/cycled) and some ammonia, there is no way they would be able to remove all the ammonia produced by a betta in a 1 gallon (or smaller) vase.

-Chelle

 

:shock: Wow thanks for all the info chelle, im going to stick with my 2.5 gallon and my ug filter for my betta.

"self suficient little ecosystem" my bum, its outragious they even say that its more like a self suficient little tourture chamber, I mean you could put a human in a glass jar that was just an inch above his/her height and an inch around his waist and pelt food at them twice a'day, the person would survive granted but they wouldnt be happy, and as far as people claiming they dont produce enough ammonia to hurt themselves ive allways though of ammonia beaing like smoke to humas, if you were forced to walk around a room full of smoke you wouldnt be happy at all.

 

Your right, Chelle has some great information. I find that bettas do even better when you use a good bottled water. It's a shame whom-ever started that plant root fad with bettas. Just FYI!

 

For all my tanks below 5 gallons I use springwater that you can get at most grocery stores cheap, 50 - 60 cents a gallon jug its really nice if you have some smaller tanks, though it would be impossible and a wallet killer if you tried to fill anything bigger then 5 gallons.

 

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the idea was originally to use goldfish who could sort of survive on the roots (at least better than an betta could). The idea was scrapped because they realized "Gee, goldfish get pretty big." Then someone heard about the original plan and decided to use bettas instead because they don't get as large. But they forgot to change the part about it being able to eat the roots.

At least I think that's how the story went. I'll have to do a search and see if I can find it again.

-Chelle