Question: Plants with a Betta in a unfiltered unheated 1Gallon tank.

E

erinrobinjade

New Fish
#1
Sep 15, 2008
3
0
0
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
www.freewebs.com
#1
Hey everyone,
I work at PetSmart in Edmonton, Alberta. A while ago I bought a Betta. His name is Frasier. Well today the water plant that was call the mystery plant no one knew what it was, was found to be a Rotala Wallichii. AND the price was only $2.75 each!!!!! So I grabbed two for Frasier. Now Frasier stays in a corner under my kitchen window, and loves it there, hes becoming such a nice little betta. Will this plant be ok there? What do I do with water changes? I know normally you would do a full change but with a plant should I?? would that kill it? Any help would be very good. I'll take pictures tomorrow.

Thanks

Erin
 

ishar

ishar

MFT Staff
#2
Jul 27, 2007
1,490
0
36
36
Hamilton, ON.
#2
oh man :S. Ok I'll be the first to welcome you to the forum :). But I will also be the first to gie the bad news.

Well, I am sorry, but you are going to get a lot of negative feedback here, because you are, unfortunately, keeping your fish in very poor living conditions.

To start: the position of your tank. You should never leave a tank where direct sunlight will hit it- especially not one so small. Temperature variations of the water due to the sunlight can stress out your fish and perhaps kill it if it becomes severe enough.

Your plant: I am not sure, but I feel like it might be ok- it will not look its best if it does grow, but it might very slowly grow and propagate.

Water changes: For water changes, you only do 100% water changes under VERY special circumstances. Have you read up about the term cycling? It is very important, and if you happen to read on it (and I suggest you do) you will know that this could stress out the bacteria that lives in the gravel of the aquarium. I would recommend you do about 50% water changes every other day or so in order to keep the toxins that will be produced by your fish to a minimum- I will discuss it more in a bit.

"unfiltered unheated": This is perhaps the worst part about this situation. In having no filter, the bacteria I mentioned, the cycling bacteria that remove toxic wastes from your fish and break the chemicals down into less toxic forms, have no where to culture. Most of the bacteria in a tank is usually found in the filter media, and in the gravel. I hope you at least have gravel if you have no filter. The number of water changes I suggested is also do to the fact that you have no filter. Being unheated is also a very bad thing- especially for a betta. Yes, they can survive in ambient temperature water- but you could also survive in 5 degree Celsius weather- but would you be happy at all? No, and it would considerably shorten your lifespan. Bettas need a heater like any other fish, and they need a filter like any other.

I hope I did not come off too harsh here. Trust me- you are by far not the only one to ever ask these questions. I just hope you heed some of my words and do some research, particularly on cycling your tank, and stick around here at MFT and learn everything you can- trust me, there is more to learn every day :D.

Welcome aboard again, and if you have any questions you don't want to post for whatever reason, feel free to pm me :)
 

TAL

TAL

Large Fish
#3
Sep 7, 2008
588
0
0
#3
ishar said:
I hope I did not come off too harsh here. Trust me- you are by far not the only one to ever ask these questions.

:
Click to expand...


Very true. I am/was WAYYYYYY worse.

But hey, thanks for reminding me.

Bettas are Labyrinth Organ fish and that does mean they can survive in that bowl but it doesnt mean they will thrive in that bowl.

Buy him a little 2-3 filtered, heated tank. Maybe put in a friend or 10 :)

That would be nicer.

Welcome to the forum.

Watch out for Pure and Kissyboots...
 

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