New 2.5 Gallon!

[GouramiFanatic]

I had a conversation with my mother a few weeks ago about how I felt bad for Betta fish and that I wanted to buy a 2.5 gallon tank or two to give one a new home. I just wanted to wait until the holiday spending was over. Well, much to my delight my mother went out and got me a 2.5 mini bow aquarium from Walmart. It comes with a filter, but no heater.

I have a few questions about Bettas and how to properly care for them in this type of tank. The photo on the box shows some fish without a filter being used and the instructions also list this filter as being optional. Will I need to use it if I'm keeping a Betta? I will eventually be adding tankmates - Albino Cories or Otocinclus (if this is an ok choice because I do realize that the tank is small). If these are not good choices due to the size limitations, what other possibilities would you recommend?

I was also wondering if heaters are a must when it comes to Bettas. I have no problem at all with investing in one if it's needed, I just know some people keep their Bettas in fish bowls without heaters. Is it recommended to use one or does it matter either way?

This is the last question and I admit that it's a stupid one. Do I need to worry about cycling the tank before adding a Betta? Again, this all falls back to the 'keeping Betta's in fish bowls' way of thinking. I know a lot of people don't know the first thing about cycling their tanks before adding a fish and I can't imagine these same people cycling a fish bowl before buying a Betta.

TIA,
- Mandy

 

[Japola44]

i dont think a 2.5 gal tank would take long to cycle. I also don't suppose you can keep bettas with anything, maybe a ADF. They are pretty hardy fish i had one for a while when i was little and it didnt die until one of my plastic plants fell on it and it couldnt get out.

 

[jadefoodog]

it all depends on the betta i assume . mine hardly flares at other male bettas and barley at the mirror. so he probably wouldnt even notice some cories or shrimp . but ive heard some are super agressive and will flare at anything with bright colors

 

[Guest]

Yes, betta's do need heat and filtration. While they can survive without... if you have the room for it you should definitely provide it. Betta's thrive in temps of 75 with clean water just like any other fish. What kind of filter does it have?

if you are going ot have anything like cories then you will most definitely need the filter and heater. However i would suggest just getting a snail and a shrimp or something like that in a tank that size.

 

[jadefoodog]

in my 5 gallon i have my betta , 3 corys, an otto, and a few shrimp. the only thing i plan on adding is live plants. that tank already exceeds the 1 inch per fish rule. but doing water changes is easy since its already in the kitchen

but aside for the live plants that tank is done for

 

[Guest]

in my 5 gallon i have my betta , 3 corys, an otto, and a few shrimp. the only thing i plan on adding is live plants. that tank already exceeds the 1 inch per fish rule. but doing water changes is easy since its already in the kitchen

but aside for the live plants that tank is done for

but in a 5 gallon you have room for a heater and filtration right? If you could get a small heater for a 2.5 gallon and a good filter... maybe.. but its still such a small space there really isn't much room for the fish to swim. A 5 gallon.. although not much bigger, gives you room for filtratoin, heating, and room for the fish.

 

[Japola44]

I saw a under gravel heater that is pretty small and would work well in a 2.5 gallon tank. I can't find a link to one right now i will post it later. Its just a little U shaped wire that you suction cup to the bottom of the tank and keep under the gravel. It also has an LCD screen to read the tank temp. Let me go find it...

 

[Japola44]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=11371&N=2004+113767

Here it is...its on sale too!

 

[GouramiFanatic]

I don't know what I'm gonna do about my mother!! She means well, but I don't think she thinks things out very well! I got a call from her this afternoon saying she has something for me. I told her to bring it on over. Any guesses on what it was? Yup, Betta fish.. not just one of them either, she had two! I also mentioned to her that I was thinking of trying one in my 10 gallon. So, now I'm already the proud owner of two male Bettas (a little earlier than I had hoped)!

One of the Bettas is red and the other is blue. When they were on the counter top the blue one kept flaring at the red so I assumed that he was the most aggressive of the two. He's the single resident of the 2.5 gallon. I tried acclimating him to his new home and the foolish fish jumped right out of the bag and into the tank which was followed by the bag flipping over and emptying into the tank. So, he was only acclimated for about 5 minutes. So far though, he seems to be doing very well. He's swimming around and seems very curious about his new home and the decorations (only 2 plants, the heater, and thermometer).

I was able to acclimate the red one for the full 15 minutes. After his release he sat at the top for a few seconds and then he swam down towards the bottom. He flared at the Neon Tetras the first time he saw them, but he hasn't since. I did notice one of the Von Rio's nipped at his fin. I'll keep an eye on this to see if it continues. If it does, the Von Rio's will be moved to a different tank (probably my coworker's who already has Von Rio's).

I'll keep you guys posted on their progress. I wasn't planning on having them so soon, but I didn't have to heart to turn them away especially when my mother really did mean well.

 

[An t-iasg]

Like the others have said, bettas do require heat and filtration. A fluctuating temperature will stress the betta and lead to illness.

I use this tank as a QT/hospital tank for my bettas, so I can give you my thoughts on it. I do use a 25-watt heater in this tank. The heater is Visitherm Deluxe. The Visitherm Stealth 25-watt heater is too big for this tank. Here is a picture of the Visitherm Deluxe from DrsFosterSmith.com:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=3852&N=2004+113767

I found mine locally; this website doesn't have the 25 watt heaters.

I also run the filter on this tank. I found that without it, the water temperature would not stay constant. I could feel the colder water at the bottom of the tank. There's a slider knob on the back of the filter, and when it's adjusted all the way down, it is not too much flow for a betta.

However, I don't run any media in the filter. I could never get this tank to cycle. If you change their filter cartridges as directed, you will be throwing any good bacteria away. You also don't need to run carbon all the time. So my recommendation is to treat this as an uncycled tank and change 50% of the water every other day. Keep checking the ammonia level, and you may get it to cycle, but I had a betta in there for a month and it never cycled.

My betta, when he was in there, tried to swim into the filter since I didn't have any media in there. I covered the hole with pantyhose - just buy a new, clean pair of knee-highs and cut the toe off and stretch it over the opening.

 

[GouramiFanatic]

*** Pics ***

Thought you might like to see photos of the Bettas that I got. Don't mind the smear marks on the tank in the red betta's picture. I have a dog who insisted on pressing his nose up on the glass to check out the new fish.

 

[GouramiFanatic]

An t-iasg - I don't know if you posted this before or after my post about getting the Bettas already, but is it to late to add the filter since I now have the fish already? I did end up getting a heater so that's been taken care of.

I decided that I won't be adding anything to this tank now that the Betta's in there it really looks smaller than it is I think. I don't think Cories or the Otos would be happy in it. Maybe I'll get a snail or an ADF, but definitely no other fish.

 

[An t-iasg]

Yes, you should still add the filter. It will keep the heated water moving around. Set it on low (the little end of the triangle on the slider bar) and the betta will be fine.

This is just my experience with this filter and tank - but I just run this filter for movement without media. If I have a betta in here, I do a 50% (one gallon) water change every other day. I had a betta in here once while I waited for a bigger tank for him (with some other fish) to cycle. I could never get this tank to cycle. Small tanks are hard to cycle. You can try, though, but get some other media than the cartridge provided. I tried some filter floss, a sponge, and some Eheim filter media.

 

[Guest]

I had a 1 gallon with an undergravel filter that i managed to get cycled, however the betta didn't live very long and i suspect its becuase of the mediocre filtration and the fact that i didn't have a heater.

What kind of filter was it again? Sometimes you can use the filter cartriage and remove the carbon out of it and put something like polyfiber or filter floss in it instead of carbon. I did this with a small internal filter i had once on an old 5 gallon tank and it worked ok. Just a thought!

 

[GouramiFanatic]

Well, it turns out Mr. Red wasn't so keen of his new tankmates. I woke up this morning to see him flaring and chasing the Von Rio Tetras all around the tank. I knew that this was a possibility, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. Well, after seeing this I went out and bought another 2.5 gallon aquarium so he has his own home now and the fish in the 10 gallon seem to be much happier with him gone.

 

[RoK]

What kind of heater did you get for the 2.5s?