Well, I did it - decided to dip into my savings and experiment with a giant betta. I've done so much research on them that at this point the only way to find out if I could keep one in my 11 gallon is simply if I went ahead and got one (plus I promised myself that if he got too big for the tank, or didn't do well for whatever reason, I'd rehome him. Fortunately it's quite easy to do where I live). Also, I made some changes to the tank - added tons of floating plants. My pennywort seems to be doing a bit better with more diffused lighting
Anyway - meet Phoenix. He's not that huge in terms of length, only about 2.5 inches at almost 9 months old (including tail), but he's pretty massive all around, especially compared to my regular halfmoon. His head is probably twice the size of Dagon's! Super aggressive & hyperactive too. Ever since he got here he's been on a quest to murder all my prized amanos
, but fortunately there seems to be enough plant cover to keep them safe, and he's
slowly learning to ignore them. Oddly enough he doesn't have that much of an appetite for a fish his size (Dagon will eat until he looks like a balloon molly if I don't watch him XD, but Phoenix is picky and will sometimes get distracted in the middle of feeding time and swim away on some other quest, lol). He seems to be more interested in patrolling the tank and flaring at the glass walls. Flake foods are "meh", apparently, he definitely prefers frozen brine shrimp. So far he's been doing very well, aside from the exhausting hyperactivity - are all plakats like that? Holy crap... Dagon is STOIC compared to this nutcase. He does 180 turns on the spot and zips around like he's constantly high on something XD. I thought he'd calm down after his initial settling period, but it's been 1.5 months and he's pretty much the same
The tanks will probably be upgraded in the future (I'm planning on adding a nice black background to each of them, and maybe some more plants/driftwood - especially to the smaller one to fill out some of the space. The 8 gallon (~30l) tank is home to a baby female hm koi betta by the name of Carrie, and the 10 gallon (~40l) currently houses a rescued hm (butterfly?) male betta, Dagon, who is currently recovering from severe fin damage (or so I've been told by his previous owner). Both tanks have amano shrimp as well, as a (highly entertaining) clean-up crew, as well as a substantial snail population.
makes me miss my bettas.
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