New betta tank plan. Suggestions welcome

[andrea_]

After doing weeks of research I’m finally ready to get my betta tank. It’s been years since I’ve had a betta. Unfortunately my first betta I was young and uneducated on the fish and he didn’t live past 1 year. Doing it right this time! Here is what I’m planning on doing.

Any advice or suggestions is welcome!

One 5 gal cube tank, maybe the fluval chi or marine land curved glass 5 gal. (Have to order the marine land online if that’s what I decide to get) Adding a heater to whatever tank I get.

Black gravel and some smooth natural looking rocks

Live plants- Amazon sword, anubias. Liquid co2 - first time doing live plants and want something easy to grow and maintain

1 male betta

2-3 mystery snails

I want to make this tank as interesting and natural looking as possible… Maybe throw in a moss ball and some drift wood? Maybe a small pot on its side for the betta?

Suggestions for food for snails? I will be getting betta pellets, and I have frozen blood worms already.

I also plan on cycling in with the betta. I have a friend who has 10 Bettas and has proper set up for all of them. She says Bettas are pretty hardy fish and do fine with fish in cycling.

I’m planning on getting all of the supplies from petco. I usually go to my LFS for my community fish but they have been giving me contradicting advice and information and I believe they would do the same with the Betta’s. Petco is more cost effective for me right now.

Sorry if this post seems scatter brained. Thank you for reading!


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[icydeath]

If you are buying your betta at Petco (nothing wrong with that, my lovely boys come are from Petco) find out what day the betta shipment comes in. Whatever day it is, pick a betta two or three days later. This is long enough to weed out the weaker ones and is short enough of a time to prevent them from getting too ill from poor treatment.

Look for a one who interacts and notices you, looks healthy, and looks nice to you.

Also, snails will enjoy blanched vegetables, particularly cucumber slices. You can try to feed algae tabs, but my greedy betta eats em and gets hecka bloated for a short period of time. Keep this in mind and feed small portions of algae tabs to see if your betta will go for it.

Best of luck!

 

[andrea_]

Thank you for the advice!

I think I'm going to get one mystery and one nerite snail, I don't want to end up with millions of baby snails in my tank.




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[landon_garcia]

Great tank idea but I would definitely go with mystery snails instead of nerites. The mysteries really do a good efficient job of cleaning the tank with a low bio load. The baby snail issue is easy to take care of, just take the egg sack out if you even get one. They lay the eggs outside of the tank so they are easy to spot.

As for the betta, they are pretty hardy especially when it comes to water conditions since they breath from the surface.

Good luck!


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[andrea_]

Someone on another website told me 2-3 snails in a 5 gallon is too many and would produce too much waste, what is everyone's opinion on that?

Should I just get 1 or 2 snails?


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[SFAquariums1]

2-3 snails in a 5 gallon is absolutely fine! I have one 10 gallon tank that I used as a snail grow out tank, it probably had 3 dozen snails all growing at one point. 25 percent water change once a week and my levels where good. Ammonia 0, nitrites 0 and nitrates 4ppm. This was also run with a 20 gallon sponge filter.


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[andrea_]

Great that's all I needed to know. 2-3 sounds like a good number and I'll scoop out any eggs if they make any.

Can't wait! Thank you for the help


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[icydeath]

Nerites should be fine. They only reproduce in brackish water. They are also really nice and have a low bioload. Nerites also eat more algae than mysteries.

Just get whatever looks best to you. Oh and you need to lower the water level with mysteries.

Best of luck!