Amnagrla

I obviously have an opinion. I will post it later. :-)

Feel free to explain your choice!

Love,

Amanda

COBettaCouple

i'd go as low as a 2.5-3g for a female or a 5g for a male.. Our teddy bear is an exception since he's more comfortable in the smaller tank with his swim bladder disorder and the swimming limitations he has.

nmwierman1977

Smallest size tank for either sex would be 2.5 to 3 gallon. 5 gallon and up would be the best though. natalie

chickadee

I will say 3 to 4.5 gallons as that tank can be heated and filtered but that size tank cannot have ANY other living being in it with the betta. Also I read an article that I got the link from here that recommends no less than 10 gallons per betta. So different people who have studied and cared for bettas and really care about their welfare do vary in a great way as far as their advice goes. But if you have a 3 gallon tank and are willing to keep the amount of decor to a minimum and use only perhaps 1" of gravel so that you are giving the maximum amount of water then I would say 3 gallons is the absolute minimum you should go. (The only 3 gallon tank I would recommend is the Eclipse 3 gallon from Marineland as the filter is in the hood and does not take up tank space)

Just one woman's opinion
Rose

armadillo

I'd say from 5G and up at the moment, but there's no saying I won't revise that downwards when MBS (multiple betta syndrome!) has me good and I have no more room in my house whatsoever.

Amnagrla

lol

BASICALLY... here's my motives for this post.

I can't get a betta at LEAST until next summer when I get an apartment. I've heard 10 gallons is the best, 3 gallons is the minimum (purely because of the ability to be heated.) I thought that 5 gallons would be okay but I wanted to see what everyone else thought..

So thanks for the imput!

chickadee

In limited space where you do not have much counter or dresser or other space to put a tank, I would always recommend a couple of tanks as the best for space saving and yet being great for the betta. It will give you a good long time to save up the money for a tank so here they are....

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...4&N=2004+62760 (this one is the favorite as you will find it easier to take pictures and to clean and arrange decorations. It is a fairly new type and very nice.)

This one I had 3 of and used for all of the bettas I had the first 2 years of owning bettas, they are good tanks but are odd shaped and sometimes hard to get good pictures of your fish in. Otherwise, they make good homes for them. My fish did really well in them, I just replaced them to give them more room when I could. (3 12 gallon tanks and 1 25 gallon tank)

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...4&N=2004+62760

These are both space savers and give the betta 5 gallons of room to play in. They both have the Bio-wheel filtration system which is the easiest and nicest to cycle and care for in my opinion. All they need added is gravel and a heater. A 25 watt heater is plenty heavy enough to heat either of them and I would not skimp on the quality of the heater as it is one of the most important things you will ever buy. A failed heater can mean a dead fish if you cannot replace it and it causes the fish to pick up one of the cold water diseases.

My recommendation is:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...&N=2004+113767 I think most of the experienced folk around here will tell you that this is one fine heater and now it is on sale too. It is usually on sale here for a while.

Now I have given a whole lot of unsolicited advice but hope it helps anyway.

Rose

COBettaCouple

i'd recommend 2 bettas if you go with space saving tanks.. gotta use up the space you saved, right?

Amnagrla

lol. It's females that are the only ones you can put together, right?

Phloxface

You cannot put females together either. Several of us here have tried, including me, and it's never been good. No matter how large the tank, how many hiding spots or how young the females were, there was always fighting and in some cases, death.
A lot of people on other sites claim they keep females together or two females and a male but this is unnatural and dangerous. These fish do not live together in the wild and making them do so in a tank goes against instinct. Just because our type of Betta are not wild doesn't mean they don't still have the same instincts.

zeddy

i dont think any fish should be in anything smaller than 10gal

COBettaCouple

yea, mahachai bettas are ok with more than 1 in a tank, but the Splendens are like most Betta species and 1 per tank should always be it.

Amnagrla

lol I know the LEAST amount of stuff about bettas. When I finally get one, BOY will I need your help!

COBettaCouple

cool.. the standard fees are $120/hr. the mahachai are a little different from the pet store bettas but it's great having 7 of them in a tank (until we have to sell the 5 babies. )

capekate

Hi Amnagria,
The smallest tank I had for a Betta was the one that I started out with. A 2.5 gal tank for a very small female. She was fine in there and probably would still be. I have four bettas and the two males each have their own ten gal tank and the two females live in a divided 10g tank. For a female I wouldnt want to really put her now in anything smaller than a five gal. And a male, IMO is too large for a five and I wouldnt put one in nothing smaller than a ten gal.
Good luck on getting your betta!

~ kate

TheEssigs

IMO, a 2 gallon Eclipse Explorer Tank is the smallest I would go. With that said, My 3 bettas are in a 5 gallon, a 6 gallon and my 65 gallon.

I say the Explorer series, because of a few reasons...

1. They are small and attractive tanks, which will allow you to save space but not skimp on looks.
2. Ease of use and cleaning.
3. Good filtration, water movement is gentle and it has silent operation.
4. No need for a heater as the light will provide alot of heat, almost to the point you will need to watch how long the light is on....

and if you do end up with Betta MTS, then you know you can always fit one more Explorer somewhere!

LuvaBetta

I have my males in the Eclipse 5g also. I'd used a 2.5g initially, but as you'll read here, the smaller tanks are harder to keep stable. And they really, really are harder. So if you can find the space I'd go minimum 5g. I have a Eclipse 5g Hex, but the Eclipse Corner 5g Chickadee mentioned is really sweet, especially if you have a corner that might otherwise go unused.

The other thing I think a lot of people have noticed, is the betta personality seems to expand as his environment expands!

KittieKat

i honestly dont understand what ure talking about because i have three females in a tank together and two others in a tank together and they are happy... i havent had a problem with them like that... i have split them all apart and they appeared lifeless and depressed so i guess im the one exception to this "rule"

0morrokh

With Bettas there aren't really rules, just generalizations. Things won't work for most Bettas but will for a few. It is possible to keep females together if they have been raised together. However I would never recommend trying to put females together who don't know each other.

COBettaCouple

It's extremely rare that a sorority tank works with Betta and of the times that it does work, a single change of any kind that upsets the territorial balance brings a violent end to the attempt.

LuvaBetta

Well put! In a nutshell - That ought to be stickied.