male and female betta in 5g?

Save your money on the ammonia and nitrite testing. Once a tank is cycled and established you should have little reason to check such things except periodically and in the case of you seeing a possible problem.


Now as far as your question goes, I would advise against a male and female betta in the same tank unless it's larger in size...maybe a 30 gallon minimum if at all.

Reason is that both are semi-aggressive fish and are fully aggressive to their own species. Now while it's well known that males will not get on together, opposite sexes have been reported to get into some scraps, especially males toward females. In fact, after spawning it is always advised that you remove the female immediately.

So in short: NO. I would love to. I have so many bettas without tanks of their own. But I won't risk it. I hope you won't either.

yeah male betta's dont do well with other big or colorful fishes in there aquarium unless its a bigger tank. If you want to add another fish to the tank you might want to try wat i accedentaly did, when i got my feeder goldfish for my outdoor pond they accidentaly gave me a feeder guppy to, but since i couldnt keep it in the pond because of the temp i decided to give it a chance and throw it in my 5gallon betta tank, well because he was all silver and small the betta didnt really care, after about 2 months that guppy slowly got all its color in and is a mix of red, yellow, silver, black and turquoise. And because his color slowly changed the betta didnt care in the long run, if you are going to get one though make sure he has no disease and is healthy.

you could always stick a bigger snail in there too...

A snail would do great...sometimes bettas pick on them, but i think that is kinda rare IME. Some bettas are just very aggressive. You might try some ghost shrimp too and even if the betta eats them, they are only like $.18 apeice.