Nice Set-Up For Bettas?

THANK YOU ALL!

Thank you everyone for all of your help. This really helps me more than you know. I want to do it right the first time and hopefully avoid any deaths and over-spending. I will let you all know what I decide to do. I probably won't do anything for at least a couple of weeks as I will be out of town for a week and don't want to start things until I return. This also gives me plenty of time to plan it properly.Thank you all again!
XO xo :)
 
I would go for 5 gallons if I were you. I have a betta in a 2.5 gallon plastic mini-bow, and 2 baby moor goldfish in a 5 gallon mini-bow. The betta will be getting the 5 gallon when I get a 50 gallon for the goldfish up and running in the next couple of months. With the 2.5 gallon I've had trouble keeping good water quality and my betta's gotten fin rot twice now. (I have no gravel in the tank which may also contribute to the rot problem). He poops a shockingly copious amount of poop (in size and frequency) despite being fed a very modest amount--just about 2-3 tiny Hikari betta pellets twice a day. Occasionally he gets a fragment of peas or ONE freeze dried bloodworm as conditioning treats. I see that you keep goldfish, and that your tank setups are really nice, so I am sure you'll do justice to your betta.

p.s. my betta really seems to appreciate real plants. They help to maintain water quality and you don't need to worry about them stealing oxygen from your betta at night, since he is an anabantid. I don't even bother to root my plants--I just throw in any plants that my cichlid pulled out in the other tank and let the plants re-root and recuperate in the betta tank. My betta wouldn't have gotten this last bout of fin rot if I hadn't accidently changed out too much water and disrupted the delicate balance I had going on in the tank. I put in a small Azoo filter and that actually seemed to make things worse. It probably threw everything into a mini-cycle/new tank syndrome that triggered a return bout of fin rot.
 
I'll second the live plants vote. All of my bettas absolutely adore playing in the java moss and java ferns I stick in their tanks.
 
I was in WalMart yesterday and they had about two dozen small cups of bettas. I saw one betta, red with some blue-ishness, that if I had already had the set up, or dared put him in my 10G community... I would have him now. He looked at me with great curiosity, and there were bubbles at the surface of his tiny cup. I had to turn and walk away, because after reading forums like this, I know that I'm just not ready for the challenge of a betta. I guess maturity [at last, at age 55! :)] means knowing when to sigh and say no... I do have an Eclipse 6 currently inhabited by 4 tetras that a betta could have eventually if the tetras pass on or get fewer in number and can go in my slightly understocked 10... but I don't want to get a betta until I'm ready. At least now I know what to look for: an alert fish who is all but screaming "I'm healthy - we need each other!"
 
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