after contemplating what to put in my 1.5gallon tank rather i wanted a shrimp tank or maybe a plant garden and snails or a plant and cherry barb or neon tetra or zebra danio i decided to go with a betta...it started out as me seeing a little cup with a big huge finned betta in it and he was so cramped and miserable looking and the others were swimming around in larger cups fanned out....so i took the guy home and he has such beautiful fins and is blue and black...he was eating the flakes the store told me to use and he spits them out after he chews a piece so does anybody know what type of food i should try?

Hello!Glad you decided to help the poor fellow out.Most bettas enjoy a nice pelleted food which is better than flakes for bettas because the way the internal organs are designed.They will have a less likely chance of becoming bloated.I feed mine on attisons betta Pro,but most stores will not sell this,so Hikari is a good brand as is the HBH betta bites.Only feed a few pellets once or twice a day depending on the activity level of the fish.More active fellows eat more than the less active ones.

Have you gotten him a heater?Or a filter?I would advise that in the near future you upgrade the guy to a larger tank,three gallons is really the absolute minimum for a betta,as you can cycle heat and filter it,and do waterchanges once a week,as opposed to the every few days you will need for the one and a half.

Would very much love to see a pic of your new boy too,he sounds so lovely!

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http://bountifulbettas.blogspot.com/

"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

i have a whisper filter i run once a week cuz he doesn't like it much lol i'm thinking on making a sponge filter but need materials. also i have no need of a heater my bedroom stays a constant 75 to 80 temp all times of the day and once i get my camera working again ill post up a pic

Congrats on your new betta! I feed mine "Top Fin Colour Enhancing Betta Bits." He loves them. I also give him freeze dried blood worms as a treat, and he gets frozen blood worms/glass worms/brine shrimp when I give them to my other fish as treats. He goes nutso over the frozen food!

As for space, I'm sure he'll be fine in what you have him in. I used to have mine in a small betta keeper, but it didn't have a filter or heater. So, into a breeder box he went and he is now in my 10g tank. It's not TONS of room for him to swim in, but he has lots of company, a plant in the breeder box, filtered and heated water. He's doing really well. In the betta keeper, he just laid at the bottom all the time. In the breeder box, he's swimming around, with his fins all fanned out. Sometimes he will puff at the other fish, but not often any more. There's floating dwarf water lettuce at the top of the tank and it surrounds his box, so he gets his own little jungle area.

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that sounds very lovely holly could you post a picture on this thread of it?

I will try to post a pic tomorrow. Something is wrong with the Photobucket site, and I can't upload my pic.

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36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

alrighty in the mean time i shall try to figure out what this yellowish tinge and slime on the wall of my 10g tank is....some sites say its excess protein and fat and i need to do a filter clean and 50% water change but i did that once and it came back

i think they put them in cups for people to feel sorry for them and buy them... You could try getting a 1" diameter tube, adding a sponge filter on it, putting a bubbler in it, then capping it with the elbow tube you usually see on a UGF. I did that one a couple 2.5 gallon tanks and they do well with 25% water changes every week or two.

hey phys could you maybe send me a pm with some detailed instructions on how to make that sponge filter?