I've been thinking about getting a betta, and today I saw several beautiful crowntail bettas, and now want one! I was wondering requirements for them; I've read through some parts of this fourm about feeding them and found a good size of betta tank is a five gal. I assume bettas require similar care like that of goldies, but are there any special needs I should consider if I get one? I really wanted to get one today but am not prepared.

I'm bad and keep my bettas in bowls..but..

They arent as messy as bettas. You can get them little micro pellets, and they enjoy bloodworm and brine shrimp, but they have tiny tummys so dont overfeed. Never keep males together, only keep females together in groups of five or more.

They really arent hard to take care of. You can heat the tank, but they do fine without it. Mine however, take water changes hard. I dont know if its true for all bettas, but its good to make sure the water matches exactly.

Bettas are like goldies in another way too..once you get one, your hooked and will end up with a billion.

Hello, glad to hear you're getting a betta, they'll multiply in a few months.
We call it the betta bug.
But anyway, if you're getting a 5 gallon right away you might as well get a filter as well, it'll keep the water changes more subtile and less stressful on the fish. Might I recomend the Penguin Bio-wheel Mini filter, this will agitate the surface a bit which he might not like as they breath air from the surface but you can lessen the flow in various ways. Just ask anyone here. To feed him, Hikari betta bio-gold pellets are very good, but spice his diet up with a few frozen/freeze dried/live blood worms he'll like that. Good luck and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask. We're always happy to help.

I saw little filters at the store and was thinking of getting one of those and a 5 gal. I also thought about, once I have experiance with bettas, dividing it and getting two. I heard you can do this but will the bettas stress each other out by flaring at one another?

Thanks for the replies. If I chose to get just one, could I put it in a two-three gal tank?

"Bettas are like goldies in another way too..once you get one, your hooked and will end up with a billion."

"We call it the betta bug."

I'm a little worried about that! My mom already thinks I have too many fish...oh well, I'll just have to talk to her about it, and she'll probably say yes. Now I'm plotting... if I can get my dad to take me to pet stores, I could buy the setup and then when I'm with my mom, tell her I already have a tank set up... but then again, I think she'd get mad about me working behind her back. Oh, well, I'll just talk to her about it and hope she says yes; she probably will.

Bettas are quite easy fish to keep. You'll enjoy them.

I'm sure I will.

I've heard someone say filters scare them, and I assume that just depends on the betta. If I got a 2.5 or so could I do a 100% weekly water change, or is that too little and a filter would be better?

I think they generally take the water changes harder than the filter action... just keep the water level pretty high and it'll be alright.

At least that's what I found to be good with Fishfish.

Okay, thanks for all the advice everyone.