Fishy pets for my cubicle!

[jessicagray]

Hi, I'm a beginner and I have some questions!

A worker of mine just bought a betta fish in a small fish bowl to keep on her desk at work. It's pretty cute, and of course now I want one, but I've been doing some research and it looks like that any fish will need atleast 2 gallons for them to live humanely, and I think 2 gallons may be too big for my desk. Is this true? Are there any possible alternatives? I checked out the store today and saw a 1 gallon tank that could fit on my desk. I also saw some snails. Could I put a betta in the 1 gallon with a snail for company? Would that be enough room? What about just having only snails in there as pets, like 2 or so? How much water do snails need? I also saw some small water frogs there, too.

Basically the question is, what can I put in a 1 gallon tank that will be happy?

[cocoa_pleco]

1G is pretty too much small for anything.

2G's arent that big. if you do get a 2G, you could add a mystery snail, and some 2g's like the waterhome 2 have a hood filter in it besides a UGF.

[sergo]

yes you can do it. is it the best thing, probably not. i have a male betta in a 1.5 gal vase with a couple of ivy stems hanging out and he's been happy for almost 2 years now in the same tank. i do frequent water changes to keep all of the bad stuff down.
btw, welcome to a.c.
there's a wealth of info here. please check it all out.

[Drumachine09]

Welcome to the A.C.!


The only think i think that will be happy in a one gallon tank is shrimp, but thats just my opinion.

[cocoa_pleco]

ditto. you cant even use a heater, so a 1g could hold 2 ghost shrimp. Youre best off with the waterhome 2. I had the 5g betta in it for about 6 months, and I never did a water change since ammonia was 0, nitrate and nitrite were extremely low.

[Drumachine09]

ditto. you cant even use a heater, so a 1g could hold 2 ghost shrimp. Youre best off with the waterhome 2. I had the 5g betta in it for about 6 months, and I never did a water change since ammonia was 0, nitrate and nitrite were extremely low.


No water changes = very high nitrates.

[riverfish81]

note on the frogs....don't put frogs in with snails. I had a frog once that a black mystery got a hold of his foot once when he was sleeping on the bottom and it didn't let go, and just slowly gnawed on it to death...it was horrifying.

[jessicagray]

Okay. I might be able to do a 2 gallon tank. What would you recommend then?

I've been doing a lot of reading here.. it's a bit overwhelming! Cycling, plants, bacteria, etc etc. I think I read that if you buy live plants, which I would like to do, eliminate the need for cycling. Is that true?

[sergo]

plants will help but with a 2 gal you probably won't be able to put a lot of plants in there. they should help to keep maintence down though as bettas are not very messy fish anyway.

[cocoa_pleco]

if you put java fern in the 2g you may be able to skip the cycle

[sergo]

if you put java fern in the 2g you may be able to skip the cyclereally?!?!?!?!?!

[cocoa_pleco]

Im pretty sure. When i had the betta in the 2g, i put java fern in and skipped the cycle. Alse, in his new 5g, i put in java moss and some unknown plant and 4 corkscrew val's and no cycle

[sergo]

i guess if you fishy cycle there's not a lot of byproducts created unlike putting a ton of ammonia in a nonfishy cycle tank so a plant or two will suck up the ammonia and nit's

[jessicagray]

I'm still reading reading reading..

Has anyone ever just had snails in an aquarium?

[cocoa_pleco]

yes, i did once. Snail only can be a bit boring.

[bettaboy691]

in a 2g tank, i still wouldnt recomend a betta, IMO they need atleast 5gallons. snails are well suited to a 2g, they are a few species of bigger snails that will look better then hundreds of little ones. shrimps may work, only a few, amano shrimps or ghost shrimps are your best bet. or african dwarf frogs could live in a 2g. only 3max. but you would need to read up about them to do with feeding careing etc. i would still think the 2g would need to be cycled. plants would help, but with shrimps, frogs and bettas, they can be quite weak at times and may not survive a new tank.to cycle a tank, the simple way would probally to put some fish foos in and let it rot, or add pure ammonia whihc can be bought from fish stores. and a test kit would be needed too just to check. well done for doing research before hand, a lot of people come and expect us to tell them everything, atleast you made an effort to find some stuff out. i credit you for that.

[Rue]

I dunno...I have the 6-pack of blue mystery snails in my 25l..and we're ALL finding them entertaining...

...but they do recommend 2 g per snail...so I'm a little overstocked...

[Jahosacat]

I have 5 bettas in 2+ gal tanks. I don't think a tank that size is worth cycling and filtering. I do 1 pwc and 1 complete change a week. I have covers on the tanks that have lights on them or desk lamps near them. I fit a small heater from WalMart in the tanks that I plug in when it's cold and I turn off the lights.