Do You Practice What You Preach?

[Callatya]

I've been having a bit of a think recently. Do you tell others to do one thing while you yourself do it another way? I recommend a minimum of 3L, but I keep most of my bettas in 2L. I say filtered is better, but I only filter my breeding tanks (and wilds). I say be careful using live food, but I'm heavy on the blackworms. I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one, but i'm curious about what everyone else does. ' Do you make a call when you switch from 'keeper' to 'breeder'?

[lambo]

I like Peaches :)

[Chuckie]

I thought this was a thread about the orange spot VTs! I keep all my juveniles (once jarred) in 1L, but I usually recommend 10L filtered for adult males, and in fact keep my adult males in 10L filtered. There is much more scope for error in a 10L tank, and I know I can trust myself to maintain a 1L bottle of betta whereas I wouldn't advocate it to others as I can't be sure the level of maintenance/monitoring they are willing or able to commit to.

[Canfeleq]

I keep about 2/3 of mine in 5L containers, most of the rest are kept in 2.5L except the breeders who are all in 20L filtered tanks, one older marble male who is in a 10L filtered tank and one geriatric cambodian VT who has a whole 190L to himself. For anyone new to bettas I always recommend keeping them in at least 10L filtered tanks while they learn about the fish and how to care for them properly. And I suggest a varied diet of live, frozen and dried food. I feed mine frozen brineshrimp and bloodworm, in dry food it's Hikari, Tropigro and the artificial mosquito larvae and in live foods it's mosquito larvae, bloodworms, daphnia, white worms and blackworms, all of which I culture on a small scale - although the heat lately is playing havoc with the whiteworms.

[Bettabegood]

I usually advise people to keep their bettas in as large a tank as possible, to reduce the frequency of water changes. Sue

[Puggle]

I'm guilty of not following my own advice. Some of my fish are in 9L tubs (in a mostly warm room) but most of them are in heated 1-2L jars, and they haven't been getting waterchanges nearly as often as they should. None of them are filtered. My cory tank is stocked way over the recommended level. I recently did a spawn in one of the unheated 9L tubs, two weeks before leaving on holidays. I blame Mr Puggle, he's a bad influence I know that the fish would do better with more water. I know that they really should have heaters. I know that the 20 or so fry swimming around their new tank really shouldn't have survived this long. I know all this and I feel like a hypocrite when I tell people how to look after their fish. But there is a difference between someone who knows all the rules and chooses to do differently, and somebody just starting out. I have a good idea of the minimum level of care a fish can have and the symptoms to expect if there are problems. If a new person was told that keeping a betta in a 1L unheated container with weekly waterchanges is ok, then they might think that is the standard level of care and a bit less than that won't hurt. So they might keep it in a smaller container, or maybe the room is just a little bit colder than normal, or maybe they'll miss a waterchange or two... Telling people they'll need to provide excellent conditions is much better than telling them to provide the bare minimum for survival because it gives them room for error. If you don't practice what you preach, just be careful who sees your fish. My housemate bought a couple of bettas and is trying to spawn them in an unheated 5L container, because she saw my last spawn. She hasn't done any research at all and didn't even ask for any advice until he took a huge chunk out of her fins. She doesn't take criticism well, and it's hard to explain why it's wrong for her to do it that way but perfectly fine for me.