Bowl or Tank? It is important to consider a few things when you pick out your betta fish habitat. What fits your home? How much time does a betta bowl take to maintain? What could kill your betta? What could extend your betta’s lifespan? Here are a few things to look at when choosing between a betta bowl and a betta aquarium.
What fits your home? One thing to think about when picking out a betta bowl, or aquarium, is how much space you have. If you want to put your betta on your desk where you will see him every day you probably need to get something pretty small, or something that will hang on the wall near your desk. If you have a decent sized table you are willing to devote to your betta’s tank, you will want something like a five or ten gallon tank that will have enough space inside to put some interesting and entertaining things, like plants, statues and other aquatic friends for your betta. Don’t forget that if you go with an aquarium you will need a convenient power outlet for the heater, air pump, and lights.How much time do you have? Another consideration about picking out a Betta home is how much time you have. The bigger your tank, the less often you will have to do anything with it. But the bigger your tank, the longer it takes to set it up correctly, and the longer it takes to fix it when something goes wrong. The bigger the tank, the longer it takes to clean. If you don’t mind spending 15-20 minutes or more once a month, an aquarium can be a great fit for you. An aquarium will have a filter, and should be big enough to fit another fish or two like an algae eater, so it will take a pretty long time to become toxic, but even with these, you will have to refresh the water in your betta tank eventually. If you’re changing out gallons at a time, it takes a while. If you would rather have a betta environment that you don’t spend much time on, but need to refill once a week, a bowl may be a better fit. It just takes a minute or two, and if you have a smallish container, you can use a Brita filter to filter out the chlorine and heavy metals in its water.
Do you want to move your betta? It may be important for you to be able to move your betta around your home, or you may just like having a mobile betta. You may not want to buy or run a heater for your fish tank, so you may want to move it to a warm place in your house for a while. If you would like the benefits of an aquarium with the relative portability of a betta bowl, you may want to consider a one gallon aquarium. When you fill up an aquarium, you may want to remember that water weighs just over 8 pounds a gallon. So if you have a 10 gallon tank, just the water will weigh more than 80 pounds! But a one gallon tank will weigh less than 10 pounds when it is full. What’s best for your betta? Basically you want to give your betta the biggest home you can, provide the cleanest water possible, and provide the most consistent temperature for you betta. The fact of the matter is that a betta can live reasonably well in a pretty small container, as long as it has room to swim without its fins or tail touching a surface in its betta bowl. But the larger the container your betta is in, the more likely it is to swim around, make bubble nests, and generally be interesting to watch.
Which home will be cleaner? Your betta will benefit from the cleanest water you can give him or her. If you are only going to get around to your betta once a month, you owe your pet a filter and aquarium setup. If your betta sits on your desk where you will see it every day and won’t mind switching the water around, you can go for a bowl. Where you get your water can also help determine how much water you want your betta to live in. Tap water in the united states has chlorine, chlorinates and heavy metals. To avoid poisoning your betta with these harmful elements you can either buy bottled spring water (not distilled water), or you can age your tap water by letting it sit in open air for 24 hours, and then use commercial water conditioners. If you’re using tap water, a quick run through a brita filter won’t be enough to clean it out instantly, but it won’t hurt either. If you are comfortable preparing several gallons of water at a time, go for a tank. If you would rather work with smaller quantities, consider a bowl, or a very small tank.
The ideal temperature for a betta in the wild is between 77 and 86 degrees, but you don’t have a wild betta. You have a betta that was bred in an aquarium environment. Your betta does quite well at room temperature, and keeping your betta at the lower end of the temperature range can actually extend its possible lifespan, by slowing down your betta’s metabolism. However, keeping your fish at a warmer temperature will help them be more vibrant and in warmer temperatures, you will see your betta be more active. The most important thing about the water temperature is consistency. Rapid changes in water temperature will stress your betta, and could even kill him. If your home’s temperature is relatively constant, there is nothing wrong with an aquarium that will stay in one place. If your home (like mine) has warm spots and cool spots that can vary in temperature quite a bit, you may prefer a bowl that you can move to keep it a steady temperature. If you want an aquarium, but have a variable temperature in your house, you will need a heater with a thermostat that can keep your betta aquarium warm.