# Musho3210's Article about bettas kept in a flower pot



## musho3210

As someone who cares about fish, i would like to raise awarness of those betta kits where you have a betta and a flower.

In most of the kits the INSTRUCTION book says "You will not need to change the water or feed the betta ever. Your betta will eat the roots of the plants and the plant will filter the tank."

In the kit is a glass vase, around 1.5 gallons, a plants, a tiny bit of gravel, and some instructions. You are ment to fill up the tank with distilled water only without any trace elements or anything, so the betta is swimming in 98% pure water. Then they tell you to put the betta in the vase and place the plant over the top. The roots will be above the bettas head. 

Some of you might think, well bettas can live in confined spaces, well bettas can breath air, well bettas will eat the roots, yes the distilled water will evaporate but wont raise the concentration of the dissolved metals and stuff in the water. This is what the companies want you to think, and you are falling in there trap.

Yes bettas can live in confined spaces as long as it is filtered and taken care of like a full size aquarium. Yes bettas can breath air but they like to mix between air and gills, not just air. NO the bettas will not eat the roots. Only bettas that have been starving past sanity will nibble the roots a bit. Bettas are conivourous, in the wild they eat insects that are on top of the water. And the last part, bettas cant live in pure water, did you know that if humans breath 100% oxygen we will die?!?! Same goes with fish, if they live in 100% water they wont last long. There needs to be some sort of trace elements in the water. 

Hopefully in this post i will raise awarness. Please Mods if any of the information i have given is incorrect, just tell me and i will fix it asap or you go ahead and do it for me. If this post is in the wrong thread, you may go ahead and move it, since this is about fish care not about fish i didnt put it in the betta section, if needed you may move it there.


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## musho3210

As of course you can keep bettas in this vase as long as you change the water daily, and you feed them twice daily with a food designed for bettas. The plant will look nice but it is not a food or filter source. If you already have one of these, treat it like a normal aquarium, use dechlorinated water, tap water works fine as long as you use SOME distilled water to top of the evaporation. If you have this vase and you dont feed your betta, immediatly go and get some freeze dried brine shrimp at your lfs and feed the betta, but make sure you feed very very little as a starved betta that is fed with tons of food will destroy the stomach and cause hemorages killing the betta. Feed once every other day for around 2 weeks (feed a barely visible amount of food) after two weeks you can feed daily a very small amount, wait another two weeks then feed daily a normal amount, after another two weeks your bettas stomach should have healed and you can feed 1-2 times daily.


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