Best setup for a 15 gallon beta tank?

[Kiwi_91]

Hello all, i'm new here. Been in the fish keeping hobby for about 3 years now and have successfully kept numerous species thus far, such as gourami, neon tetra and corydora. All of which are still happy and well.
I have been running 2 seperate community tanks of 15 gallons each for the past few years. I have been wanting to move on as I have a new home for my fish lined up and can now move on to something new to progress in the hobby.

My intention is to turn both tanks into betta tanks, not sorority as I feel i am not experienced enough to try this just yet, so instead I will be going for a male in each tank. Maybe a female in one if i can find one of the beautiful koi variants in a local store.

I have come here to ask for guidance on how to go about these tanks, I want to make them beautiful. 3D background, natural rock, drift wood and live plants. I have no issues with the hardscape but I am very worried about keeping the live plants as I have have struggled on / off with these over the past few years. I am worried that my bettas will not create enough waste to keep these plants thriving, as I know fish waste is important for plants. Both 15 gallons will hopefully be heavily planted. So here are a few questions:

Could I run the 15 gallon tanks with a betta, and maybe a few snails, shrimp etc without a filter and let the plants keep the water clean? Whilst putting cycled rocks, substrate and other items from cycled aquariums into the tanks for beneficial bacteria?

Could i run the 15 gallon tanks with a small filter, not producing much airflow along with the items stated in the previous question? or would a filter produce too much aeration and starved the plants, killing them off?

 

[Essjay]

You could use a sponge filter powered by an air pump. I have one of these in my betta's tank. If the tanks are near each other, one pump could run two filters.
It's simple to control the flow of these by putting a manifold with an extra tap in the air line (2 taps for one filter, 3 taps for 2 filters) and use the unused tap to bleed off some of the air.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Yes, you can use a sponge filter. You could also get/use a small internal filter with panty hose over the intake.

If you have doubts about how your plants will grow, you can always get liquid fertilizers. (Or root tabs)

Your plants will flourish with these.

 

[Kiwi_91]

okay, thank you guys. this will be handy as i'm currently running a cycled sponge filter in these tanks already. I always assumed that the air bubbles it produces would also starve the plants and kill them off. I'll look into the liquid fertilizers and root tabs, i did have a similar product that didn't seem to really work. But i'll give others a try

appreciate the input guys

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Seachem Flourish is a really good liquid fertilizer.