Gravel or not in a 1.5g tank?

[Snowbrumby]

I got my first Betta yesterday - his name is Opal - and got the only bowl I could find which I liked. It is smaller than I wanted but I didn't have a lot of choice. I put him in with some conditioned tapwater and it was all lovely and clear. This morning the water was a bit cloudy so I did a 50% water change. It's still a bit cloudy but looks better. Opal looks fine, eating his food, coming up to see me when I sit down and talk to him, etc.

My question is, I have some gravel in the bottom of the bowl but my gravel vac is too big to clean it. Should I just take the gravel out so I can keep his bowl cleaner? Some people say to have a bare bottom because it is easier to clean and food and things can't get trapped in the gravel and cause problems, etc.
I don't have a filter. Just wondered what the general consensus was on gravel in a bowl.
Also, if I take the gravel out how do I make the plant stay down? He loves his plant - once he finished flaring at it and realised it was a great place to play

I'm planning on doing 50% water changes every 2 days rather than 100% once a week. Is this okay? I was just looking at syphoning the water out and in rather than upsetting him by having to catch him and take him out for a full change.

Any suggestions are most appreciated and thank you in advance

 

[cschum00]

don't know much about the gravel but, does the bowl have a cover. Cause bettas jump. lol

 

[newfishies]

i think a thin layer of gravel is okay, but you will need to do 100% water changes to stop ammonia from building up. if you only ever do 50% changes, there will still always be ammonia left in the tank and over time that will become toxic for the betta. you could alternate 50% and 100% changes every few days, but IMO 100% changes are easier than 50% in such a small container.
i scoop my betta out with the little cup he came in, then empty the tanks and rinse out the pebbles i keep in there to get the poop/debris out of it.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

well, if you dont mind cleaning gravel, gravel is fine

 

[Kiarra]

One option is full 100% water changes (which are a good any in that size of bowl, anyway), where you rinse out the gravel thoroughly with the Betta somewhere else.

If you remove the gravel, you can buy plant weights or a suction cup that can be attached to the plant. I think Petco carries them. Petsmart should. Various other places probably do, too...I've only for sure seen them at Petco.

You don't NEED gravel, but you don't have to live without it if you want it. There are ways to deal with gravel if you have it in there and want to keep it there. It just takes more time to clean (e.g., the full water changes, where the Betta comes out and EVERYTHING gets cleaned).

 

[OohFeeshy]

Snad would be pretty easy to clean in that tank. Wash it and put some in, then when you do a water change, take the betta out, empty most of the water out, then swirl the sand around with your hand and decanter off the water. That should take most of the muck with it.

 

[Snowbrumby]

Thank you for the replies Guess I'll do the 100% water change and a couple of 50% ones during the week - not looking forward to catching him I'm a bit paranoid about that sort of thing
I can't use the cup he came in - the lfs wanted to charge me $3 for the cup - wasn't even a cup, looked like an old Vegemite jar
The sand is an interesting idea, I like the look of sand and at least I would be able to see the bits and pieces I need to syphon off during his 50% water changes. Will look into that tomorrow I think thanks Feeshy I read somewhere that pool filter sand is okay? We have a pool shop down the road but not a real aquarium place so would pool sand do and if so is there a standard one or different types?

I can't change his water too often can I? I'd rather do it too often than not enough. He seems to like it, is quite interested in the tube and comes over and watches what I do Not sure how he'll go when I try to catch him though

 

[SRC]

Personally, imo, in small tanks it is more feasable to just go bare bottom.

 

[purple_drazi]

I wouldn't add gravel, too much like work.

otoh, a plant is a good idea. if you put a nice soft silk plant in there Opal will have somewhere to rest and you won't have to worry about the debris a real one leaves. Or, if your committed to real, you could try and get some weights at your lfs. they're long strips of aquarium safe lead and they're soft enough that you can (gently!) twist them around the bottom of your plant to hold it down. but then you'll still have the roots hanging about.....

I've got no gravel and a couple of silks in the betta bowl. I do a 100% water change and it's dead easy just to pull 'em out, fish out Sparky and off we go.

 

[BettaMomma]

I have several different small tanks.
I have (3) 2.5G glass tanks, (1) 2.5G minibow, (1) 2G hex, (2) 1G AquaClear tanks. Oh, and I also have one little teeny tank (1/2 G fishbowl) for one of my sickly little girlies)

Every single one of them has gravel, at least one plant, and some sort of other thing in it - like the bigger ones have a small rock arch, the smaller ones have a small bubble bar in them. Luckily for me, at our office the temp usually runs about 76 degrees so I don't need any heaters.

They're actually very easy to clean. I just tote the whole tank off to the kitchen, then start scooping the water out with a solo cup. Then when the water gets to the level where the things in the tank are sticking out the top of the tank, I grab them out and set them on a paper towel. Most of my fish have gotten to the point where they're now (sort of) used to me catching them in a cup. (make SURE you cover the cup while they're waiting for you to dump them back in - they DO jump, and they can jump mighty high, just ask my Lucky!) I then dump out the remaining water, rinse off the gravel and the decorations, etc. with scalding hot water (then run cold water over the rocks again, because if you run scalding hot water over the rocks, they hold the heat and they'll keep heating up your water once you put back in the water and fish).... Then put the plants and other decor in, fill it up and add dechlorinator. Carefully lower the cup into the water sideways and let the fish swim out.

Viola!
At first, it will stress the fish out a bit, but once they come to realize that these water changes mean clean water, and nothing bad happens to them while you're doing them, they won't get stressed anymore.

AND... the more you do them, the faster you'll be able to do them.
I can now do 2 of my 2.5G tanks and both 1G tanks in less than half an hour.

Also, MAKE SURE OF THESE 2 THINGS:
1 ) you make sure the temp of the water you fill the tank back up with matches the temp of the tank when you took them out
2 ) PLUG YOUR DRAIN. Lucky my tail-less fish went down the drain last weekend - thank GOD I was able to rip the pipes off the wall and rescue him

Good luck, and I would have to say that after all this blubbering on and on, go ahead and have your gravel if you want. I think it just isn't the same without gravel in a tank. But that's just my personal opinion

OH... and one last thing - with a 1 G tank, you should probably be doing 100% water changes every other day. I know it seems like a lot, but I try to do 100%s every day with my 1G tanks. They're so very small the water gets mucky in a very short time.

 

[Snowbrumby]

Thank you for the reply BettaMomma I have been following Lucky's tail with great interest and can't wait to see the end result
I ended up doing a 100% water change today and Opal was really good about it which helped my confidence I put the cup in the tank and he sussed it out for a bit and after a bit of coaxing Opal swam into the cup, what a good boy!!
One thing though, when I went to do his water this afternoon he had built what I guess would be a bubblenest and a very pretty one too I've only had him for 2 days and although I have spent a lot of time with him I thought it would be ages before he built one. My daughter also got a Betta when I did - his name is Rainbow, we just couldn't bare to leave them at the Petshop - and it looked like he had started to build one too. I felt so bad wrecking them so I could change their water. Do they build nests often??

 

[BettaMomma]

Yep!
Usually if they've built one, and you do a water change, they'll start right up again as soon as you dump them back in and give them some time to themselves, if all the conditions are back to the way they were before the water change.

You must be doing something fabulously right, because lots of bettas take quite a big of time to adjust t their new surroundings - I have had several of my boys for weeks, some for months - and some of them have just never nested.

Isn't it heart breaking to dump a bubble nest down the drain?
lol

 

[FishyLoveBug]

I still would have given anything to see BettaMomma ripping pipes out of the wall LOL

 

[BettaMomma]

I was covered up to my elbows and knees in goop from the inside of the pipes.
There was water all over the floor. I started to sweat when I saw him go down the drain. there was a resounding "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" that echoed through the halls of our huge office building.

Then I wiggled and jiggled the pipes and luckily found out that the pipes weren't that old and I could just twist off the couplings but then it sort of stuck. I kept yelling "Hang on Lucky! Mama's coming!"

lol

 

[FishyLoveBug]

LOLOL oh goodness.