Watch This Before Getting a Betta Fish | Essential Betta Care Tips

Welcome back to the channel everyone, today we're going to be talking about everything you should know before you get a better. I'm here with Harlan today, Harlan's filming this video and I think what we're going to do is you're going to pretend that you're a customer coming into the store and we're going to walk you through everything that I know about keeping bettas and try and help you out that way, if that makes sense. We're going to treat it as if you guys have never kept a better before, we're going to talk about the setup for your better and your tank mates and everything you should know about feeding and just care for them. Bettas are a very easy fish to care for, a great start for you in the hobby and can be a little great desktop wet pet. Let's start off I guess with like the tank size and the setup. The first thing with bettas, you're used to seeing bettas in store, you're probably thinking of seeing them like in little cups or in smaller containers and we think that that's how bettas should be kept and that's definitely not how bettas should be kept. They're a very personable little micro predator fish and you're never going to get the most out of a fish when you keep it like that. You really want to just simulate nature and set up the tank so that it's exactly like how the fish would have naturally been in nature. I know bettas have been lime bred for generations and generations inside of wine bottles and produced to look like they do today which is absolutely stunning but that's not how we should keep our fish and behind me is probably a perfect example of the minimum for a tank setup for a betta. So in here this betta is one of the ones that we just brought in and we'll feed him some bug buffane and you can see how nice and happy and healthy this tank is going to be. They do like it a lot but this is a perfect example of kind of how to set up a tank. So when you go to your store this tank here I think is 40 litres and this is a 10 gallon tank and this is the minimum size I'd recommend for a betta. In here you can see we've got some plants, we've got some floating plants and we've got some dither fish. These are emerald raspboras and this is like exactly how I want you guys to set up your tanks. So when you go to store obviously just basic tank setup, watch any video on how to set up an aquarium and it's going to point you in the right direction. I would recommend to get a sponge filter and I'd also recommend probably to have a lid on your tank. These guys are notorious jumpers so there's no lid on here. I've got a bit of a weird belief that sometimes having floating plants on the top of your tanks lets the fish know where the surface of the water is so I'm not too worried about these fish jumping out. And definitely having a lid and minimum tank size of 10 gallons. You will need a heater depending on where you are in the world so if you live in a tropical area you probably won't need a heater because the tank needs to be kept at minimum 24 degrees celsius all year. I keep the tanks here 24 to 28 degrees celsius and all of my fighters do amazing but we keep the room heated so we don't have a heater in here. So let's just run through the checklist. So you've got an aquarium, you've got your heater, you've got a filter. That's all you'll need for the basics and then the next step is decorations. So maybe some gravel, maybe some plants. Well I definitely recommend some kind of live plants. You'll also need a light and a water conditioner as well. That's what you're going to need to start off with and I would recommend if this is your first ever aquarium setting up the tank and leaving it for a week before getting the fighter and the next week after that I'd then think about maybe starting with the fighter. If you go to the shop, Sam, he desperately wants to leave so come on we'll leave soon. I've got to teach everyone how to keep their fighters hey. I'd also recommend going to a local fish store so don't go to like a pet barn or anything like that. Go support your local mom and pop store. When you're there ask them to squeeze out a sponge filter or some kind of biological filtration to help kickstart that tank. Get the tank started, come back the next weekend and choose out your fighter. Now we're going to talk about selecting a fighting fish. So you might see like for instance at some places you might see a tank like this and you might get the misconception that you can keep fighting fish together. Fighting fish really only do well as solos. I bred all of these fighters myself and they've grown up together for their whole entire lives and they're all females I think. So they're more likely to actually get along with each other and not completely harass each other. But if you just take a mix of fighters from your shop it's just going to be a bit of a mess for you. You're going to be able to pick out one fighter. You can choose a male or a female, doesn't matter. And also the type of fighter you get depends on your price point. There's all sorts of different rare strains. I want to see something that's firstly nice and fat and healthy looking. Something without ripped fins, no fungacy looking stuff on it, no like cottony looking. And you want something that's kind of interactive because this is going to be a bit of a wet pet for you. So for instance I saw, I mean all of these fighters are amazing. But this is a great example down here. This little guy would be an example of a fighter that I would definitely consider picking. You can see he's swimming around the bottom, he's hunting for food and he's just looking like he means business. I would recommend selecting a fighter like this. Yeah looking for a nice happy healthy fighter. Nothing sick, nothing on the floor. When you select fish you need your fish to be, hey no more crying. When you select your fish you need them to be good from day one. It's really hard to take a sick fish and fix it. Start off on the right foot, get a nice happy healthy fighter. And now we're going to talk about caring for the fighter. Better is always going to be happier in a tank with plants and a tank with decorations and stimuli in there. So I'd recommend after you add your fighting fish give it some more time just let that tank settle in and mature and all that. And then I'd recommend maybe adding some dither fish and some tank mates. We'll do a separate video of that on tank mates you can add with your fighting fish. Tank mates definitely help the fighter to feel a little bit more at home and at peace so I'd recommend that. But as for feeding, I always recommend all of my customers to feed Bug Buffet. This is my fish food, this is a fish food we make. Amazing ingredients, breaks up in the water real well, the fish love it. You can see everyone gets a bit so he's had some, these little rasboras have had some and now the pleco's come out to finish off the rest. I'd recommend Bug Buffet but I also would recommend a supplement with some frozen foods. These guys are micro predators and they do want to eat high protein diet. With my fighters at home I feed them frozen food probably three times a week and the foods that I would recommend are frozen brine shrimp, frozen daphnia. Yeah we feed them that every couple of days here and it helps keep them nice and fat. Starting off slow I just realised that an aquarium is not something you can just go and go to the shops and get everything and have it looking beautiful the first day you get it. It's one of those things that's just like a little mini water garden, it's going to take a long time for an aquarium to look amazing and you don't want to rush it because that's when we start losing fish. Put a little bit of effort into learning the nitrogen cycle, learning about bettas and going to the store and when you're buying a tank have a look around, have a look at all the different bettas and see which ones are doing well and then you might be lucky they might still be there next week and you'll know that they're healthy. Also every now and then you might find like a local person breeding bettas. I definitely recommend going local so yeah cool. Alright thanks for watching the video, I hope you guys have success with your fighters and I hope this video helped you guys out, so see ya!