dumb question of the day

[Artist with a betta]

My betta likes to get down in the gravel and kick things around a bit down there I've taken a lot of gravel out of his tank and I was wondering.
Does anyone know If it would be safe to go buy a big pice of felt cut it out and use that instead of gravel, just an idea I'm not about to go try it just yet. I just want to see what you guys thought.

[ChoclateBetta]

I would just use sand. Or gravel bigger than his mouth.

[AyalaCookiejar]

I personally don't think I'd use felt... I also don't think he would eat the gravel, lol.

My bettas do that sometimes when they are searching for food at the bottom of the tank. Just make sure that he doesn't seem like he's "scratching" on the gravel as it could indicate external parasites. Some bettas dig little tunnels in the gravel for some reason. They are pretty curious so I don't think it's something to worry about unless he's doing it so aggressively that it seems he will hurt himself.

Edit: There's also nothing wrong with removing the gravel and having a bare-bottomed tank. If its a smaller tank without a filter, I personally think it would be easier to clean, lol.

[Kithy]

I did bare bottom for awhile. The only thing that made me change back to gravel was I hated looking at fish poo.

http://www.petco.com/product/118885/...landSubstrates
Something larger than he can possibly swallow would be good. These are quite large and come in many colors. I think they look pretty :3

[ChoclateBetta]

You can even grow substate plants in bare bottom.

[AyalaCookiejar]

Hmm... I have larger marbles and river rocks mixed as the substrate in one of my tanks. The others have plain white aquarium gravel. I can definitely not see the poo at the bottom as easily in the one with larger rocks... But it also makes it extremely hard for me to siphon out the bottom because the poo sinks into the rocks. Then again, I don't do 100% changes because it is cycled.

With the regular gravel, the poo usually sits at the top of the gravel, or sometimes on the decorations, so I have to look at in anyways, lol.

[ChoclateBetta]

http://ripariumsupply.com/?page_id=45 The second one is good for bare bottoms.

[Artist with a betta]

I'm not worried he's going to eat the gravel I'm worried he's going to uproot his decorations and them fall on him. I tried sand before and did not like it one bit.
And I do not want to go bare bottom. I have regular gravel and his poop goes to the bottom, so I have to take out his decorations to root around in the gravel to get all the mess out.

I just want to know if felt is betta safe.

[RoMay]

This is why I use glass gems with my betta Kaoru despite disliking how they look. She loves to burrow and root around. It is not the eating part I am concerned about it's the tearing the fins. I don't see a reason to stop this behavior really, because face it the betta is keeping itself amused. But I am certian since you have a male you'd have to keep an eye out for any torn fins. If he starts tearing fins that's really when you should worry.

IMO at least.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...ps983199e6.jpg
I know I posed this pic on this site before, but bettas will be bettas and some of them are just weird.

[ChoclateBetta]

I have heard waste and sometimes there head can get stuck in things like very large rocks.