[VivianKJean]

Before you scream at me, I'm not planning to put a fish in it.

About year ago, I rescued a betta from an art installation at my school. However, the guy that gave him to me didn't have any way for me to take him home (to where I had a 3 gallon tank set up for him), so i bought a cheap $10 .5 gallon "tank" by Aqueon just to carry him home in.

Anyway, the small tank is just collecting dust in my cabinet. The table next to my couch gets TONS of natural light. Would it be possible to start like a mini ecosystem in it (using sand, live plants, and then maybe adding some shrimp or a snail).

Thanks!

 

[MattsBettas]

That's too small and unstable for any shrimp, but you could plant it with something easy like java moss, hornwort, duckweed, etc and add in a few pest snails (MTS, ramshorn, bladder...).

I have to ask... Why didn't you just bag the fish?

 

[Aqua Aurora]

You can use it as a snail or tiny shrimp tank (the small types like cherry shrimp) if you plant it heavily to use plants as the natural filter, there are plenty of small plants that will fi in such a tank like mosses, marimo balls, anubias nana var. peite and the harder to find anubias nana var. micro (omg so cute and tiny!) even anubias nana narrow leaf is about the size of petite. Micro sword, mini micro sword, dwarf hairgrass (belem), hydro sp. japan (if you don't mind trimming) all these make nice small tank plants.
I have my neice's old .6 and .9g 'betta cubes' from when she kept bettas (she doesn't keep fish anymore thankfully). I use them as temp tanks for the betta when doing 100% water changes or medicine treatments and have to move them out of their tanks, as as the drip acclimation holding tank for all new fish or any fish being moved from one tank to another.

 

[xShainax]

Put a marimo(SP) moss ball in it.

 

[Aqua Aurora]

Put a marimo(SP) moss ball in it.

Actually marimo is a specialized form of hair algae that grows very compact and slow, its not a moss, but its often mislabeled by pet stores as such (no surprise.. some stores can't tell the different between a double tail and non double tail betta.. can't expect them to know [cesnor] about plants and algaes). As an algae, you cannot use normal algae killing treatments on marimo or it too will die (excel, bleach, peroxide, various algae-cide products).

 

[Tree]

I have a .5 gallon tank/bowl too. what I did was use it for bamboo plants and extra frog bit. I also added some rocks and decorations from my old setups in the .5 gallon to make it look more decorative. I wanna add more bamboo or maybe a fern as well. =)

http://i928.photobucket.com/albums/ad124/Treesump2/IMG_3605.jpg

 

[VivianKJean]

I have to ask... Why didn't you just bag the fish?

The Petco I went to wouldn't give me or sell me any bags and there were none available at the school. So in my frustration I just bought the $10 tank since my school was closing soon.

I had no plans of taking the fish home that day (if I did, I would have brought one of my spare cups or something) but the guy who bought the fish was told that if he didn't take the fish that day then the fish would be flushed and I couldn't let that happen.

And thanks for the advice. I think my best bet is to get some easy growing plants and a snail.

 

[Hallyx]

OK. Don't laugh or throw things.

Leeches make great pets. They're attractive under strong light (except they don't like light), have interesting behavior if you have more than one. They're easy to keep, tolerant of water quality, live a couple of years.

Not as cheap as they should be, but.....

 

[VivianKJean]

OK. Don't laugh or throw things.

Leeches make great pets. They're attractive under strong light (except they don't like light), have interesting behavior if you have more than one. They're easy to keep, tolerant of water quality, live a couple of years.

Not as cheap as they should be, but.....

I actually don't think this is a bad idea at all.

I have no idea where to even begin to find leeches. I also don't have a lot of money since Im in school and pretty much just covering my living expenses, which is why I though live plants and a snail would be a good option (I can get free plants from a local fish store near me and snails are not that expensive)