Oh, you will have to teach me about Bettas. A friend bought me a beautiful dragon scale crown tail betta and despite my best efforts he died. I know it sounds silly but I grew attached to him & couldn't help but cry. I swore I would never get another unless I had someone who knew about bettas to help me. While bettas are inexpensive, I just can't see buying one if I don't know how to keep it alive. Don't want to make bettas my disposable pet while learning the hard way (for the betta) how to keep them alive. Still working on my green thumbs & fish fingers (11th Dr Who)! lol
Bettas are great fish and they live at least 3 years if their needs are met. All you really need is:
1. A two to 5 gallon tank (I have all of mine in Medium sized critter keepers, they are 2 gallon tanks).
2. A tank heater, this is NEEDED if you want a betta who will live longer than a week, Bettas are tropical fish and need heated water. Heaters can be found for small tanks at Petco or Petsmart for $10 to $15.
3. Live plants, Bettas can rip their fins on plastic plants and develop an infection, live or silk are best though silk get groady awful fast and are a pain to clean, all my guys (and one girl) have live plants.
4. Water conditioner (to remove chlorine and condition the water right away)
5. Gravel or other rocks for the bottom of the tank, rinse them well before you add the fish! I used some black ones once and my hands got stained from all the dye they used to get the rocks black!!
7. Not necessary but helpful if you get a sick fish: Aquaruim salt, 1 t per gallon for fish with shreadded or stumpy fins. Epsom salts: 2 t per gallon for fish with swim bladder issues (floating on the top of the tank for periods of time).
8. Food, get pellets. Feed 5 or so pellets each day (or however many they will eat in a minute or so), don't feed more than 8 or so though.
9. Love: talk to your fish, Bettas learn their names and will come over when you talk to them, they are excellent pets and I personally get very attached to them. We just lost Ted the other day, he was a sick guy in filthy water when we bought him, he was only with us for 2 months...
Clean their tanks throughly every 10 days or so, you will need an extra container (remember Bettas can "jump" out of tanks and containers so make sure you have a cover for your tank (critter keepers come with covers) and container). Net your fish and put him in the preconditioned water in the holding container (I use a few drops in my 1/2 gallon holding container). Make sure the water is basically the same temperature as the water in their tank. Clean the tank throughly swishing the gravel around to get all the fishy goop out of it and rince throughly (do not use any soap!!), there may be slime on the tank sides, there is an awesome tank cleaning scrubby available at Petco for only about $3.00, it works great! After the tank is clean put water in and condition it then put the clean heater back in and put fishy back....DO NOT trip over the heater cord while putting the tank back were it belongs!!
If you have any questions concerns just ask, I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge.