20-g -- Too Big?

[mandi]

Would a 20-gallon long (30 in. x 12 in. x 12 in.) be too big/overwhelming for a lone male betta?

I'm hesitant to use dividers to put multiple males (2 or 3) in the same tank ... but I don't know. I'm just afraid they might flip themselves over the top or something and hurt eachother. And I'm quite attached to "Spooky" (a really neat metallic-eyed male I got from Victoria Parnell about a year ago) so I don't want anything to happen to him!!

Alternatively, I do have an empty 10-gallon that he could have to himself (perhaps with an apple snail) if you think he'd be more comfortable in that.

 

[wodesorel]

There really seems to be a lot of debate on this board as to what bettas like.

I have one male in a cramped seven gallon with shrimp, and one in a 20 gallon with blach kuhli loaches and snails, and both are perfectly happy. A good friend of mine had a lone male by himself in a 10 gallon for a year and a half, and he was as happy as a pig in you know. Once he passed on from old age (she had him in one of those little quart sized "betta homes" for two years until she met me), I talked her into getting two bettas and using a divider. She only had an issue with them getting across the divider once, and lowering the water level cured it. (Sadly, her idiot siblings overfed and killed both while she was at work - she's too heartbroken to get more. )