Question About A Unique Betta Tank

[juiced1300]

I've been thinkin of this for some time now, I have some OLD glass 5 gallon water jugs, the type they used to deliver to the house for those water machines, anyways it didnt take long for these companies to migrate to plastic jugs since they're much lighter and safter, but I may have forgotten to give some back over the years and I have this tall sturdy desk that easily can hold its weight. I was thinking of fishing in some plants to the bottom of this jug, and adding a new betta. The only draw back is the hole is a little bigger than a milk jugs hole and so once the fish is in its not exactly easy to get him out, but I rarely take my fish out of their tanks anyways, i usually clean and syphon the tanks with the little guys in there, and just do partial water changes, but more often (daily actually, with aged water).
Is this a bad idea? I dont plan on filling it to the rim, so i'm not going to choke off surface area needed for air or anything like that. I actually have a few of these glass 5 gallon jugs for years now and wanna use one of them for a new boy someday soon (my otherone is full of change lol)

 

[MermaidMel]

I've been thinkin of this for some time now, I have some OLD glass 5 gallon water jugs, the type they used to deliver to the house for those water machines, anyways it didnt take long for these companies to migrate to plastic jugs since they're much lighter and safter, but I may have forgotten to give some back over the years and I have this tall sturdy desk that easily can hold its weight. I was thinking of fishing in some plants to the bottom of this jug, and adding a new betta. The only draw back is the hole is a little bigger than a milk jugs hole and so once the fish is in its not exactly easy to get him out, but I rarely take my fish out of their tanks anyways, i usually clean and syphon the tanks with the little guys in there, and just do partial water changes, but more often (daily actually, with aged water).
Is this a bad idea? I dont plan on filling it to the rim, so i'm not going to choke off surface area needed for air or anything like that. I actually have a few of these glass 5 gallon jugs for years now and wanna use one of them for a new boy someday soon (my otherone is full of change lol)

can you post a pic?

 

[gurnie]

I'm going to say no, and here's why:

When drinking red wine, it is best to pop open the cork, pour out a tiny bit, and let the air get to it. This gets the tannins and all that lovely taste stuff going, making a $10 bottle of wine taste smoother, more like a $30-40 bottle of wine.

Problem is, it takes a long time, about 30 min - 2 hours for enough air to get to your wine and change the chemicals in red wine. There simply isn't enough air circulation, and there's a reason for that narrow neck (in bottles and decanters). You don't want too much circulation, or your wine will start to go bad on you (turn into vinegar). It can peak too fast, and go back to tasting like crap.

Given what a small mouth does to a bottle of wine, it has it's positive effects because it makes wine taste better. But it only works because of air circulation... but not too much circulation.

I know what kind of water bottle your talking about, and I'm just going to say no due to what I know what a narrow neck does to a bottle of wine. It's not enough air circulation for the fishy. Now if you cut off the top and increased your open air circulation, then I'd say yes. But with a narrow neck (even though you have a large water surface area inside the jug) it's not enough circulation.

So unmodified, no.

Depending how you modify it, yes.

 

[juiced1300]

yea, thats what i was afraid of. as for cutting it up, i'd rather not bother trying to cut through that thick glass, i'd rather just go with a plastic one and cut one of those.
actually i have a 30 gallon glass jug with a very wide mouth (you can put your fist into it easily) that I used to keep home made wine in. I have several of these 30 gallon jugs, some of the more expensive ones have a valve at the bottom to empty out sediment, but I dont have a free one right now as they're all full of wine
But those things are heavy, the jug alone-empty is a good 50lbs or so, its pretty thick glass. But i think that would just look awesome with a sturdy stand (which i'd make), this time of year you can usually find decent prices on these jugs since its wine season again, but they're still a good $90 US dollars with the valve built in.
Oh well...
I wonder...if I did a 30 gallon jug, but laid on its side, so that its roughly holding 12 gallons of water? that way I can keep the valve facing up and with the wide mouth on the other end theres a lot more fresh air in the jar, then i can just roll it over and use the valve to drain out water to do changes. Well either way i'd have to wait on this project. I could easily build a stand for it either upright or on its side.

Oh and as for a picture, heres a similar one.

 

[modaz]

only recently a LFS that i know of were using these to house bettas and guppies in, to cut it short they got a warning for cruelty towards the fish and a threat to have their license revoked if it continued, their excuse was that they thought it would also be an awesome idea and look great, so i suppoese the answer to this would defo be no.

its is down to the oxygen supply and even with the larger rimmed one on its side i wouldnt take the risk just because it looked good, and think of the nightmare of getting the betta out if you needed to for some reason in the future, also whats stopping the betta from jumping out with it on its side?

 

[starrynightxxi]

I know what kind of water bottle your talking about, and I'm just going to say no due to what I know what a narrow neck does to a bottle of wine. It's not enough air circulation for the fishy. Now if you cut off the top and increased your open air circulation, then I'd say yes. But with a narrow neck (even though you have a large water surface area inside the jug) it's not enough circulation.

its is down to the oxygen supply

But bettas don't rely on dissolved oxygen, they're labyrinth fish and take in atmospheric air...



However, I think it would be downright annoying trying to get your fish out of that tank. You'd have to empty the contents entirely.

 

[MermaidMel]

A 30 gallon jug?!
That would be huuuuuuuge are you sure it's not a 30 litre jug?

 

[Samphire]

I would worry about getting the fish out if it became ill or needed treatment.

 

[juiced1300]

yea i gotta say I do have concerns about trying it, oh well, maybe i'll think up a different project
as for if its liters or gallons, its definatly gallons, i buy them for storing wine that I make at home. everything starts in barrels and then they get moved into these 30 gallon glass jugs and then filtered several times out of one and into another, in the end I use 6.5 gallon glass jugs to keep my finished wine. the jug in the pic above is actually a 6.5 gallon wine jug that i use.

 

[demonmagus]

If you sliced the top off ( hard , might be impossible if tempered) then it would make a pretty cool tank

 

[modaz]

I know what kind of water bottle your talking about, and I'm just going to say no due to what I know what a narrow neck does to a bottle of wine. It's not enough air circulation for the fishy. Now if you cut off the top and increased your open air circulation, then I'd say yes. But with a narrow neck (even though you have a large water surface area inside the jug) it's not enough circulation.

its is down to the oxygen supply

But bettas don't rely on dissolved oxygen, they're labyrinth fish and take in atmospheric air...However, I think it would be downright annoying trying to get your fish out of that tank. You'd have to empty the contents entirely.

hmmmm, i feel that i have enough experience to be able to stand by what i say since i breed bettas for a living,

If you sliced the top off ( hard , might be impossible if tempered) then it would make a pretty cool tank

it would look ive gotta admit but not practical

 

[starrynightxxi]

hmmmm, i feel that i have enough experience to be able to stand by what i say since i breed bettas for a living

fair enough, but i don't understand why, if they aren't taking much oxygen from the water, it's a concern if there isn't a great deal of surface area for air to contact the water... there might not be a huge amount of air circulation, but it seems to me that there would be enough to cover the needs of such a little fish...


as a side note, i wasn't meaning to be insulting by explaining that stuff, so i hope you didn't take it that way. i didn't know that you breed bettas and a lot of people don't know about the labyrinth organ.

 

[gurnie]

I know what kind of water bottle your talking about, and I'm just going to say no due to what I know what a narrow neck does to a bottle of wine. It's not enough air circulation for the fishy. Now if you cut off the top and increased your open air circulation, then I'd say yes. But with a narrow neck (even though you have a large water surface area inside the jug) it's not enough circulation.

its is down to the oxygen supply

But bettas don't rely on dissolved oxygen, they're labyrinth fish and take in atmospheric air...

Precisely why he shouldn't use it. Atmospheric air still has to travel down the neck to get to the surface area of the water. Since there is not much air circulation traveling down the neck, there will not be enough access to atmospheric air. Reread about the red wine aeration and you;ll understand.

 

[modaz]