What Are The Best Plants For A Betta Fish Tank?
Betta fish love resting, sleeping, and exploring among plants and their roots. I always find my Betta fry in and amongst the floating plants. Here, I will go through which beginner-friendly plants I know Bettas love interacting with and why some might not be the better choice for your Betta fish tank.
Floating And Surface Plants
- Amazon Frogbit
- Red Root Floaters
- Water Sprite
- Banana Plants
- Dwarf Aquarium Lily
- Red Tiger Lotus
- Hornwort (Coontail)
- Houseplant Option: Pothos / Devils Ivy
When having floating plants, ensure the plants don’t cover the entire surface area of your Betta tank. Your Betta tank needs open water areas to allow the Bettas to come up for air and general gas exchanges.
Bulbs like the Red Tiger Lotus should not be planted in the substrate but instead just placed on top of it; they shouldn’t be buried in your substrate.
Incorporating a house plant into your tank is a great way to add extra filtration and oxygen to your water while creating a beautiful aesthetic. Unfortunately, you need to have the space (a larger tank) to do this, as only the roots of your house plant should be in the water; you would have to mount your plant to the top of your tank and make sure the roots don’t take up too much space inside the tank.
Plants With Wide Leaves
These plants provide a botanical hammock for your Betta fish, and they love resting on these broader leaves.
- Large Anubias (Caladiifolia)
- Java Fern
- Betta Bulbs
- Hygrophila Corymbosa Compact
- Cryptocoryne (Wendtii / Green Gecko)
- Cryptocoryne Beckettii (Petchii)
- Amazon Sword
- Red Flame Sword
Smaller Plants And Tall Grass Plants
- Marimo Moss Balls
- Cryptocoryne (Parva)
- Water Sprite
- Vallisneria
- Pogostemon Stellatus “Octopus”
- Hornwort (Coontail)
- Bolbitis Difformis
- African Water Fern
These smaller, pillowy plants make great hiding spots for your Betta and provide them with a natural, stress-free environment. Some of the abovementioned plants, like the African Water Fern, must be attached to your hardscapes and not planted in the substrate.
Avoid These Plants For Your Betta Fish Tank
- Plastic plants with hard or sharp edges can cause harm to your Bettas’ fins and tails.
- Semi-aquatic plants should be carefully managed to avoid rotten pieces in your tank water.
- Fast-growing plants should be maintained regularly to avoid them growing too big and covering the water surface of your Betta tank.
- If you have a nano fish tank, avoid large plants or houseplants; your Betta still needs space to swim and explore.
Should I Get Live Plants For My Betta Fish Tank?
The pros of having live plants in your Betta tank are that they enrich the natural beauty of your tank and your Betta fish. If you have any tank mates with your Betta, it provides them with some safe hiding spots, too.
The plants and roots help filter out the bad stuff in your water and tank, but not only that, the plants suck up any additional nutrients from the water, which helps stop the overgrowth of algae; plants are our friends.
The only cons of having plants in your tank are that there is a bit of extra work involved, like providing your plants with extra fertilizer or root tabs in the substrate and pruning if you have faster-growing varieties of aquatic plants.
Another con I have to mention is that if you incorporate a plant like Hornwort, you will experience plant shedding, which will cause your tank to have rotting plant debris on the surface. So, a bit of extra cleaning is also involved with some plant choices.
Overall, I highly recommend incorporating live plants when choosing a Betta fish.
