Both last year and the year before, I had a whiskey keg with a pond liner on the patio with a fan-tailed goldfish or two... and that satisfied my need for water and for fish, but not my need for flowers.
So this past November, when I saw a little waterlily in a remainder pot for a buck, I grabbed it. It spent the winter in the house and has done quite well.
Came the end of spring, and the arrival of sales at the local everything store (Meijer), I found another water lily for 6.99, on sale for half that. I can't resist a bargain.
So now I have two water lilies, one of which is sized for the whiskey tub, but I run a pump in the pond, and I've heard that water lilies don't like moving water. My solution was to pick up a pair of cheap pots at Walmart for $5.00 a piece, and put the lilies in these.
All very well and good, until the mosquitoes come out. Immediately, I have a problem. I've known since I picked up the teeny lily that I will have to do something to prevent mosquito larvae from maturing in these stillwater pots - otherwise I am providing perfect habitat for them. I'd been thinking about the options all winter, and wasn't sure I could put a fish in there with them, and not kill the fish.
Most of the fish that eat insect larvae - minnows, goldfish, etc. - require lots of oxygen in their water. Water that is cold holds more oxygen. Moving water picks up oxygen. Two ten-gallon dark-colored pots sitting on the concrete driveway have neither cold nor moving water. I kept running down different fish in my mind, guppies? rosies? danios? and in every instance I was pretty sure I'd be signing the fish's death warrant. Not something I'd do lightly.
And then somebody mentioned they'd picked up a betta for a pet. And the gears in my head began to turn. Bettas are native to Thailand (hence the moniker 'Siamese Fighting Fish.') They live in warm, still, shallow waters. They are surface feeders, insects being the main course. When I noticed eensy teensy mosquito larvae had hatched in the one pot, we bought a pair of bettas.
{PLEASE NOTE: one for each pot. ed:08/0206}
I still wasn't sure they'd be okay. The temperature differences in their home waters would be minimal, while the temperatures in these patio ponds fluctuate greatly from day to night. We put them in and I held my breath.
Two weeks later, they seem to be doing fine. I've even given them names. Turk is the sassy one that is always near the top of the water and lets me get some pictures of him. That's him at the head of the page. Royale is more retiring, a right royal pain when the camera is near. You can almost see him at the top of this photo. That's his dorsal fin, with the blue...
{Update, August 3, 2006 -
I keep getting the same question over and over, so I will state my reply here:
I have two water pots with one betta fish in each pot. NEVER put Bettas together in a pot or aquarium, they are fiercely territorial and WILL KILL EACH OTHER in short order. It is not advisable to even keep a male and a female together.
You can add other community fish species, and the betta will largely ignore them. But NEVER put two bettas in the same home.}
