Please help, I’m a complete newb!

[u/NiwaLeaf]

Hi everyone, I’m completely new to keeping an aquarium. I have one mystery snail named Pokey lol my mom found her old shallow murky tank by the side of the road with the garbage and she was inside. (I think she) I told my mom to bring her to me lol so now I have gone and got her a 5 gallon starter kit tank, I have crab cuisine and bug bites. I’ve been reading and watching videos but still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. What you see in the video is the new tank setup, there’s a couple live plants in there, I got some sand and did sand on one side and her old gravel from her old tank on the other. I didn’t rinse the rocks and used some of her old water in this tank. I see people do a rotating diet but I don’t know how often to feed each thing and when? Anything else I should know to help (her?) thrive?

[u/enomele]

Good job. For a 5 gal tank I would only recommend snails, shrimp or a single Betta fish as tankmates. shrimp can be difficult for beginners but Betta fish are pretty good beginners fish. They are hardier than most fish to be able to withstand a few more mistakes and their personalities are top notch.

[u/No-Engineering-1449 → u/enomele]

5 gal is a bit small for a betta, but from what I know you'd want a lot of plant's and stuff so the betta could hide etc.
Personally I would recommend shrimp, although you'd want to wait a bit for your tank to get established with bacteria, if I were you, I'd get some aquatic plants and just start there for now.

[u/NiwaLeaf → u/No-Engineering-1449]

I do have 2 different plants in there as well, and one I split up into two parts so there’s 3 plant areas at this point. I read they like drift wood as well and was thinking to add a small one.

[u/shrimpburneraccount → u/NiwaLeaf]

i would only keep a betta in a 5 gallon if heavily planted. mystery snails have a big bio load from what i’ve heard, so that paired with a betta in a 5 gallon would create a lot of waste. i always opt for bettas to be in 10 gallons as well, though 5 gal works just fine.

my betta also HATES snails and will try to kill them. some bettas are not compatible with any tank mates at all, regardless of whether they are male or female. you would need a ton of hiding spaces upon introducing them and it’s not 100% guaranteed the betta won’t attack the snail regardless. it’s like 50/50 for bettas imo, 50% are okay with tank mates, 50% aren’t. completely depends on the personality of the betta.

[u/NiwaLeaf → u/shrimpburneraccount]

Yeah I’ve decided against the betta after all the comments. For now I’m just going to focus on the snail lol maybe add some other snail breads that don’t reproduce on their own lol

[u/Few-Part-5643 → u/NiwaLeaf]

BTW you need a good thing taking the snail in. I don't get people. SMH

[u/NiwaLeaf → u/Few-Part-5643]

Thank you! I have no clue, it just is the obvious thing, spend over $100 on homeless snail lmao