Betta serendipity

I had such fun today. A dear friend found a 2 gallon tank in a thrift
store and decided to keep fish for the first time since her childhood.
She came to me ready to follow the instructions and put a bunch of fish in
the tank. (!)

I got over to her house and found to my delight that the thrift store
tank is a Wal-Mart branded Marineland Eclipse Explorer (Star-Fish or
something?). The stocking instructions included with the tank are
unfortunate. They say to start with 1-2 fish or 5 is OK if they are
small and then add more fish gradually over a 4-6 week period. The
manual says the most you can have depends on the size as follows...

10 fish under 1" long (White Clouds, Guppies, etc.)
5 medium fish - about 1" (Barbs, Tetras, Zebra Danios, Corydoras,
Rasboras)
3 large fish - 1-1/2" to 2" (Goldfish, Giant Danios, Paradise Fish,
Platies, Mollies, etc.)

Maybe you could maintain that many fish in two gallons, but can you
imagine three giant danios or adult mollies in a two gallon tank?!?
Three paradise fish makes an even more interesting mental picture.

So...I offered her the turquoise blue betta that I pulled out of my
community tank last month. He's been hanging out in a bowl and I
haven't been sure what to do with him anyway. I guess he came into my
hands on the way to hers. ;-) He's really easy to feed because after
living in a community he learned to eat anything that hits the surface.
I know he's healthy and won't die on her in a week or two like brand
new bettas can. She wasn't sure about a betta on the phone. When she
got here, he swam up to her and did his little betta dance, flashing his
irridescent turquoise fins. It was love at first sight. Some gravel in
blue and purple tones, cuttings from my huge microsorum fern tied to a
bit of wood, a clump of christmas moss, and a couple of tiny ceramic
turtles completed the aquascape.

My friend is thrilled with the look of the tank and has promised to
stick to just the betta for at least the next month.

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