betta bowl plants

[JessV]

I have a betta fish (betta splendens to be precise). I wanted to put live plants in his bowl. The lady at the pet store suggested peace lily (spathiphyllum), so I bought one. I wasn't very successful in separating segments off with roots, most of the stems just broke off at the surface. Now they're slowly rotting in the bowl. Or maybe the fish is chewing on them and that's why they're doing poorly, I'm not sure.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have more of the plant and can start over if there's a different technique I should have used to separate out segments for the fish bowl.

[Quark]

A peace lily? Uh-oh, those are poisonous to cats and dogs, but I'm not sure about fish.

Does your fish have any white spots on him? If he does, that's a parasite called ich, which betta fish usually do not contract unless they're under stress. Check him out first to make sure that he's not sick.

I don't know much about putting plants in with betta fish, but just make sure that whatever you put in their tank that he still has room to breathe outside the water. (Bettas get only 10% of their oxygen from the water; the other 90% is from oxygen in the air. Sorry if you knew that already, just want to make sure.)

[Anime]

This site has some plant advice for betta fish. It says that peace lilies are a good choice, along with some care suggestions for the plants in general. As for caring for peace lilies, I can't find anything to solid for having them in water, but this one says if you want them to live they're best off in soil after the first year. I'd suggest finding something a little hardier.