It is generally accepted that modeling Farley–Buneman instabilities require resolving ion Landau damping to reproduce experimentally observed nonlinear features. Particle in cell (PIC) simulations have been able to reproduce most of these, but at a computational cost that severely affects its scalability. This limitation hinders the study of non–local phenomena that require three dimensions or coupling with larger-scale processes. We argue that a form of the five-moment fluid system can recreate several aspects of Farley–Buneman dynamics such as density and phase speed saturation, wave turning, and heating. A comparison between the proposed fluid and a kinetic model shows good qualitative agreement.