New Betta! (tank upgrade, page 4)

[LunaMoonCustoms1212]

awesome DIY wystearia!!! 

Your Duct-tape is so pretty.

[wystearya]

awesome DIY wystearia!!! 

Your Duct-tape is so pretty.

Thank you!

LOL  It is though!  I love the color and bought two rolls when I saw it.  I have used it for many projects!

------------------------------------

And a new pic just to prove I do have the mentioned heater:

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


(You can also see my lotion bottle, lol.)

[Leave a Whisper]

How pretty

[lostpony]

Luxury setup!  Such a wonderful job you did there.  You could even toss in a couple Danios if you like. 

I have my hermit crabs in the same keeper, not full of water of course!

The live plants you have coming are very good for the environment especially in a setup without agitation, so you get some oxygen in there.

That's natural sandstone right?  not artificial material?  As you probably already know but just in case and for other viewers:  that's your #1 biofilter right there...never wash it with tap water, only treated water (or not at all is best!), as well as all the marbles etc, because those surfaces are where your nitrifying bacteria live that digest your friend's nitrogen waste.  You can really pump it up with a little piece of the grey lava rock they call "bowl rock" as it has wonderful little surface porosity and harbors a lot of the good bacteria with nowhere for detritus to build up and harbor the bad funguseseses.  It's basically freshwater "live rock".  I have a lot of big Comets (9 of them now over 6" plus a plecostamus) in only 20 gallons which is supposed to be impossible because of using a whole bunch of that grey lava rock.

[LunaMoonCustoms1212]

^ wow lostpony, you really know your stuff.

[lostpony]

Thanks!

To brag a little, I did a 5 gallon reef in the 90s when it was believed impossible to do one less than 40 gallons and ran it for a decade until I got tired of the maintenance.  I applied the ideas to freshwater with the rock I described and had a 12 gallon that developed de-nitrification deep in the rock after about three years and ran another decade without need of water changes, and had several generations of Convicts and discovered that in the absence of a female, their males can transgender to female to have babies.

Currently I just have goldfish because a few years ago when I decided to start up again the "feeder" fish I used to start the tank never died off so I just kept them.

[wystearya]

Whisper - Thanks!

-----------------------------------

lostpony - It is man-made, but I did know/suspect that not washing the décor in tap water would keep the good bacteria.  I will definitely look into either sandstone or a lava rock!  (I'll just have to sand any harsh edges to make it Betta fin safe. )

Thanks so much for all the information!   

[lostpony]

thanks!  you should be able to pick out a nice little piece that you will be satisfied with.  the lava "bowl rock" is best not sandstone and don't get the red kind cuz it's not aquarium safe.  you already know to wash new things thoroughly without any soap of course before adding.

it wouldn't hurt to add a very small air pump with an airstone, get the heavier airstone that will rest on the bottom.  (whatever you do don't add an "undergravel" filter system that traps detritus those are very dangerous and should never be used = the standard kind they try to sell you)

it's so nice to have a betta in the hands of someone so caring.  Just look how happy he looks in there!

i hope you are friends for a long long time.

[EnaRocketQueen]

What a cute fish! 

[tikibirds]

Many people will argue that anything under 5 gallons can't hold a stable nitrogen cycle, yet others claim they were able to cycle a 1 gallon tank. The bioload of a beta is pretty small (bioload being the amount of waste it produces) but if you wish to try a filter, I would suggest sponge filters. Most HOB (hang on the back of the tank) are too powerful for bettas as they dont like water movement and most are going to be too big for the kritter keeper that its in. You need an air pump but they will probably be too powerful but you can buy something - forget what its called - it lets you adjust the airflow.
IMO, its more important for them to have heated water then a filter, if they are the only fish in a tank (that being said, one will need to do more water changes without a cycled tank).

In the past, I used to divide 10 gallon tanks and put 3 bettas in each tank. At one point, I had 25 bettas. Now I only have 2, each housed in a 20 gallon tank with some tank mates.

This is Kurama. He's an old man now. I want to redo his tank. The gravel was specific to plants that my mother killed while I was working in China. I want to replace it with sand and new silk plants. These are from when I lived in Alaska.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I liked it better when it looked like this:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


This is Yato. He's pretty young and his fins have filled out since this pic. He turned out to be a crowntail.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


THis is what I usually wake up to. 
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I think his bite mark thing is a deformity from birth, not sure the scales around it would look perfect if they grew back from a wound???

[lostpony]

What do you mean by an "old man"?  What IS the healthy lifespan of Siamese Fighting Fish anyway? 

Your sandy-bottom configuration doesn't just look beautiful (which it does), but is 1000% safer because gravel traps detritus and trapped detritus causes all sorts of problems that can occur suddenly with little to no warning and surprise-kill a seemingly wonderfully healthy tank.

I've had fish that get wounds either when they are tiny fry or as bigger fish and when they are all healed up tend to look a lot like that dent in this fish but it could easily have been an early defect and end up looking exactly the same as it does now so....unless we get the fish language translator we probably will never know!

The tiniest air pump connected to a bigger airstone (or a very small sponge filter) would be a real good idea for the OP's setup. 

Wow I can't believe I don't have any pics less than months old, have to take some right away.  Meanwhile, here's my Comets almost year ago.  They are much bigger now and I've switched to a bigger filter, added an agitator pump and lots more rock to keep up with more fish waste.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Noxxbunny]

I hope this doesn't count as adverting another forum or something, but I'd highly recommend checking out the bettafish forum if you want to read even more about betta care. I don't think it's cool to link it, so just add dot com to it and you got it. They taught me everything I know about betta keeping. Great group of people with loads and loads of information. Many of them are seasoned veterans of aquarium keeping with over 20 years in the hobby and such. They've never steered me wrong in my betta care. No matter what tank size I was using, they always had great advice on the best setups for it.

You do need to be a member to see the Habitats section though. As well as the section for how to treat illnesses. Which is super handy if anything were to happen. They'll even help you to treat your betta in case of such a thing. Which is like a nice security blanket.

They made me so enthusiastic about betta keeping that I even signed up to be a California Betta Society member. I go to the yearly betta show they put on and everything. I love me some betta fish. Even if I'm taking a little break from them right now to explore other fish. I used to have 6 at a time for a few years.

Good luck with the duckweed though...I started out with the same feelings towards it, and after a year, I just HATED it. I couldn't handle how it sticks to everything. My new top plant pick is anubias nana. Small, leafy, it can float or be in the substrate. And it's almost impossible to kill. Even if you have a black thumb like me!

[tikibirds]

What do you mean by an "old man"?  What IS the healthy lifespan of Siamese Fighting Fish anyway?

Compared to other species, their lifespans are much shorter. I would say the average is about 2.5-3 or so years. Some of mine lived about 4 years and I have heard of them living up to 6 years BUT Im not sure how accurate that is or what kinds of conditions they were kept in - normally the conversation goes something like "well, my betta lives 6 years in a .5 gallon bowl with no water changes..."
There are also 2 clown plecos in his tank but I seldom see them as they are always hiding in something. They are about 6 years old now.

This filter would work well in that tank but a sponge filter would be cheaper as you just rinse it out in old tank water when you do water changes. I think these have to be replaced?
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I've never been able to keep duckweed alive 

I love white bettas but every time I had one that always changed colors to red or blue or dalmation (spotted).

[wystearya]

I love all the pics and information!  Thank you both very much.   

I did find some very interesting information about filterless tanks:
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/beginner-freshwater-aquarium/standalone-nitrogen-cycle-aka-cycling-plantless-185561/

As I had known/suspected, you don't have to have a filter to hold the nitrogen cycle.  The bacteria will grow all over the tank itself and any and all décor. 

Add some plants, do regular small-ish water changes, and your good to go.
Plants give off oxygen, so I see no need for air stones.  >> Just my personal stance on this!

I do think that once my duckweed is established I may add another plant.  Something else very easy to keep, like Java Fern, Java Moss, Hornwort, etc.  I'd rather let the plants eat up the fish waste and do regular siphoning to get the poo bits.  Obviously this also acts as a small water change at the same time as removing the poo.  Win-win.  lol!

Thanks again for all the helpful tips!  I do love seeing your fish too!   

-------------------------------

tikibirds - It will be interesting to see if Opalescent changes color with time!  I'll update if he does!

Also, I am not sure about the 'bite' mark.  All I know is if you could fill that in, he would look 100% normal.  No abnormalities at all.  His spine is very straight, you can see it in the right light.  So, I don't know.  *shrug*
Not that it matters really, I would never try to breed him, he is just my pretty pet.   
---------------------------------

Noxxbunny - Thanks for the site information.  I think I have ran across some articles/threads from that site in my recent online searches. 

[lostpony]

Keep in mind that plants also consume oxygen especially when it's dark.  Lots of things can use up the oxygen including your nitrifying bacteria colonies and it's at its heaviest demand at night when you aren't looking to see if the fish is in trouble.  Plants especially use up oxygen when any of their tissue dies (and also give off all the bad stuff they absorbed as they grew) so be sure to remove any failing plant matter promptly.

Filtration is independent of the nitrogen cycle, which is why filters that combine them, while popular, are flawed.  I like to think of the rock etc that hosts nitrifying bacteria as the "biofilter" and the thing that moves the water through a media to remove detritus as "mechanical filtration".

Of course any detritus still in the tank adds to the "bioload" and as it builds up, so increases the demand on the biofilter, which also increases the oxygen the biofilter consumes. 

Speaking of which, plants depend heavily on the end products of several cycles particularly the nitrogen cycle so...adding plants gradually over time is much better than adding a lot all at once.