Jeska

I had planaria in my tank once. As disgusting as I thought they were (I don't even like snails), my bettas spent entire days hunting them down, and soon the problem was gone.

I purchased an Alternanthera rosaefolia a few months ago, and so far, it's doing fantastic in my tank. I have higher light (2.8wpg) and DIY CO2 in the tank. I don't add a whole lot of iron into my tank, but have laterite mixed into the substrate, so I guess I've got that covered there. I really like the "red" plant look, and keep a few different types with no problems. Sadly, the only plant I can't seem to keep is Java Fern. Go figure.

your tank looks great! Love the betta!

What great pictures! I like how he almost just camouflages into the gravel.

Tell that to my boyfriend! He just rolls his eyes and calls me a fish geek.

That's really exciting! I bet they're going to be gorgeous!

Too bad I don't live in Calgary. I can never seem to have enough bettas.

If you find that those are too much for your tank after a while, I found 14 watt, 6500k daylight bulbs at Zellers in my 10 gallon (gives me 2.8 wpg). They do really well in my tank and I find along with the CO2, I've been able to grow almost anything I want.

The tank looks fantastic!

love happens in unlikely circumstances. Too cute.

Really neat video! Thanks for posting!

Thanks for saving me the trip!

I'm a sucker for bettas. They all seem to have different 'personalities' (fishonalities?) and remind me of little puppies. I like hunting around for different colors and types and find that they are super active in heated tanks.

Where are you all ordering the Christmas moss from? I've been looking for it forever!

Not just a form of carbon. It does have toxic properties at high enough concentrations. How much Excel are you using? Are you ODing it to kill algae? In sufficient quantities it can also inhibit/kill off bacteria. So if you have a lot of decomposing algae and reduced bacterial colonies, you may have interrupted your nitrogen cycle and would therefore see an increase in ammonia. But... it may also be a reaction between the Excel and the test kit chemicals since you are getting ammonia readings in tap water. If the tank has lots of plants, they should be using up the ammonia anyhow. Thanks Werner. No, I'm not OD'ing. Just using 1 ml for the 10 gallons once a day. I don't have any algae luckily.

Nope, tank is good as far as I can tell. I did a couple of tests...I tested just plain tap water and got 0 ppm...then I added a few drops of Flourish Excel and got 1ppm, so I'm going to go and by my usual test kit tomorrow and I'll see what it says. I know Amquel can't be used with the single reagent kits, but I've never heard anything about Flourish Excel.

I just bought a new ammonia test kit, and it is registering ammonia in my tank. It's just the Hagan one with one bottle of reagent...normally I use the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals kit with two bottles of reagent. Is it possible that the Flourish Excel that is registering the small amount of ammonia?

Another forum that I go on (mostly Americans) is very big on the stuff. They basically turn their nose up at laterite (which I still like!) and swear by Schulz. I personally have never tried it, mostly just because I have so much laterite on hand.

That looks really good! So since you used the foam, are the rocks on there permanently or could you take them off at some point if you wanted to? (I'm not much of a DIY'er )

I don't know..I have always kept my bettas with heaters. I find that they are a lot more colorful and active when they're in warmer water. I find they're too sluggish when they're in room temperature.

What a great photo! That's pretty fascinating.

It's different looking. Don't think I'd ever use it though. It just doesn't look like a happy environment for a fish to me. Maybe it's the size that's not working for me.

He looks like a sweetie!

Shucks, that's too bad duckweed is such I pest. I saw some in one of the tanks at Nature's Corner Store a while ago and thought it was cute (if you can really describe plants as cute), but didn't know what it was. I worried it would limit the light getting to my plants below though.

That's exciting! Let us know how it goes. They sound like they'd be gorgeous babies!