balikiss

Sorry to hijack this post..but will a male betta that is rather young just not blow a bubble nest?? I have a beautiful male that i got from blackmumba, who doesn't seem inclined to blow a nest..he's in a cycled 10 gal with a sponge filter and heater. he's happy enough and likes to wiggle at the glass, and flare at his lady friend in in a jar next to his tank...but never seen him try to blow any bubbles..

As i'v said before..Not around here they arn't. In peace river you pretty much pay a dollar for a feeder fish, i'd have to drive two hours to grande prairie to get cheap feeder fish.

lol but most of the bottles say brewed in cananda...

Havn't tried the grow formula, but i crush up my NLS between two spoons. This batch of fry raised on NLS is about 4 times bigger than the first batch raised on other name brand products..

well the remaining 10 are doing good. swimming happily about their bigger container. I can't use any fish that won't be surviving the winter, so goldfish are my best and cheapest bet for right now. so far the goldie arn't that big. the largest of them being maybe 3 inches. i know that in the future they will be getting too big to be interested in misquito larvae, but i'm hoping that they will beed and thus produce small enough fish to eat up all those irritating buggers!

Here is the container and fishies.

I would have gotten a bunch, but feeders here arn't very cheap..I paid 13bucks for the 12 that i got..so spending hundreds on them is out of the question. Nows a good as time as any to update a bit. I took the 11 out of their 15 gal and put them into a largish heavy duty plastic container on the deck two days ago. It's in the sun for most of the day and i put the HOB filter out there too. Went out this morning and the filter was just dribbling water, and it turns out one of the smaller ones was stuck in the intake not sure if he died cause of the cold, or got sucked in alive. But now we'r down to 10. I'm keeping them on the deck for a couple weeks to give them time to adjust to being in much colder water. And for those of you wondering why I don't just throw them in there..It's cause my bf is kinda leery about the whole thing..So any degradation in the quality of water is going to be directly blamed on my 10 fish. So i'm bein extra careful that they stay alive and I'm allowed to put more in there later on.

I can't wait till I get my betta's from blackmumba too!!! He's a gorgeous betta, gona have to get him a gf.

Happy to report that after a week she is swimming around heartily! She loves to wiggle at the glass whenever someone walks by and even flares out a little. Her colour is waaay nicer than when she was in the pet store. She's now a nice pale creamy colour on her body with red fins and a greenish sheen in the light. Shes even trained herself to suck glass worms out of an eye dropper lol. The epsomsalts definatly made her feel better. Thnx for everyones advice!

Definatly use some bleach and one of those nail brush scrubbers

I did clean all the media in the HOB filter, but luckly my tap what isn't chlorinated because it comes straight from our dugout. and i also have two other large sponge filters in the tank, but it's bare bottom. I looked into the back of it today and theres already some algae growing again. Good to know that you're suposed to clean those out every month. All the fish seem happy and healthy though, so i must be gettin enough filtration in there.

So I was going about my water change in my goldfish tank, and i thought to myself...i wonder what the inside of my HOB filter looks like since it's been up and running for a couple months..so i popped the lid open and OMG....theres a plains of alberta sized sea of algae....litterally waving about at an inch long..along with a bunch of whole nls pellets growing white fuzz..i took it to the sink and used the spray handle to blast it all out. Well now i know that i'v either been over feeding, or putting my feeding too close to the intake. But i was wondering. How often are you suposed to clean them out like that?? Is all that scuzz part of the bio-filtration, or is it just gunk? Any one else had this happen??

lol as it turns out...i have ALOT of them lol. if you want i could ship you some for the cost of shipping, or trade for a bit of some plants you have :thumbs: hmm, now I would try that if I knew where to get some. Maybe a small box with some kinda thing inside to provide the organisms with a main 'hive' in the filter...

I'v read about someone who had a culture of scuds (aka, river shrimp) living in their canister filter. I'm not sure if they 'trickled out' but i can't imagen they'd be hard to collect..they will also culture themselves in substrate and under plant roots. So if you dump a bunch into your tank, they will hide as best they can, but theres no way they'll all be so crafty. Although some bottom dwellers/nocturnal species will probly wipe them out pretty quick.

I have two of the small domed, tetra whisper pumps in my living room and you'd never even know it was there. the bubbles from my sponge filter make more noise. and my bf and roommate don't complain at all..

It's basically a sponge with a tube in the middle of it. and you put an airhose down the middle of the tube and hook it up to an air pump. the rising bubbles cause water(and waste) to be drawn through the sponge where the bacteria live. i have one in all my tanks, but i also like to use a small elite mini to keep circulation going, and to pick up the solid wastes.

In that sense, I might have to agree with you. Wouldn't suggest giving them out during/after the reception(unless you know they can take care of it), but maybe at some later date to people who want them.

I don't think it's tacky at all. Betta's are beautiful fish, and is a great way for someone to show their love of fish at their wedding. How about putting some sort of top on the vases?? Like a fine mesh that you can push flower stems into (without them going into the water). This would discourage people putting stuff in the water, or trying to eat the fish etc...It would make a really neat centerpiece to combine the traditional flowers with some colourful fish. And how many tables are you really going to have?? A dozen? Two? It might not even matter that much if you just bring the bettas home again and give them to family after the wedding.

Well I am happy to report that my pond is teeming with fish food, including glass worms, river shrimp and daphnia. Might have to upgrade to some hipwaders..

thnx for the advidce. i figured that she must be pretty stressed with all the moving around. but i will up the heat a little and add some epsom salt and see how she does. i did also put in part of a tank buddy parasite clear tab when i first put her in the tank.

hm. sounds easy enough. well i better go get my gumboots on..

Hey yall. Well I was in peace river on Saturday and had to go to to the LPS and since they had just gotten a shipment of fish i decided to get one of the only female bettas they had in stock. She wasn't swimming around very heartily when i saw her in the tank, but i kinda figured it was due to the elephant mouse in there with her...I got her home okay, and she went into my new 5 gal. I used water from my two established tanks, and put a small elite mini from my 10 gal in there with her (along with a big of java fern). She swam freely around for a little while, but then sank to the bottom and stays there for hours at a time..occasionally coming up to the surface. She readily eats NLS pellets, but not very enthusiastically. I checked m y water and the nitrites were showing a little on my test strips, so i put her in the breeding net in my 10 gal. She was swimmin for awhile, but now just sticks to the top corner not moving at all...are betta's usually this listless??

thats quite the impressive bunch of critters your bagged. I have a pond that the ice just broke on and i was wondering what type of collection methods you used, and how did you sort them all out??

It is a good thought, don't really like eating fish though. Rather spend time looking at them. Update my goldfish status while i'm at it...I bought 12 feeder fish, and 11 made it. Used salt, melafix and parasite clear on them and there doin great! At first they were all kind shy and swimming all over the tank, but now a few weeks later they swim as a school and come to the front of the tank and beg for food everytime i sit down to watch them. They absolutly go crazy over NLS and are lookin happy and healthy. Doing daily, or every other day water changes/gravel vacuming. One apple snail also doing great at keeping the glass clean. Just noticed today (after a LFS trip) that they seem much bigger than the ones in the store. Our pond is completly full from spring run off and figure in a couple months the water will be warm enough to put them into their new home.

hey, i got one of those a few weeks ago and they are really quiet..my bf and roommate never even blinked an eye when i started using it..but they can't stand the sound my HOB filter makes splashing water.