Cgy_Betta_Guy

since its a new tank it could be those diatoms too?

:welcome: I agree bettas are a good first timer fishy. They are what got me started in this 'cheap' hobby. I was kinda wrong about that but havent regretted it and have since been inflicted with that fish hobbyist disease known as MTS.

me too... alternatively you can also hit the "Today's active content" link on the forum main page at the bottom left.

Both look fine... no where near as many edges as fluorite has. The corys in my tank with the fluorite have no issues and the corys I have in my second tank seem to really enjoy the sand.

yup for sure... I kinda dont like waiting for them to finish because it took a few hours on both occasions. I have a small dish or cup of fluorite gravel with a bunch of stem plants growing out of it in my breeding tank that I can move around as I please. I usually put it on the opposite end of where my floating styrofoam cup is for the bubble nest and she hides over there pretty easily. Even if she needs to run she is way faster than the males and has enough room in the tank to put space between them. I would imagine the 5 gallon should be good too.

I have been using a 15 to allow the female to flee to the other end of the tank easily so I dont have to watch them.

From what I have read, when breeding betta its best to have no substrate so that the parents are able to pick up the eggs easily during the mating. I have bred betta twice now (last one is still in progress from last week) and both times the tank bottom has been bare. Keeping it bare also makes it easier for you to clean up any waste and foods that are not eaten by the fry and in my case makes it easier to spot the fry.

haha... I guess I shouldnt make plans with my friends betta with out asking her first. I have a feeling she would like to have him back very very soon.

Heheh... might be too much to ask for him to try and mate that soon after this last one :P Maybe I will have to make some excuses to keep him for another couple weeks. Here is a video in case anyone was interested in what the mating process for bettas is like...

Not sure its really the size of gravel that is supposed to be the problem for corys. I had read that gravel with sharp edges such as fluorite could possibly erode their barbels and cause future health problems for them especially if the substrate becomes increasingly dirty from not doing gravel vacs. I decided to give it a try and have 8 panda corys in with a fluorite substrate which has not caused them any problems at all. They are plump and healthy little suckers and constantly are snuffling through the gravel. I have not noticed any sort of erosion of their barbels.

I had also heard the same thing about it damaging their barbels but decided to try it anyways. I have fluorite in my tank and 8 cory in there with it... doesnt seem to cause any problems for them.

is it 1/3 of the screen horizontally or vertically... I noticed that some peoples' profile box show their interests which takes up a bunch of space depending on how much they have written about themselves. My resolution is 1920 x 1200 so it isnt as noticeable for me.

I think the female is just a veil tail... possibly a crown. Got her at Riverfront last week cuz I liked her color. She is a light powdery blue. All my other females I have here at home scared him because they are bigger than him. She is the only one that he flared at instead of running away from so I figured he might "dig her action". Know of anyplace I could get a half moon female for cheap with in the next week? I am supposed to give this guy back to my friend

A friend of mine decided to pick up a half moon betta and a Fluval Edge tank 2 days before leaving for vacation in mid december and gave me a call. "Can you take care of him for a few weeks? I couldnt resist him cuz he is pretty..." SIGH... fine... drop him off. When she popped by I looked into the bag and he looked decent and healthy ... but the water was cloudy with stringy white stuff floating around and I immediately asked her if she had a receipt and fish guarantee for him if needed. Well.. I started up her tank and dropped him in there by himself and 2 days later (the day my friend jumped onto the plane) I go to feed him and noticed that he is literally covered in ICH spots like a powdered donut. Never have I seen a fish so badly infected in person so I am thinking OH OH... dont die on me. Dropped in my emergency heater and cranked it to 32 degrees and added some aquarium salt and 2 weeks later voila! He looks great. Anyways... on monday one of my Endlers gave birth to 30 or so fry and I started thinking about the betta and how he was all lonely... . So I moved him into my breeding tank tuesday... and my friend was getting back on weds. Wasnt sure if she would appreciate it if he was returned all beat up from the 'courtship' process so I decided to wait and ask my friend on weds if she would have any problems pimping him out since he was here anyways. She was ok with it so I made some space around my tank divider (I had anticipated she would be fine with it ) so that my female could get to his side of the tank where he had already made up his bubble nest. Thursday I come home from work and what do I see? After about 3 hours (nice work!) Saw the female screaming around the tank trying to find a place to hide so I removed her and left pops to watch after his nest. Saturday afternoon I started seeing fry dropping out of the nest. Was kinda surprised that it happened so quickly as the last time I bred my bettas it was just a bit over 2 days before I started seeing any fry. Pretty cool. I woke up this morning to notice that I now have 2 pairs of my Bolivian Rams laying eggs on the rocks... I swear there must be something in my water...

Was just up at the NW Petsmart Beacon Hill to pick up some silicon tubing for a project of mine and just happened to see a couple of tanks stating they were free. Didnt see any signs of fin rot but couldnt really get a really good look at them since they were on the top row and were hanging out at the back of the tank mostly. Also didnt talk to anyone that works there about why they are free but its probably pretty self explanatory so I took a couple quick pics. I am guessing that they are beating each other up in such a small space as most of their fins are looking very chewed up and they havent been able to sell them. I dont know much about these guys but know enough that I dont have a tank big enough for either and figured someone on here might be able to try and save these dudes. About 8-10 mid size (4-5 inches) Jack Dempsey and 4-5 mid size Green Terror Cichlids. Jacks Terrors Hopefully someone on here has some room for them all. LMK

Good to know you found out what was happening with him... but now he doesnt get to play in the big tank?? Also, are you treating him with the bettafix in that little one gallon tank?? If you are be very careful you are dosing correctly or slightly below recommended dosage for 1 gallon. In water volume that small I think you run the risk of overdosing quite easily. I would put him back in the 10 gallon and let him stay there. Fins will grow back eventually and he will learn spots to avoid in the tank to avoid getting himself hurt.

It might simply be that the betta is adjusting to the new environment. I also notice that bettas will flare at their own reflection as they can often see themselves in the glass when the tank lights are on but the behavior usually goes away after a bit. The betta swimming into the current at the outflow or inflow and suddenly getting having his fins pushed or pulled by the current could be a cause of the fin damage. I have noticed my male betta sometimes gets a rip or two after playing in the current in my 58 gallon tank but it doesnt stop him from doing it.

Welcome to the forum and back to the hobby. I have the same planting tactic as fishclubgirl.

I had about 9 or 10 red cherry shrimp in with my Bolivians and they slowly began to disappear... I have not seen any for about a month so its a safe bet that the rams ate them. They are the only fish in the tank that would be able to munch on the shrimp. A pricey snack.

I agree with making it densely planted but 4 or 5 rams in a 10 gallon would be way too much in my opinion. One or 2 at the most. A breeding pair would be most ideal. I have 7 Bolivian rams in my 58 gallon and find that they are pretty ground territorial. A pair that started breeding took over 2/3 of my tank which stressed out the other 5 rams and displaced them to one side of the tank. It was entertaining to watch though.

I spent lots of time trying to decide what color substrate I wanted as well... I ended up googling for pictures of tanks with fluorite to get a better idea of what they look like in tank. I ended up going with Fluorite Black in that tank. You can also go check out Fluorite product pages for the different colors that it comes in. I would agree that if you only have 2 15W bulbs on that size of tank that you may need to consider upgrading the lighting somehow.

welcome to the forum!

Hi Christine, I was in the same boat as you when I first started... I had never owned an aquarium but did know that I would like to start off with a planted tank. I knew which tank I was going to buy (I wanted a brand new 31 Gallon tank) and what kind of lighting was on it (2x20W bulbs) so from there I was able to determine that the plants considered to be lower light plants would be best for my setup. After much reading and asking questions on the forum I determined a list of plants that would be tolerant of the lower light conditions. As mentioned above by the always helpful members of this forum, these are cryptocorynes, anubias, java fern, vallisneria. I also went with some other plants which are more suited for the medium to high light such as the sword(echinodorus bleherae), pennywort (Hydrocotyle verticillata), bacopa caroliniana, hygrophila polysperma, Hygrophila difformis (water wisteria). These have all grown quite well for me in the low light of my tank so my advice is to experiment (if you are comfortable doing so and have the budget) to see how a certain plant will do in your setup and dont limit yourself to just low light plants. If I had any more room in my tank I would try some other plants As far as CO2 injection is concerned, I didnt begin with any CO2 addition and the tank was fine for about a month. It is something that you can decide to add later if you want. I decided to start using Fluorish Excel as my carbon source about a month or two into having my tank because they werent growing as fast as I wanted them to and the plants did quite well. It does cost quite a bit so I then read up on DIY CO2 and when I added that to the tank I found that my stem plants didnt do as well but every other plant started to fluorish. I have since removed all the stem plants as they require lots of maintenance trimming etc. and lose the leaves lower on the stems due to lack of light or nutrients. You might have better luck with them if your lighting is better than mine. I agree with fishclubgirl... since you are converting an existing tank, take small steps and I think you will be ok. With the nice looking peices of driftwood you already have I think your tank will look awesome with the plants! Dont know if this will give you any sort of inspiration but here is a picture of my tank about 2 months ago. Good luck and look forward to seeing how your tank progresses!

Has anyone seen these for sale in Calgary? I just heard about them and like the fact that they finally have a light to indicate they are on. Thought I might drop hints to someone for a potential xmas present if they are out there and easy to find. :smokey: Strangely I cant find any info on the marineland website but here is a link for the product Marineland Stealth Pro

Good to know and thanks for the info. I have always been curious to know how long prime is active for after adding it into the water. For instance if I remove 30 percent of the water in my tank and add prime to what is left in that tank and then go work on my other tank for 15-30 mins or so before coming back and filling the first tank with water would there be any issues? I generally try to add it right after taking the water out since I will forget otherwise.