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Bettafish - Finalizing the home

11K views 29 replies 27 participants last post by  Oceangirl 
#1 · (Edited)
Blue Marbled Betta - ~6 gallon starfire cube tank (30x30x30) [FINAL PRODUCT]:







____________________________________________________________

Parameters:
pH: 6.0
gH: 5.0
kH: 0.0
Temp: 28C / 82.4F

Equipment:
- Lighting: IKEA Desk light (6.5K Regular Bulb)
- Heater: EHEIM Jager 50W
- Filter: Up Aqua EX120
- Substrate: Netlea Crystal Shrimp Soil

Plants:
- Floaters: Amazon Frogbit / Water Lettuce
- Java Fern
- Bunch of Marimos
- Anubias Barteri (var. broad leaf)

Diet:
- Omega One Buffet Pellets
- Northfin Betta Bits Formula
- New Life Spectrum Betta Fish Formula
- Hikari Betta Bio-Gold Pellets
- Flightless Fruit Flies
____________________________________________________________

Hello everyone,

I've taken all the information given to me for the past few days and I think I've made all the changes to my Betta's home to make it ideal...

Give me feedback whether or not it is okay and if anything needs to be changed. Thanks.

FRONT:


SIDE 1:


SIDE 2:


DIAGONAL SHOT:


GLASS TOP WITH NETTING:



INDIAN ALMOND LEAF "HOUSE":


CHOLLA WOOD:



FLATTENED MOSS BALL BED:


CURRENT STATUS OF FISH:






___________________________________________
Changes I have made were:
(original home here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?p=3928562#post3928562)

I have removed the piece of driftwood to avoid chance of fins ripping.

I dug a pit into my substrate and put the cholla wood into it and buried it to the halfway mark. There should be no problems with him trying to swim into the cholla wood and getting stuck (some story I heard).

Cholla wood has also been pushed all the way into the back of the tank so there should be no fin tearing issues or entry ways (either burried or blocked off by moss balls). Cholla wood should pose no danger now.

Netting has been added with my own self made glass top to prevent jumping accidents and reduce evaporation. Aeration is still provided since the netting has holes in it.

Roots will be trimmed if they start touching anything that is on the bottom of the tank in the case it may cause fin ripping or stress if it gets out of hand.

Filter sponge has been replaced by a finer sponge where it is not coarse. And flow of the filter has been set to super low to the point even the floaters are not budging.

Heater has been added.

And lastly, parameters are set as constant:
pH: 6
gH: 5
kH: 0
Temp: ~28C / 82.4F

Equipment:
- IKEA Desk light
- Heater: EHEIM Jager 50W
- Filter: Up Aqua EX120
- Substrate: Netlea Crystal Shrimp Soil

Plants:
- Floaters: Amazon Frogbit / Water Lettuce
- Java Fern
- Bunch of Marimos

Diet:
- Omega One Buffet Pellets
- Northfin Betta Bits Formula
- New Life Spectrum Betta Fish Formula
- Hikari Betta Bio-Gold Pellets
- Flightless Fruit Flies

Thanks for reading.

P.S: Does a creation of a bubble nest mean hes happy? Or is that what people think lol.
 
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#4 ·
It's great! Only thing I would add is some stem plants that grow taller. Bettas love to rest in plants, near the surface.

Bubblenests do not indicate happiness or health. Bettas will bubblenest in filthy water in those tiny cups, and when they are extremely ill. It's just an instinctual breeding behavior.
 
#12 ·
Beautiful tank. I have my betta in a big bowl looks like a gigantic wine glass I got a Michaels, mine would love to have a home like the one you have. Might have to upgrade him. I think you will be surprised to see your betta sleeping on the anubias plant. Mine uses his tall plants like a hammock and sleeps on them, its really cool to watch his lazy a** sleeping in a plant like a bed. I love the floating plants. You should give him a couple shrimp friends, or a snail..
 
#13 ·
Absolutely wonderful tank set up!!!

Is your pH normally that low? If so, leave it alone :D, I don't chase any of the "H"s (pH, gH, kH).

Lori
 
#18 ·
Beautiful tank and beautiful betta! I will 2nd the concerns about the lighting though. 1) watch the temps - it could get awfully warm with that light on AND the temps could fluctuate a bit too much from on to off. And you could get some algae from it as well. I would seriously consider getting 1 or 2 nerite snails for the tank. They are small and eat algae like there's no tomorrow. And tho they can breed in freshwater, the eggs wont hatch in freshwater so you won't have an explosion of snails going on. They are truly great little workers.
 
#19 ·
Thanks for all the comments guys :) and I think my betta is pretty D: !

Anyways! Lighting is a 6.5K regular bulb. And the glass top prevents the tank water from being heated. I monitored the temperature for the whole week with the tank thermometer & digital TDS thermometer :) the tank is always at a constant ~28C/~82.4F with the EHEIM Jager 50W (it does its job well ;D).

Also, pH is normally that low because I have an active substrate that buffers and keeps it at 5.5 - 6.0 so no issues with stability and no point in changing.

And lastly, with the use of floaters - my tank is slowly becoming more balanced and is preventing the tank from being a total green screen of algae (besides... I have a nice nanomag float if I ever run into a small algea problem).
 
#23 ·
Very nice tank. I bought an all white "baby" Betta once and I suppose it would have turned out to look something
like yours. Likely wouldn't have stayed all white. Petco sells the "babies" at about 1" and considering it's no surprise
that he didn't make it past the third day. Was a couple of months back and I'm working on general tank health
before doing another.
If you get little 1/8th to 1/4 inch "hairs" on the older leaves of the plants, they would be dark and seeming to reach for the light.
Then that is telling you the Kh is too low. Don't know if Betta's need that low of Kh but if you don't get the hairs, then it's
probably not an issue anyway.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Very pretty boy, and wonderful tank!
I do suggest you give him a 'flop place' like a thick clump of plants. Bettas like flop places. They like to wriggle into plants or flop on them, and sometimes they do silly things like wedge their heads down into small spaces. Perhaps just thicken the java fern a bit?

Bubblenest can mean several things:
"I am happy!"
"I see another male and I AM SHOWING OFF MY AWESOME"
"Ooo, girl betta!"
"I wanna make baby fish."
The middle two are what you see in the bettas in cups. They're trying to be more interesting to the females around them. Bubblenests are a reasonable indicator of something going right, but they aren't definite.
 
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