[rodstewart]

A snapshot of the humble betta tank at home. Rotala, moss balls, wisteria and java moss. Up and running for about two months. No CO2. 20% water change every three days. 2ml microferts weekly. 8 hrs light from Eheim 7 watt LED. Thanks for having a look!

 

[AGUILAR3]

Scape looks awesome. That's one lucky Betta.

Why the need for the constant water changes? Being that you have a single betta and it's pretty much heavily planted, once every few weeks should suffice.

 

[H2Ogal]

Beautiful ... the tank and the betta.

 

[terrapedes]

Very Nice!

 

[MPschenck]

Very nice. I have the 9G version. Yours looks WAY better than mine.

 

[AquaAurora]

Scape looks awesome. That's one lucky Betta.

Why the need for the constant water changes? Being that you have a single betta and it's pretty much heavily planted, once every few weeks should suffice.

+1 you should be able to safely cut back on water changes. Something that small and with so many plants should be cycled and safe (you can always do a water test to verify).
That said I really love how you hid the filter with the scaping/plants! And its not such a humble tank when you look at the price tag (they really should throw in a free Ehiem jagar heater with the pacakge.. if they did I'd buy it).

Anyways, tell us more about your tank!
Does your betta have a name?
Was he a lfs/Walmart rescue or bought straight from a breeder?
Was he bought when the tank was originally set up are has he been moved from a previous setup?
Whats the substrate?
Can you list all your plants?
How many marimos did that tank take?
What type of wood is that?

 

[H2Ogal]

Anyways, tell us more about your tank!
Does your betta have a name?
Was he a lfs/Walmart rescue or bought straight from a breeder?
Was he bought when the tank was originally set up are has he been moved from a previous setup?
Whats the substrate?
Can you list all your plants?
How many marimos did that tank take?
What type of wood is that?

LOL. Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[bluestems]

Looks great! I like the river of moss balls

 

[BenjaminCA]

Also have the 9 gallon, yours looks very nice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rodstewart]

Thank you so very much for the kind comments everyone :biggrin:

In the beginning I had set it up as a shrimp tank, but only two RCS survived the cycling period. There was a diatom bloom for a month. Plus an infestation of nematodes (hitchhikers from lfs moss balls). The diatom plague finally subsided. Bobby Beretta the Betta made short work of the nematodes, and has refused to eat anything but live food since. (Spoiled lfs fish). After a week of no food, he is reluctantly eating smooshed soaked pellets.

The substrate is flourite black sand (messy stuff) topped by fluval substrate (nice, not messy). The stem plants root easily within a week. There are eight marimo balls cut in half to sort of suggest a forest mat of moss Two pieces of mopani (perhaps too large for that size of tank?)

There is a hint of green hair algae, so I have cut back on the microferts (loaded with iron), reduced the light, and continued with frequent small water changes. Hopefully when things balance out in a few weeks, I can ease off to just a weekly water change, or so, as suggested roud:

 

[fish_fasinated]

I like the feel of this one, its like the forest floor under a deep canopy in thick forest. the darker greens also seem to make your betta colour pop.

 

[bluestems]

There are eight marimo balls cut in half to sort of suggest a forest mat of moss

I really like the look of the moss. Did you need to weigh them down or otherwise tack them down to keep them in place?

 

[rodstewart]

Hi bluestems,

The moss balls were cut in half, and loosely arranged on the substrate. I lift them up and poke them around when it's time to do a vacuuming. I did try using toothpicks, but that didn't work out. About once a month I remove them all from the tank, to rinse them in the w/c bucket, to get rid of some detritus. They make a nice poor man's foreground.

 

[Big Dog]

Looks great. Keep up the good work.

 

[AquaAurora]

I tried using marimo for a pico but the tank turned into a hair algae nightmare (used sunlight from window so not very controllable) and I couldn't treat the bad algae since marimo is itself an algae.. so I gave up on it after several manual removals didn't slow it down any. Gald to see you tank doesn't seem to have any algae problems

 

[dedguy]

That's a great looking tank. There's a very nice balance and movement to the way you have things placed. It's sometimes hard to do something so asymmetrical while also maintaing balance. Great work. Also clever on the moss balls. I'm quite fond of those little guys, never thought to use them that way. They look like rolling grassy hills.

 

[zoragen]

Love the tank!

 

[rodstewart]

Green hair algae was my latest battle. So far it is in check. I have decreased the light with plastic binders mounted on the back and sides of the tank (since the room gets plenty of ambient light, even with the curtains drawn). The translucent blue binder as a background looks really nice! I've stopped dosing the microferts for a few weeks because of the high iron content. (It's a new tank with typical enriched substrate, so maybe applying ferts is not necessary yet?) And have begun dosing with Excel, which I believe has been the strong arm to defeat the green threads within a matter of a few days. It's still early in the game, hopefully everything will balance in a few months. Thanks for your kind comments!

 

[redant]

Beautiful tank !!

 

[rodstewart]

An update on the 6 gallon eheim kit. Going strong on month 5. Added some java and an unknown crypt. Trimmed back on the stem plants. The betta and 3 amano shrimp are doing well.