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Styx

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Same betta as when I freaked out over the gill bars. Lucifer the DS Crowntail.

Anyway, I put him in a 5 gal and I have a filter in there but it creates one nasty current and it really upsets him. He actually goes to the back of the tank and flares at the filter. However, I want him to have perfect water and be in a nice tank. Any recommended filters that wouldn't upset him? Or should I just move him to another tank and buy another heater for him and be doomed to change the water all the time?

Right now, I just turn on the filter for a few hours and turn it off. Is even that too stressful?

Another question. Do betas live longer/healthier lives with heaters? Or does it not many any difference?
 
Can your turn the flow down on the filter, best to have a heater then you can keep your water temp stable which will be good for the fish.
 
I recently filtered my "larger" (2.5G-5G) Betta tanks. They all use small sponge filters sharing a 2.5W 1.5L/minute air pump.

It results in minimal current, but unfortunately there is still a fair amount of distubanceo n the waters surface due to repling (bubbles rising from the sponge filter) and that is with 1.5/L per minute divided by 5 tanks.

It does not seem to bother my Plakats, who swim over, under and around the filters. My Halfmoon and Veiltail tend to stay away from the sponge. Was considering just filtering the Plakat tanks.

Will try to add plants to reduce the ripling on the waters surface.
 
I can’t turn the flow down. I’m thinking of moving him to a new 10 gal I recently got and see if the current isn’t so strong in there. If it is, I’ll just go buy ANOTHER heater and a 2 gal for him to live in by himself.

Okay, what’s a sponge filter? I’ve heard of them, but don’t know what one is. And how much does one run ($)? Yeah, Ral, let me know if the plants help as well.
 
Locally they are $1-$4 for the small ones depending on the brand.

Sponge filters look like this (I am using the smaller ones but mine are black). You just use a air pump to blow air into the center of the sponge in the same way you would do with a corner filter.
 

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You can also use clear packing tape to cover part of the slits in the pickup tube of the power filter. It slows the current very much. I use this method as well as sponge filters.
Even with the tanks filtered, you should still change water often for healthier finnage.
 
Got it. I'll try those and see if it still bothers him a lot. If it does... then he'll just have to deal with full water changes every week in a smaller tank.
 
I noticed that if I can put some kind of wall on the surface of the tank between the sponge filter and the rest of the tank, than it would result in the remainder of the tanks surface water being calm. Am trying to figure out how to do this so my betta's can build bubbles nests if they want :D

Remember though that it will take a few weeks before bacteria builds up in the sponge (it relies on natural bacteria to remove amonia) rather than carbon or some chemical so I would do 10% water changes daily, and graudually reduce the frequenecy of the water changes once the ammonia levels are under control.
 
I built a trough type thing out of plexi glass for my 10 gal female community. It works great!! No surface movement at all.Here is couple pics of it and a brief discription on how I did it. If you don't want to go through all that, I use a Duetto 50 submersible filter by Marineland in my 5 gal. It's adjustable flow, and you can turn the output a full 360 degrees so you can put it coming out right up against the glass if you want to. Oh, with the trough, after a couple days the hooks on the suction cups started rusting, so I put them on the outside of the tank and hung it in the tank with fishing line. You just need to drill one hole in each side near each end to thread the fishing line through. It was a lot of work, but worth it in the end.
 
Thanks AlexsDaddy. Have not figured exactly how it works yet, but will give it several reads until I get it.

Ok the plants.

BUST. I got a tall plant. Tall enough so the leaves are over the surface, and the plant has wide leaves. Unlike a solid wall, the ripples form the water still go trough.... $1 wasted... well maybe I can used them somewhere else...
 
I think I will just keep short tails in the filtered tanks and keep the long tails in calm waters.

My VT lost part of the growth he had (he is recovering from finrot) and my halfmoon got Ich followed by finrot two days or so after I put in the filter (stress?).
 
I found a carbon sponge filter for four bucks at Petsmart. I'm thinking of getting that.

AlexsDaddy, wow, that's impressive! When I start my breeding attempts (need to get myself a crowntail female) I'll have to see if I can make one of those as well. You're really clever.
 
My brain must be on slow mode or something. It is only now that I figured it out.

Doesn't it work like an overhead filter? I was wondering though if I did the same thing with one of my sponge filters there would not be enough presurre to get the water up to that point... in order to get enough pressure to that that I would have to increase the intakes, which would mean less surface ripple but more current in the part where the water is sucked in in the first place?
 
Styx said:
AlexsDaddy, wow, that's impressive! When I start my breeding attempts (need to get myself a crowntail female) I'll have to see if I can make one of those as well. You're really clever.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I have always had a pretty active imagination, and am pretty good with my hands, so when I think things up, I can usually do it. If you have questions about it, just pm me and I'll be happy to help you out.

Ral, are you talking about my thing? If you are, a thought just came to me so there may be a way to adapt it to a sponge filter.
 
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