Beautiful girls & lovely vid! 
Betta Sorority Tank - 15 Us Gallons
- Thread starter eaglesaquarium
- Start date
Blondielovesfish
Kia Ora
Looking great! Glad the females finally arrived! I'm sure they love your tank!
EDIT: I'm interested to see how your vallis will go with the liquid carbo.
EDIT: I'm interested to see how your vallis will go with the liquid carbo.
OP
OP
Update:
While visiting a new pet supply store, I found the perfect things to add my son's flare to the tank. An ever so gentler escape and voila.
Doubtlessly, some of you will recognize the faces of (in order of appearance): Splinter, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo.
I just couldn't resist, and when I brought them home, he was extremely happy with them. I had to do a bit of gravel vaccine to remove old bits of hornwort leaves. So, I removed some decor, sucked up all the bits I could, and then called him to place the new figures. He put them in one place, and then didn't like it. Then put them in a new place, where they now stand. (He's now an aquascaper!)
While visiting a new pet supply store, I found the perfect things to add my son's flare to the tank. An ever so gentler escape and voila.
Doubtlessly, some of you will recognize the faces of (in order of appearance): Splinter, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo.
I just couldn't resist, and when I brought them home, he was extremely happy with them. I had to do a bit of gravel vaccine to remove old bits of hornwort leaves. So, I removed some decor, sucked up all the bits I could, and then called him to place the new figures. He put them in one place, and then didn't like it. Then put them in a new place, where they now stand. (He's now an aquascaper!)
Nice
Gotta put your mark on a tank and COWABUNGA! its now perfect for your boy!
Gotta put your mark on a tank and COWABUNGA! its now perfect for your boy!
OP
OP
No update since the Ninja Turtle additions.... but something worth mentioning.
Vallisneria and the addition of liquid carbon (glutaraldehyde, aka Flourish Excel - although I am using API CO2 Booster).
So, many folks will tell you that you CANNOT use liquid carbon with vallisneria, because it will melt it.
Well, I have evidence to the contrary. I had heard that you could acclimate the vals to the addition, so I decided to do a little test.
Procedure was quite simple.
Week 1 - add daily additions at 1/3 strength as recommended for the tank.
Week 2 - add daily additions at 2/3 strength as recommended for the tank.
Week 3 - add daily additions at full strength as recommended for the tank.
And the acclimation process is complete.
Here's what the jungle vals look like right now:
This is the 'worst' of the bunch. You can see the 'melted' ones.
Looking closely you can see some leaves melted. But, at the same time, you can see several new leaves shooting up.
Another one...
Compare to the picture above a few posts of Donatello to see the difference three weeks has made.
These are in the back of the tank, and you can see how well they are doing.
They haven't melted all the way back, as evidenced by the size of the leaves... some are quite tall still.
Vallisneria and the addition of liquid carbon (glutaraldehyde, aka Flourish Excel - although I am using API CO2 Booster).
So, many folks will tell you that you CANNOT use liquid carbon with vallisneria, because it will melt it.
Well, I have evidence to the contrary. I had heard that you could acclimate the vals to the addition, so I decided to do a little test.
Procedure was quite simple.
Week 1 - add daily additions at 1/3 strength as recommended for the tank.
Week 2 - add daily additions at 2/3 strength as recommended for the tank.
Week 3 - add daily additions at full strength as recommended for the tank.
And the acclimation process is complete.
Here's what the jungle vals look like right now:
This is the 'worst' of the bunch. You can see the 'melted' ones.
Looking closely you can see some leaves melted. But, at the same time, you can see several new leaves shooting up.
Another one...
Compare to the picture above a few posts of Donatello to see the difference three weeks has made.
These are in the back of the tank, and you can see how well they are doing.
They haven't melted all the way back, as evidenced by the size of the leaves... some are quite tall still.
Blondielovesfish
Kia Ora
I love the ninja turtles! Sounds like your son is taking after his dad in terms of becoming an aquascaper Thats interesting how the vals have done with the excel! Do you think that extending the acclimatization period would give better results? As in giving 1/3 dose for two or three weeks instead of one and so on?
OP
OP
Not sure what would be better... they just need to survive. After that the growth happens.
After that the growth happens.
OP
OP
There have been no updates for a while...
Things were moving along 'swimmingly' and then all of a sudden my most dominant betta starting acting off. She's been not eating, and mostly just 'sulking' in amongst some floating water sprite. She's been demonstrating no other signs. Her fins are not clamped, her color is good, but she is just very lethargic and not eating.
After a bit of discussion with WildBetta, we decided the best course of action is to treat the entire tank with 'Maracyn Plus' in an effort to stem whatever might be the issue. This is a precaution because the breeder where I got the bettas is the same as where 'Gizaroo2' got her bettas. In her case, one of the betta exhibited eerily similar symptoms and then developed dropsy and died suddenly. Then an outbreak of columnaris hit immediately after that, followed by velvet a little later. In an effort to really nip this all in the bud, the decision was made to use an antibiotic that would treat gram negative and gram positive bacteria to cover as many of the bases as possible.
Obviously, this course of action is a bit drastic, and is not one that I am taking lightly. And, as most of you know, this will also be killing my filter bacteria. As a result, at the end of this treatment, I will be cycling the tank. Fortunately, I always keep extra filter media in my filters for just such a time as this. I have ceramic media in all my other filters and will be using that media to seed the filter in this tank at the conclusion of the treatment. This will increase the speed with which the cycle will take place. Further, the plants in the tank will also be able to use some of the ammonia produced by the fish, aiding the process even further. Honestly, I don't expect to need to do more than one extra water change after this entire process before the tank will be sufficiently cycled again.
Things were moving along 'swimmingly' and then all of a sudden my most dominant betta starting acting off. She's been not eating, and mostly just 'sulking' in amongst some floating water sprite. She's been demonstrating no other signs. Her fins are not clamped, her color is good, but she is just very lethargic and not eating.
After a bit of discussion with WildBetta, we decided the best course of action is to treat the entire tank with 'Maracyn Plus' in an effort to stem whatever might be the issue. This is a precaution because the breeder where I got the bettas is the same as where 'Gizaroo2' got her bettas. In her case, one of the betta exhibited eerily similar symptoms and then developed dropsy and died suddenly. Then an outbreak of columnaris hit immediately after that, followed by velvet a little later. In an effort to really nip this all in the bud, the decision was made to use an antibiotic that would treat gram negative and gram positive bacteria to cover as many of the bases as possible.
Obviously, this course of action is a bit drastic, and is not one that I am taking lightly. And, as most of you know, this will also be killing my filter bacteria. As a result, at the end of this treatment, I will be cycling the tank. Fortunately, I always keep extra filter media in my filters for just such a time as this. I have ceramic media in all my other filters and will be using that media to seed the filter in this tank at the conclusion of the treatment. This will increase the speed with which the cycle will take place. Further, the plants in the tank will also be able to use some of the ammonia produced by the fish, aiding the process even further. Honestly, I don't expect to need to do more than one extra water change after this entire process before the tank will be sufficiently cycled again.
I'm sorry you're having issues but hopefully this works!
OP
OP
Dominant girl is looking worse... and I'm just waiting for the meds to come. 
Similar threads
Most reactions
-
506 -
326 -
255 -
224 -
220 -
194 -
159 -
158 -
153 -
144 -
129 -
121 -
121 -
107 -
104