I've been looking at tanks, saw some nice ones for around $100, would have loved to be able to buy one soon but some unexpected money troubles are coming in so unfortunately he'll have to do in the smaller tank for a while. Real plants or fake? If real, is it easy to take care of them and do they help with anything? So far he doesn't seem to like hiding at all, just darts around all day, flaring up and attacking the side of the tank.
He's probably attacking his reflection. That's why having plants is good to keep him distracted as well as provide a little shelter. I always go with live plants, but you really have to stay up on cleaning your tank, well you should anyway... but with live plants the enemy is algae the catch 22 is that it also enjoys the longer exposure to light that some of the tropical plants need. So the basic thing is to do regular partial water changes and get a scraper for the sides of the tank to remove any algae build up before it ruins your plants. You really want to keep the nitrate levels produced from waste down. Always remove dead leaves, dead fish etc asap, some good little algae eaters are the Otocinclus, they never seemed to live to long in my tanks for some reason even though they were very clean. Snails eat algae too, but most will also eat your plants, those little one that you find in the plants you buy at the petshop are fine or Malaysian Trumpet snail is ok too.
My betta just died. Didn't even have this one for 3 months. He seemed to have torn his fins up and couldn't swim right to go get air, I tried putting him in a little bowl with slightly warmed up water that was shallower so he could reach the air but he was still having trouble getting to the surface and just lay there at the bottom for a while til he died...
I have a cheat sheet for diseases around the house somewhere. If I can find it I'll look up the symptoms.
I joined this group coz I love keeping aquariums I've 3 going at the moment (I had a 4th for a betta someone gave to me, he passed away recently) in my larger one a keep tropical fish, I have another one with a fantail goldfish, a school of golden barbs (they don't mind water as low as 20 degrees C) and a bristtlenose catfish, the third one has my princess cichlids from Africa. I used to keep more cichlids but I've given up coz I just don't have the time for them. @ Ulyaoth I'm not sure what sort of climate you are in but in the past when I've kept a betta I've used a heater and he lived for a few years, I also filtered the water.
I got a slightly bigger tank as a christmas gift, a 5 gallon hex tank. My parents said they wanted to get me a 40 gallon tank and some coral to grow in it but thought I'd rather have the small one to fit on my desk. Think any live plants could grow in that small a tank? I'm trying to decide if I'll keep the small one or get the bigger one but it might be a pain to place and I won't be bothering with coral, too much work I'm guessing. I'd like to try some invertebrates though maybe, maybe even just keep the small tank for that. Can shrimp/crabs whatever stay with bettas?
I have another one with a fantail goldfish, a school of golden barbs Whoa! are they older barbs? because barbs are big time fin nippers. I can't imagine the poor fantail must be terrorized... Can shrimp/crabs whatever stay with bettas? Shrimp is fine as long as you don't buy the big the giant kind that turn into lobsters or crayfish lol, crab same thing, I've seen baby fiddlers lay in wait to spear my tetras. It's pretty horrid sight when you come home to see your cool tetra skewered by a fiddler who's munching away on it's body heh...
Alright, ended up getting a 16 gallon full combo bowfront thing. Filled it up, let it sit for 2 days filtering, and a crack starts. I return it, sit for another 2 days, then put some long finned danios in. Yesterday I put a betta in with them and they've been fine actually, no aggression or anything from either side. Only issue is I have to watch when I feed him to make sure he gets some food.
Nice! those are a decent community fish I'd say. Beta's really are peacful until they think you're another one of them lol... but the crack thing worries me since I've had my 44 gallon bow front sitting outside through the harsh temperatures of summer and winter. I think before I fill it up I'll seal it with some aquarium glass sealant.
Well it was before the betta decided to kill himself. I watched him the other day as he sent himself flying sideways into the decorative rock and tore his tail fin off. He seemed alright for a while, was swimming and eating fine, today his back was all red and enflamed looking, guess he got an infection, and died a while ago. *Sigh* maybe red bettas are just stupid by nature. The danios can stay by themselves for a while now then.
Couple things come to mind, if you hadn't spent much time in the front of the tank watching the barbs, it could be that the beta was stressed from getting his fins nipped. I've seen them react pretty wildly like you say when they are stressed out. The other is like you say some sort of infection, like external parasites did you notice him rubbing on the rocks? I've seen many kinda of fish do a swoop down against the rocks when they have parasites so as to itch themselves.
Hello guys, I guess I'm new here, I'll post some more about the fish tanks i have if anyone asks me, but I thought you might want to check this out: http://www.tuncalik.com/ Look at his sustainable aquarium design- it's amazing!
Thanks I'm very much interested in ecosystems.
Over summer I set up a little pond. Just a hard rubber preformed one, like 90gallons I think, with a water lily some cattails and a bunch of floating things. I let my mom pick the fish, told her to get goldfish and she got a koi. Well, he's done alright in there so far but I'll either have to get him a bigger pond next year or give him away, for now I'm just trying to figure out how to keep the pond from completely freezing over when winter comes, or if it looks like I won't be able to prevent that find some big tub or tank for cheap to put him and the 2 goldfish in. I'll try to get some pictures for once, he's pretty big already.
I thought Goldfish and Koi could survive their pond freezing over?
I've been told that they need at least some surface unfrozen for gas exchange. Besides that, it's not that deep and winter's can get pretty cold here, like last year the same pond(without fish, just water and rocks) froze completely solid down to the bottom it seemed. I'm starting to think it might just be easier to buy a tank or even just a big rubbermaid container and some filter to keep them in over the winter, but for now the plan is to try to insulate it some and keep the pump running without the waterfall.
I think you can use underwater heaters, but I've heard that you keep the filter running so that the water doesn't freeze over? I'd double check on that though.
My sister's boyfriend is offering me a 55gallon tank he's got that's just full of barbs and goldfish now, was his late uncle's. Didn't talk a price but I'm sure he'd give me a good deal, it's just, don't know where I'd put it, don't want to have 4 tanks going on in my house, although I guess if I get it I'll probably get my betta out of the crappy little 1.5gallon tank. Thought my parents would be horribly against it but they're the ones trying to talk me into getting it, the thing's ugly too, fake wood edges on the tank itself, ugly wood stand, busted up light. He wants to use the space for a 150 gallon reef setup. I'll have to see that if he does but my sister's not too happy about that idea.
That Aquarist site is amazing. Totally my style now. I currently do not have a tank but I think I would go that route. Obviously not to that level, but a fresh, plant heavy tank with schooling fish. So growing up I started with Cichlids of course. I then graduated to more exotic forms of freshwater fish and plants. Messed around with brackish for a short time because of the puffers you could keep. Ultimately I 'graduated' to full saltwater at around 15 yo. My pot dealer worked at a local, high-end shop dedicated to mostly saltwater. So I had a relatively small tank at 55gal but got a chance to own some pretty crazy fish. Most exotic was probably a purple banded grouper and a stonefish. Both were bought and returned to the store and I was the only one who would take them, for free. Now that I think about it, I love those little brackish puffer fish. Once my life gets more settled I will do something. And I always wanted a coral tank but that was a bit much for a kid, so it never happened. I had one piece of huge live rock but never grew anything on it. I watch that Tanked show on Animal Planet and it really get the wheels in my mind spinning. The stuff they have now is crazy. I don't remember bottled bacteria and bottled seawater. And that distributor they get their fish from - that would be a dream job. I built ponds for a summer, but I cannot remember if the pumps ran in the winter. I remember most of the ponds we worked on, including the business owner, actually fully froze over in the winter and the fish basically hibernated.
