Muffymouse

I don't think you are in much danger of being completely usurped in the "betta buying" tease, but it will now be a much closer race

COBettaCouple

lol.. ok, i won't tease.. i'll tempt.. come on down to st.auggie and pick out some mahachai bettas.. you know you want some.. you know you do..

armadillo

Oh, I see that you use no gravel in the platy tank. How do you find that (in terms of looks/cleaning/fish liking it)?

COBettaCouple

well, i used to have that tank setup with the flat marbles on just the left 2/3 of the tank and had the right 1/3 bare. the fish liked it and quickly learned that was where the food would come to them. i need to update that picture though, since i put the baby platys in there, it's now just a very thin layer of marbles all across the tank.

armadillo

So no more bare tanks?

COBettaCouple

the wilds tank is bare, no substrata in it.

armadillo

And how does it compare maintenance/fish comfort-wise?

COBettaCouple

at this point, it's the most work.. because the food is so tiny and the fry so tiny, that cleaning is a long careful tedious process. and with all the hiding places we put in for them to feel comfortable, the workload to clean it goes up.

armadillo

So no substrate = less work?

COBettaCouple

lol, i wish.. it just means less work than it would be if i had substrata and fed powder.. even with a bare bottom, the tank takes forever to clean with a turkey baster as the powder is all over and moves around so easily.

armadillo

You clean your tanks with a turkey baster? Sorry, am a pain. I always ask a gazillion side-questions. Must be hard to keep up.

COBettaCouple

yea, we gotta get a python one of these days, but i use turkey basters.. and even if we had a python, i'd still use the turkey baster on the tank with those tiny fry.

armadillo

Sounds verrrry meticulous. I just vaccuum with a flexible piece of pipe in the tank with fry.

atmmachine816

When the fry get a little bigger you can get a thin netting, or bag such as the aquaclear type and put it over a small gravel vac and clean the tank with it. Most of the fry once big enough will stay away from the vacuum and you can cover more area faster and more efficiently. This is what I did when i had a fry tank up, working on getting it back up now actually. If you need a link I'll find one.

armadillo

They've been pretty good at not being close to me when I vaccuum. It's only a small hose. I was thinking of just attaching some nylon hosiery to the tip if it gets to be a danger, but so far, so good. They're being street-wise little mollies!

COBettaCouple

i've tried nylon as a fry-guard on the filter intake when we first had platy fry and pretty much all it did was clog up. that's why we went to netting cut off one of the fish nets that came with a tank kit.. but these fry easily slip through holes that big.. so i'm just playing it safe with the turkey baster -- and triple checking for babies that get sucked up.. some always do, even with the baster.

armadillo

Yeah, I figured nylon might do that. Ah well, they really are being quite smart about it, so I won't worry for now. If I see they get the tendency to get too close, I'll try the blaster.

COBettaCouple

don't blast your little fish! they didn't mean it! mercy! have mercy! please!