Betta tank set up...Bettas coming soon!!

Whoopee, my Betta tank is finally set up. I was going to put a Betta in my 20 gal but decided to just give them their own tank, so it is a 10 gal, divided so I can have a male and a female. The tank isn't finished...I will be adding more stuff to it tomorrow. Also the plants on the left side aren't permanent, I just happened to have them so I threw them in. I will eventually plant the tank with java fern plantlets from my plants in the 20 gal.
And, just for the heck of it, I threw in pics of Mist and Marble. ;D I'd better mention that the water looks super green in the pictures...I do have a bit of an algae problem just not THAT bad...my cell phone makes the pics look darker. (I'm still figuring out digital cam so have to use cell phone for pics... )
pic#1=half finished Betta tank
pics#2-3=Marble
pics#4-5=Mist
Sorry the pics aren't great. :-\

ahh good heavens those pics are enormous!! Someone remind me again...how to shrink them??

 

Oh I'm so jealous!! That's exactly what I'm hoping for.. a 10gal divided so I can have a male and a female I have a lot of it planned out in my head and it looks great! lol

Anywho! The other pics are kinda blurry.. heh hard to make out what's what, but I'm sure your little ones are super cute!

 

I do not know what program you used but I just resized them with my photo program and I hope you don't mind. They are nice pictures and I am sure the fish are happy and will be healthy and happy with you. You are a great fish mommy and they know you love them.

Mist and Marble are living tributes to the care you gave them and continue to do so. They are really miracle fish and look really good.

Rose

 

Oh thank you Rose, they look so much better now!!! Now so huge and blurry.

The Bettas have arrived today!!!!!!! ;D ;D I now have a blue and red crowntail male and a greenish blue female with some pale reddish on one fin (who I bet will turn dark blue and red once she is in a nice heated tank, not the stupid little cups ) The male I got from my lfs which keeps all the male Bettas in tanks with the other fish. He seems to like his new home. There were plenty of more beautiful Bettas at my lfs, but this one chose me. He swam right up to me in when I looked at his tank, and would not stop looking at me until I said I'd buy him. He even followed my finger around, which I've never had a Betta at the pet store do before ;D The female I got was the only healthy one out of like 20 at Petsmart. The rest were either visibly sick, super bloated, or else completely listless. I remembered seeing her 2 weeks ago there...this time she was shoved to the back of the shelf behind the new Bettas. She's pretty freaked out in the bag I put her into to float in the tank and warm up...guess people haven't treated her too well at the store. She took longer to decide than my male, but she eventually swam to the front of her cup to tell me to buy her. ;D Well I'd better go release the female into the tank--the temp should be about equalized by now. Will post pics later.

 

8) All right! Good for you. They are very lucky bettas to go to a nice, warm, and loving home with you. Can't wait to see the pics! ;D

CherryRose

 

Oh I can hardly wait to see them...If you want to send me the pictures I will be glad to resize them or go ahead and post and I will revamp them if they get too big.

I know that you will probably not be able to get pics today but I can hardly wait, I am so excited!

Do you have names for them yet??

Rose

 

Are you sure you don't mind doing that for me? Well, I'm going to fiddle around with pics once I get them (tomorrow probably), and maybe I'll figure out how to shrink them anyway.

Well I have ideas for names but I haven't gotten a really good look at them yet so I'm not sure. All my Bettas get Spanish names, so I have a limited amount of things I can name them since my Spanish/English dictionary isn't huge. I'm going to go look at them now if they're settled in to think of names....

 

Don't mind a bit...I bought the Pro Program of JPEG Sizer so it is easy to use and it just helps me get my money's worth every time I use it. They have a free program that works well but there were some options on the purchased offerring that I wanted with my new camera so I went the extra mile. I will do the resizing to anything you send me.

My e-mail is: or as I said just post them and give me a shout on the PM and I will resize.

Rose

 

O sounds like you have a fun night ahead of you, congratualtions and the tank looks nice. Your male sounds a lot like mine, maybe there lost brothers Can't wait to see pictures too. That's nice of you Rose to do things like that, good job

https://www.freetranslation.com/ free spanish translator, I use it for my homework, can type in english word and it comes out as spanish.

 

My favorite male Spanish name is Alejandro. Manuel would be a good masculine name for a Betta and if he is young you can name him Manuelito until he gets older

 

Thanks for the offer Rose but I think I may have managed to resize them. I will post one now to se if it works...it's a pic of the tank how it looks now. I've added some plants and a piece of fake driftwood so it doesn't look so bare.

Thanks for the site ATM, that may come in handy. And thanks for the ideas Mochi. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I still have not decided what to call them. They don't need to be real Spanish names, but could be any spanish words.

Well, the Bettas settled in super fast so I decided it would be ok to turn on the lights. I was shoked how tame they are! I thought they'd take a while to get used to their new home...but they are swimming aroung and right at home. (And flirting with each other ;D) And...drum roll please...I actually got some decent pics of them!!! But I will wait to post them till I see if my tank picture is smaller.

Well here it is--

Woo hoo it worked!! I made the fishy pictures even a bit smaller so they don't look blurry hopefully. Wish they had names so I could give them a proper introduction, but I'm still thinking. Behold the long-awaited Bettas! ;D

 

that's a really pretty female. Your male's tail looks a bit like mine, just the body is different. Great looking bettas, they look very happy.

spikey gives them both a warm welcome

 

Thanks It's amazing how much she colored up once she was in warm water. She was a dull greenish blue color in the store while she was in a cup.

 

Alex, Blaze and JT are properly impressed and so am I...they are beautiful and so healthy looking.  Your female does look blue now that she is in the tank.  Your little male is beautiful in his markings and he looks so cute in the picture of him smiling    He is going to be a bit of a Marty, I am betting...he has the same body shape.  You will have a lot of fun with him and she looks dainty and elegant.

Congratulations, I know you have waited a long time for them.  We will welcome them properly and finally when they introduce themselves... but until then they are welcomed with open arms.

Rose

 

wow, mine didn't color up too much, I don't think he was in the store for that long thankfully.

 

My female was in the store for 2 weeks at least. I remember seeing her there before when I was at Petsmart. She was just shoved in the back of the shelf since no one bought her. Oh wait I think I said that already...sorry :

I am a teeny bit concerned about the male though. He seems to be constantly flaring. Either he's going crazy over the female or he's chasing his reflection. Makes for nice pictures but I'm worried maybe he'll get stressed out. Will he quit flaring as soon as he realizes he can't get to the female? Do you think I should cover the side of the tank if his reflection seems to be bothering him? Well I'll keep an eye on him to see if he settles down after a while.

 

Mine had that problem, it was the lighting, my only solution was to put plants by the wall, I tried no background, background, towel, different type of background and he kept flaring so plants was the only solution.

 

Turn off the lights to the tank and use only room light for a few days and he will get used to the tank and then try the lights for short periods until he stops this behavior.  I think he is just on sensory overload with all he has had happen today and needs time to get used to his situation.  He will do this for a while but he will get over it.

Rose

 

Your female looks just like my Belle and your male is a very handsome fellow.  His colors are similar to my Barney's colors.  Barney is a veil tail though, so has a very different look to his finnage.  I am sure your little guy will get used to his surroundings after a while, and the flaring will let up.

Handsome in spanish is guapo or apuesto.  Beautiful is bello, lindo, or precioso.  I don't know what names or words you have already used so I'm probalby not much help.

My grandson has a Spanish middle name.  It is Estevan, which is Steven in Spanish.  His dad's first name is Steven, but he is Steven Jr. and I think they didn't want my grandson to be named Steven III.

CherryRose  ;D

 

Well, the male isn't flaring much any more so I think he was just overexcited in his new surrounding (and to suddenly see a gorgeoug female... ;D). I think he just needs a day or two to get used to his new home. If the problem persists I will try those tricks (Rose & ATM).

Well the Bettas say thanks for all the compliments. And thanks for name suggestions too.

The pics I get don't do the Bettas justice. I got a few more of the female. It's hard to get good pics of her--if she's not in the right position, the cell phone's camera just registers her as a black blob. :-\ Argggh I'm so frustrated though cause I could've gotten the perfect picture of the male...he came right to the front and was posing beautifully...and staying still!!...but just then my cell phone ran out of batteries grrrrrr dumb phone... Anywayyyy here's a few more pics of the female I got some more of the male too but didn't email them to my computer before the phone ran out of batteries, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see them. :-\

 

Nice pictures. Your female is still beautiful. Sorry about your cell phone deciding that was the perfect time to demand food. Mine has a way of doing that too. I will be looking for the males pics tomorrow.

CherryRose

 

Beautiful fish, both of them! The male looks exactly like my boy, Lava!
He'll settle down and stop flaring when he gets used to his surroundings. I love watching my fish interact with each other through the divider, knowing they can't hurt each other.

 

Yes I know isn't it fun watching them interact? ;D The male seems to think he's quite impressive and is always showing off to her. The female, on the other hand, is much more concerned with eating... ;D

Oh speaking of eating, it seems as if I got lucky--both of them loved the first food I tried (HikarI pellets) !!! I was surprised at the female...normally she doesn't take as much notice of me, but the moment she saw the food come out she swam right up to me. It was so funny feeding the male, cause there's a bit of a current on his side of the tank due to the filter, and his pellets kept swimming away from him. ("Oh darn, I've gotta stop flaring at the lady and chase down my food!") ;D

Well, more pics coming soon. And no I haven't quite decided on names.

Here's a few more pics of my male.
3rd pic you can see him showing of to the female. ;D Also you can see his tail is...whatever you call it...when there's 2 rays per spikey thingy...anyone follow me?
4th pic I did a closeup of him from another picture so you can see him better. The pic's a little dark though. :-\

 

Nice pictures and fish, are those the dividers you buy at a store?

I'v been thinking of some spanish names haven't come up with any yet, my teacher is kinda weird and tells us weird names so I'll let you know some if I hear one. do you like Edu?

Are you planning on putting anything else with them since you have room?

My male is a pig, anytime he see's me in the room he swims against the glass and when I feed him he jumps for the food, I bet yours love your food.

 

Yes I bought the divider at Petco.

Edu's a nice name but I'm not sure it suits my Betta though...thanks anyway.

I don't think I will put anything else in there.

I just can't stop taking pictures of them. ;D I managed to make a decent closeup of each of them.

 

Well you have some good posers, Spikey wants some lessons.

Just wondering, why don't you want to put anything else in there?

 

Well, it's pretty easy to catch the male posing cause he's always showing off to the female. ;D The female's a lot harder to catch.

I just don't want to put anything else in. 5 gallons isn't a lot of space for most other fish. Otos would fit ok but I don't want to put them into an unplanted 10 gal...I'm afraid the nitrates would get too high for their liking like they did when I had Mist and Marble in my old 10 gal. It will get planted eventually and maybe I'll add more fish then.

I have decided on their names!!!!!

The female is Cascada which means waterfall.
The male is Fuego which means fire.

Fuego and Cas say hI to everyone

 

If you got a little hornwort then you'd be ok.  You could get some bamboo shrimp.

Nice names, Spikey officially welcomes Cascada and Fuego and wishes happy lives for them.

 

They don't sell hornwort anywhere except for Petsmart and all the plants there are dead and covered in snails. And I don't have the money to order anything online. I think what I'll end up doing is putting in java fern plantlets from my java ferns in the 20 gal. Bamboo shrimp would be awesome but they're $16 each at my lfs and they don't sell them anywhere else. :-\ Oh well.

Cas & Fuego say hI to Spikey and thanks for the welcome.

 

Welcome Cascada and Fuego...how nice as Fire and Water do not mix, eh??? They are darling still and I want you to know that Alexander, Blaze and JT are loving the names and the looks of them as well. They welcome them with wildly waving fins .

Rose


Just a note about the cellphone..if you are ever not ready to quit with the pictures when the battery does that again, just plug it in and continue to take pics. Works for me.

Rose

 

You mean I can plug it into the charger cord thingy and then it will let me take pics?

 

Yep, should, mine does.

Rose

 

Ok thanks for the tip.

Heh well I was a little bored this evening so I made a cool poster thingy of my Bettas for my computer desktop. (hope my brother doesn't freak out that I changed the desktop again ;D) Well I thought it was kinda cool so might as well take the opportunity to show off my Bettas once again hehehehehe ;D
Tell me when you get tired of all my pics. Otherwise I'll crash the forum with all of them ;D :

 

I think everybody here loves pictures. Maybe when you get a job you can order plants, when I get a job I'm going to start ordering stuff online and make my tanks much better.

 

Well I'm glad you like pictures cause I've got a bunch of them ;D Actually I think I've maxed out my picture supply for now. Bettas just won't stop moving for a second!

Yeah I can't wait till I can get a job so I can afford to buy stuff online. Maybe this summer I can find some place that'll hire me.

 

I love pictures of any fish and tanks. Tanks are my favorite. That's why I'v kinda been coming to the betta board more reading posts and looking at pics, I haven't been posting too much due to school and honestly betta's aren't my specialaty.

I'm going to enjoy my last summer unemployed and skip the fast food joints since that's the only place I can work. I might do some yardwork here and there but besides that I'm just going to stick with reffing. In the fall I'm either going to work at petsupermarket with my friend since his mom's good friends with the GM or I'm going to work at a lfs. in case your parents don't want to give their credit card number away you can look there, don't know if you say that.

 

;D Not only are your fish beautiful, so are there names. Benji, Bessie, Barney, and Belle all wave their fins in a warm welcome to Fuego and Cascada.

CherryRose

 

Thankd Cherryrose and BenjI and Bessie and Barney and Belle... pant, pant... ;D

Cas is turning into quite a cutie...today she was hand feeding from me. I couldn't believe it, I've only had her for 2 days and already she's completely used to me. Good heavens she loves her food...girl after my own heart ;D...but sheesh she nearly bit my fingers off! ;D Now Fuego is just a big scaredy cat (shhhhh don't tell him I said that). He swims in circles around my hand eyeing the food but he won't swim up to me. Quite amusing actually. ;D It would make my life a lot easier though if he'd hand feed because the power filter creates a current on his side of the tank (I need a few floating plants)...so when I drop the pellet it floats away and he has to chase it down. He's getting closer though, I'm guessing I can have him hand feeding by tomorrow night (I don't have enough time in the morning). Oh dear these Bettas are just too cute and amusing and wonderful...I'm already planning what Bettas I should get next... ;D

 

If you have too much current from your filter on one side try putting a piece of filter floss or filter sponge right across the water outlet. I just jam a piece between the filter outlet and edge of hood. It holds it in place and the water flows through quietly with no disturbance. It even gives the water coming out a second extra cleaning. Every week I throw out the filter floss as it gets dirty and put in a fresh piece. This is the easiest way to reduce current in the tank and it doesn't interfere with the filter function at all.

You can only do this with the rectangular tanks with a HOB filter. Tanks with a filter built in the hood, like the Hex 5 I have yet to figure out a way to slow down the flow...

 

I love your betta's. They are beauty's. Their names are perfect for them. You take awsome pic's too. Royell is waving his fins welcome to them as well has his mommy say's welcome also. Natalie