Redecorated Betta's Home

Tank was pretty bland, Flash got a tank makeover. Actually I went online to DFS to buy a couple small things and ended up getting carried away.

 

Cool, looks good. You checked everything for any rough spots? Being a show betta, Flash has such flowing fins that he's even more likely to tear fins on things than a store betta.

 

good advice from Dave. I noticed you have those spikey tall plastic plants in the back of your tank. I had them as well, but got rid of them. They are much too sharp for a beautiful Betta such as yours.

 

Most of the new plants are pretty soft, including those tall spiky ones, which are more like rubber grass and are soft and flexible. The ones with the flowers have a few spots that are rough, I'll try to file those spots down. The one plant left over from what was here before, the darker one in front of my filter intake is possibly questionable although it never caused any problems with my prior betta.

 

The substrate would be imporant too, since he'll drag the heavy fins along the bottom.

 

I managed to snip off the problem areas on the yellow flower plants, the rest seem fine. This substrate is great, they are the large rounded kind of gravel. The only problem I have with the gravel is that it so large that it prevents me from sticking any cory in there. I would like some pygmy cory but their food would just disappear into the gravel.

 

Most of the new plants are pretty soft, including those tall spiky ones, which are more like rubber grass and are soft and flexible. The ones with the flowers have a few spots that are rough, I'll try to file those spots down. The one plant left over from what was here before, the darker one in front of my filter intake is possibly questionable although it never caused any problems with my prior betta.

I'd be most concerned about the dark green one. I used to have those but my poor betta looked awful after getting attacked by it!
You could always try your hand at live plants too. I've got java moss in my betta tanks and they love it!

 

You could try a weighted dish, like they have in the reptiles section at the store, and put the food in the dish for the corys.

I managed to snip off the problem areas on the yellow flower plants, the rest seem fine. This substrate is great, they are the large rounded kind of gravel. The only problem I have with the gravel is that it so large that it prevents me from sticking any cory in there. I would like some pygmy cory but their food would just disappear into the gravel.

 

I've got a fairly large sized natural gravel with my 2 panda cories (they are small - 1 inch long and 2 years old). They have no problem finding the food in gravel. They like to "dig" around to find the pieces of food.

 

Well the real question to ask, is will the 5 gallon tank handle the minimum number of pygmy corys. They are really small, 3/4 inch so I can't believe they could put too much strain on the bioload, but looking around the net, I get wildly different suggestions for how many it takes for them to be happy. I can always add some sand to the substrate so they won't lose their food to far, although I don't know how to vacuum sand, seems to me it would all be sucked up with everything else.

 

3 or more is best for corys, but even a pair can work sometimes. Sand wouldn't be a good substrate though, with a Betta.

 

Actually Pygmy cories are small but they need 6 to feel secure. And no 5 gallons is not large enough as they are scamps and need to be on the move all over the bottom constantly. They also will not be guaranteed to stay that small. The males are smaller actually about 7/8" at the largest but females can get to 1 1/4" in the aquarium according to Identifying Corydoradinae Catfish by Ian A. M. Fuller & Hans-Georg Evers. They are timid little fish and can be scared literally to death by a hostile or overly inquisitive betta if they do not feel secure so I would not keep them in less than a group of 6 and in a tank of less than 10 or 15 gallons without a lot of plant cover and many caves and niches to hideaway in.

I tried to keep some with my female tank a couple years ago and they literally died of fright and it made me very sad. I was unaware of their special needs and could have kicked myself afterwards.

Rose

 

Beautiful tank for a BEAUTIFUL Betta boy!

 

Hmm.. the pygmy corys sound very much like Otos.

 

Well, out went the nasty dark green plant, and no pygmy cory buddys. For the moment he has a visitor, and we will see how that goes. My lone albino cory is in there with him. He hasn't given the cory any trouble so far. But he seems a little disturbed at having this crazy cory darting around all the time. Like he is putting up with a rambunctious child.

Everyone remember to vote for their favorite betta in the fish of the month, both Flash and Casper are making a good showing so far.

 

LOL... Yea, for the most part I think our Bettas tolerate tank mates like otos and corys, but always are thinking "I'm ruler of MY domain!".

 

Flash is getting bluer, I think

Seems to me Flash is feeling a little blue, the blue seems to be spreading. It might be all in my head. You might call the first picture Flashdance

 

Where did you purchase Flash? He sure is handsome!

 

Flash appreciates the compliment, I got him from an eBay seller "emiad". When I asked for details the seller said he breeds some bettas but he imports all the halfmoons like Flash that he sells from Thailand. Said he found them too much trouble to breed.

 

Flash appreciates the compliment, I got him from an eBay seller "emiad". When I asked for details the seller said he breeds some bettas but he imports all the halfmoons like Flash that he sells from Thailand. Said he found them too much trouble to breed.

That is the perfect answer! And the one I was hoping for

I have been looking on E-bay for my next betta fish and that is the seller I was most impressed with...Here is what I'm planning on buying when the time comes..

Was your experience with this seller a positive experience?

Check out this guy!

 

Everything was very positive, he shipped the fish express mail the very next day. He told me when he was shipping it so I knew when to expect it. I got exactly the same fish that was shown in the picture. I took about 3 hours to acclimatize Flash, starting with floating the bag and slowly adding water from the tank. When I finally let him out he was very perky and had a good appetite. Flash is a very healthy boy, I would definitely buy from the same seller again. The guy you are looking at is very beautiful.

 

As long as you are purchasing the fish that he is importing I would think it would be okay but I had a problem with a fish that he bred that I received off of eBay so I would not get one that he personally bred.

Rose

 

What plants are those? Your LFS has a good selection it looks like.

 

I don't think to keep all the little tags, so I really can't say. I limit myself to the ones that say they only need moderate light since I don't have any fancy expensive bulbs. The clayish substrate is nice for planted aquariums, it allows the growth of things like that grass in the foreground. It was a thick little patch on one end of the aquarium and I recently pulled it up and put little plugs all around so it should fill in the empty space given a little time.

 

They look great. It looks like you have incandescent bulbs? There are some 'plant bulbs' that fit in the sockets and do really well with the low-light plants like java moss. They're a little more than regular bulbs, but not too expensive. We have those in the wild bettas tank since the mahachaI like lots of moss and lower light.

 

I have standard fluorescent bulbs in the planted 10 gallon. I may replace them with the slightly higher cost plant bulbs the next time I order from DFS. At the time of the picture Flash's 5 gallon had incandescent bulbs, but I found some fluorescent that fit in the small hood just this week.

 

I like the lighting of the 'sunlight' bulbs that have the highest peak in yellow. They still have blue & red peaks so they're good for fish & plants.