Anabantoidiot

[Fiske]

Decided to do a new journal for my betta tank.

So the guys needed a home that wasn't an open top high-tech, high flow, CO2 injected tanning bed. Yours truly, testing the ironclad patience of Mrs. Fiske, moved with the grace and purpose of a drunken elephant, and converted most of the house into an assemblage of more or less filled tanks, humming pumps, buckets of plants, aquaphenalia, dirtying kitchenware with boiling wood, leaves and cones.

Specifics:

Tank: 54 L
Substrate: Pond soil/peat, and kitty litter as topdressing
CO2: Hah, no!
Lights: So far, only the sun and ambience.
Filter: AquaEl Turbo 500, on low.
Heating: 50w stick.
"Scape": An assemblage of roots, sticks and leaves.
Plants: Crypt. beckettii, and petchii, so far. Probably some Java ferns at some point. Some moss definitely. Maybe some other stuff too.
Ferts: ...hmmm
Water: Rainwater. Currently around 4-5 dgh, and an estimated 5,5-6 pH (hardness probably from the pond soil, and a few splashes of tapwater.

So yeah, lotech is the name of the game here, going for some blackwaterish half rotten pond, with a few plants here and there.

Location:

Halfway there:

 

[Fiske]

Some more sticks. Some plants are in. Not too happy about the right side though.

Water is still quite cloudy. And hardness had skyrocketed for some reason Did a 40-50% waterchange. My JBL teststrips are a joke.

 

[Fiske]

It's up.

Normally I wouldn't setup and add livestock to a tank this fast (which is not as fast as this journal makes it seem, anyway), but outside circumstances made everything a bit urgent. Using plenty of 'old' water and filter culture made me fairly confident that it would work. Seems like the guys are responding well, too. I'll keep an eye on water params over the next days.

 

[Fiske]

Guys are doing well. Still seem somewhat stressed, which is no wonder. New tank every week, for I can only guess how long...
Regardless, I'm seeing more normal behaviour and colouring. Lots of staring contests, and occasional full flares. Sorting out the food problems, slowly... Starting with Artemia nauplii soon (just need the ingredients ). So far solved the feeding with various white worms from the compost, which is a huge hit, and highly entertaining to watch; looking into sourcing starter cultures of grindal, vinegar, and maybe microworm too. I've got a lead on a possible source.
Waiting for the plants to start growing in and covering more of the tank.

(And crossing my fingers that I don't have 5 males )

The guys:

I'm so disappointed this pic turned out of focus :

 

[Fiske]

I've got grindal and microworm cultures going. Hurrah.

Bettas had a huge helping of Artemia nauplii yesterday. That was after I gloriously failed to produce a batch, or rather the whole batch hatched and died overnight. Probably because I stupidly followed the directions on the can instead of doing my research. Turned out salinity was way below the actual recommendation. Being somewhat an amateur brewer once in a blue moon, I am the proud owner of a hydrometer, and hit 1.030 after a bit of fiddling. Much better.
I btw purchased from rapidly dwindling cash reserves a JBL Artemio set. I particularily liked being able to drain from the bottom, as opposed to the traditional soda bottle method (which I've used in earlier times). I might do a mini-review on that, although it probably won't be particularily positive.

Then I proceeded to another failure, now with camera hand:

Bettas wiped out all nauplii within an hour or two, after which they more resembled socks with cue balls in, than fish. I'm just super chuffed that my feeding woes seem to be at an end.
Seems the guys are too.

 

[Lindy]

Lovely fish. What kind of betta?

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[Fiske]

Lovely fish. What kind of betta?

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Yes, they are absolutely loverly

Sold to me as wild caught Betta coccina, which seems right. The whole story on me aquiring them is what more or less ended my previous journal
I'm completely smitten with bettamania now.

I'm able to tell the individual fish apart no problem; however, sexing them is more or less impossible for me. That they should be one of the harder species to sex isn't helping. The fish I yesterday pegged as a male, today I'm fairly certain it's female. And so on. Knowing my luck, sex ratios are probably completely skewed.

I failed to produce another batch of Artemia (blockage in airflow because I'm a blahblahblahblah), but there were a few, so they got those today + some grindals and microworm. They don't seem particularily interested in the micros, and the culture seems a little slow, so I might not bother with that. Grindals are usually gone before they hit the bottom and the culture, although very new, can easily support a few feedings per week, since I have so few and small fish.

The water is still to hard, but values are stable. I suspect that the pond soil has lime in it I might remove it, but want to get the fish in shape, and also just leave them in peace for a good while. Doing lots of wc's with rainwater, hoping to maybe lower hardness a bit (pretty stable at ~8-10 GH and ~6KH; according to my silly JBL strips). I need to get some better stuff for testing.

 

[Lindy]

Ah, lovely little fish. I'm hoping to add to my wild bettas in the next couple of months. I have Simplex and Channoides.

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[Fiske]

Quick picture post re. sex ratios:

No doubt Mr. Evil here is male (he's the guy that pesters everyone):

He reverted to his stripey pattern since the flash annoyed him. And I need to clean my glass.

Pretty sure this is a female, mostly based off shape of fins, particularily the more or less straight anal fin. Her colouration is more normal:

If I'm remotely right, I have 2 males, probably 2 females, and one I'm not sure about (maybe female, but I don't know).

 

[dean]

Nice fish
I've just ordered a pair of Rubra


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[Fiske]

Nice fish
I've just ordered a pair of Rubra


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Oh. Those look very nice. Good luck with them!

I'm not able to take decent pics of my bettas that accurately portrays their colour. And as soon as the flash from the camera hits them they start getting paler, and make themselves scarce. They go through a load of colour changes very fast when they interact; and apparently they like food very much, since that makes them all go a very nice deep red (except the girl at the bottom of the ladder, she tries to get some food as incognito as possible). Since the tank is in a position where it gets a fair bit of sunlight, I've noticed this really makes them colour up too.

 

[Fiske]

Crappy phone vid of bettas gorging themselves on artemia nauplii:

 

[Fiske]

So the tank is situated where it gets a fair amount of natural sunlight. Downside is, it promotes algae. Upside: The bettas seem to like it very much, and it really shows of the colours of these fish. Don't let anyone tell you wild bettas are drab and dull. I tried to catch a few pics of them in sunlight:

Now I just need to learn how to focus on them

The two fish above are the dominant fish in the tank. They're having constant squabbles, and apparently a bit of physical altercations too, at times. Nothing too serious, and there seems to be some kind of fluctuation in hierarchy, one day one is chasing the other around, next day roles have shifted. Not seen a single bubblenest yet, but maybe there's too much commotion. I might have to separate them to get some hankypanky going. Still unsure on the sex ratios. These two are both male, I guess.

Added some katappa leaves, and some javafern yesterday.

GH: 5
KH: 3
pH: 6,5
24 C

 

[Fiske]

Since this IS a planted tank forum, I thought I'd better try to represent the tank also. Here's a fairly crappy (almost) FTS:

You can see some of the guys having a helping of grindal in the lower right

 

[dean]

Beautiful fish
It's much harder to get a good shot of these than a long finned Splendens


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[Fiske]

Beautiful fish
It's much harder to get a good shot of these than a long finned Splendens


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To be fair; 90% of the splendens pictures you see is of a fish dropped in a glass of water and shown a mirror. Much easier to get a good shot that way. In a tank with decor and hiding spots you need for the fish to actually show itself, look its best, and have at least some ability to actually focus on it. Not to mention light, and their ability to move JUST when you take the picture. I discard at least 4 out of 5 pics I take of my fish because focus is on the leaf behind the fish, or it moves, or light is behind it, or the flash reflects in the glass, or that glass is dirty etc

A good thread with loads of coccina complex bettas and fairly good pictures of them can be found here: http://www.bettafish.com/144-journals/170730-wild-betta-journal.html. Worth at least a browse.

 

[dean]

Video is much easier to do (depending on which camera you have) I use the canon 70d to take my fish shots as it has a touch screen so simply tap it where you want to focus and it does and then takes the shot all in one action plus I love the feature where I use the canon app and can do all this remotely away from the tank, works great for shy species


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[Fiske]

I use either my phone, which is quite crappy or the inlaws Canon 400D DSLR. So video has to be on the phone. The 400D do take good pictures though, although the viewfinder is a bit hard to use in low light. It's not possible to use the LCD screen on that as a viewfinder, so a lot of the time it's pray and shoot.

 

[Fiske]

Just a minor update, mostly for me to note my water params. Did an overdue WC, and upped "filtration" a bit (I removed the sponge that covered the outlet on the powerhead.)

Showing off (please try not to look at the mulm on the leaves, I've got that swamp look down pat):

GH: 4
KH: 3
pH 6,5-
NO3 10-25
24 C

I'm keeping an eye on this...

 

[Fiske]

So; I've not updated this for a long time, mostly due to work and related stuff (more work). Tank was nicely chugging along, getting overgrown, occasional water changes. Then, a couple of months ago on impulse, I bought a few Parosphromenus, and set them up quickly in a 25L.
And then I did a really bad thing...

I borrowed the internal filter from this tank to clear up the water in the 25L, just for 2-3 days until I could get another small internal. At first, no issues, then on the 3rd day, all except one Betta had died, and the last one was in REALLY bad shape. This happened more or less overnight, as in one day fine, next day mass extermination. I'm guessing the reason was some kind of ammonia spike or smth. Despite a couple of emergency waterchanges, and reinstating the filter, I couldn't save the last fish. I was pretty gutted, and probably have put off updating on this out of pure shame.

Lessons learned: Don't buy fish unless you have all the equipment you need to keep them well. Don't f*** around with an existing tank without contingency in place.

I really have no excuses