I’m planning on having a log finned male betta so i think I’ll avoid twigs all together just to be safe. ive had a look at the coconuts on Tropica site that Have the moss growing on, do you think theyd be ok for the betta i was thinking the one with double entrances, there’s also a tree on Tropica with moss growing on and doesn’t seem to have twigs from it.. would this be a lil too complicated to start with or just not worth bothering with, more for my taste than anything so not fussed if i dont have the tree thing or the caves hides with moss growing on..
that’s amazing to see i think that’s a lil too woody for my fella as ill be planning to get a long finned one but amazing to see some ideas.
You can get wood pieces for decoration and mounting plants on if you like the look, it can make it easier to build a good amount of layers and structure because bettas tend to love exploring.
Epiphytes (plants that can grow on wood and stone) on branched pieces of wood makes it easier to "fill up a tank" with nooks and crannies 😊
You dont have to forgo all wood pieces if you dont want to 🙂 The key is really just to look a bit at the structure of the wood. If it has a lot of very thin branches that come to a sharp point, it will probably not be a good choice. Or if it has spikes or a very coarse structure that doesnt feel nice to run your hand across, its not a good choice for a long fin betta tank. But there are still a lot of very decorative pieces of wood to be found, and any decent size branches can be sandpapered quickly on the ends to make sure they are rounded at the tip and not sharp (like if they have been broken off or cut).
I’m definitely thinking of soil so ill take a look in the signature documents you included.
Soil makes some plants a little bit easier. Its a bit messy/dirty compared to gravel and sand, but the plants quite like it. It gives you a little help when it comes to nutrients, because the soil will give the plants some in addition to the liquid fertilizer you dose.
If you dont think you will be digging around a lot in there and pulling out plants all the time, then soil might be a good choice. But definitely not a requirement.
I’m definitely going to get the tank sorted nd thriving before adding any live stocks. I don’t want to risk any harm to life due to being impatient.
The absolutely most important factors to get a nice healthy aquarium the easiest way really is: time and plants. Lights, filter, substrate, thats all details really compared to that.
Every week you can give the tank to mature and the plants to grow before adding any livestock will be immensely valuable to you, its just really hard to see this when one is starting up. We've all been there. But you seem to be on a really good path already
With regards to plants i was advised by someone at aqua essentials to get the easy mixd box of aquarium plants from Tropica - have you heard of these or any experience? They randomly pick the plants and apparently no red plants in the easy box but can request them. For the sake of variety of colour I wouldn’t mind red plants but do their care differ i.e. harder to look after or easier to die?
You could look through the
Easy category on Tropica's website to see if there are any plants you like the look of.
If you write their names here we can advise you on if there is something about that plant you might want to consider before purchase.
They also recommended i got the neutro combo low tech plant fertilisters from them
I think people have already suggested a few other fertilizer options for you in the other threads, but I would also like they have advise you to pick a fertilizer that contains nitrogen and phosphate.
Personally I like to steer clear of any "liquid carbon / liquid CO2", this is not actually liquid CO2, but a biocide/algaecide (disinfectant) that contains a minimal amount of carbon in its chemical makeup.
The primary effect of these products is killing algae, but the marketing is often highly misleading.
Some of the facebook groups have adv that when cycling to add ammonia to make sure the filters are able to cope when fish are in and producing amonia and other chemicals. But I haven’t seen any advice yet on here about use of chemicals during the cycling process.
Adding ammonia to cycle a tank is called fishless cycling, and this technique was a big upgrade to how many used to do it years and years ago. That was to add a lot of fish they didnt care about, let those fish suffer and get damaged gills from ammonia burn while they "cycle" the tank, and then later add the fish people "cared about".
Some of us found this practice to be very cruel, and fishless cycling was quickly adopted as a more humane alternative to the old school method.
In the time since then, science has found out more about the bacteria and archaea that live inside our aquariums (and filters), and it turns out the ones we "grow" when we fishless cycle, are not quite the same ones we find in a mature aquarium.
The ones that live in a mature aquarium dont like higher levels of ammonia at all.
So sometimes fishless cycling works, but sometimes it doesnt go as expected even if one "did everything right", because the tank did not actually have the right kind of bacteria and archaea living inside it that it would naturally have.
If you say this on facebook and some of the other forums you will probably get yelled at quite a lot, so its best not to do that. They will figure it out eventually.
If you havent already, check out
this video on "seasoned tank time" vs "cycling" from Aquarium Coop.
Since we are really interested in plants on this forum, many of us prefer to use
plants and time to "cycle" (mature) an aquarium.
This is not dangerous if done correctly, because plants also take up ammonia and nitrite, not to mention nitrate. So plants and microbes are real winning combo for keeping water healthy.
The key is to do it gradually and patiently. And its a real bonus not to have to mess around with adding ammonia and all that stuff 😊👍
Do you have any advise on this and do you have a recommendation on the best water testing kit ?
I recommend getting a liquid test for Ammonia (NH3), Nitrite (NO2) and Nitrate (NO3).
If you can find your local area's water report (assuming you havent already posted it somewhere else, sorry), you may not need a GH or KH test and can save a bit of money.
A PH test for the range that your water will likely be in might also be helpful, but is not essential imo.
JBL brand is usually considered a better choice than Tetra, and I would avoid the stick type tests, they are not very accurate. I havent personally tried the API tests, but they should be ok.