BeginnerFishKeeper
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Posts posted by BeginnerFishKeeper
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Right now I have a 20 gallon long tank with a single betta. I plan on making it into a community tank, but am still not too sure what tank mates I should get for my betta.
Tank details : I have relatively low kh, high gh (150 - 300 ppm, usually about 200), ph of around 6.8 - 7.0, and the tanks at 78° with a sponge filter and fluval stratum.
I was researching panda corys but am worried about my high gh and my non - sand substrate. Which tank mates should I try that will work with my water parameters and betta fish? Also which plants should I have for said tank mates?
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On 1/28/2022 at 10:07 AM, H.K.Luterman said:
What plants have you tried? Have you got him one of those suction cup leaf hammocks to hang out on?
The plants I currently have in the tank are cryptocoryne lucens, anubias barteri, anubias nana, Java fern, Amazon sword, dwarf Sagittaria, pogostemon stellatus octopus, tiger lotus bulb, and Java moss. The lucens and anubias aren’t really growing, the sagittaria and tiger lotus are growing ok, the Java fern and Amazon sword aren’t doing the best, and the java moss and pogostemon are browning. I’ve tried using the suction hammock, but he didn’t interact with it and after the first week it wouldn’t stick to the walls.
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Are there any unique ways I can give my betta sources of enrichment? He doesn’t really interact with his environment other than swimming along the glass walls and I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something wrong. He has a coconut hide and a terra cotta tunnel but in the 2 months I’ve had him I haven’t seen him use either. My initial plan was to have 2-3 hides and an abundance of plants but I’m struggling to get my plants to grow and stay healthy.
Also how much and how often do I feed my betta fish certain foods? I got him frozen bloodworms, freeze dried bloodworms, fluval bug bites, and ocean nutrition pellets. I give him 10 pellets every day but he still seems hungry as he swims to the front of the tank when I walk by, and is constantly looking for snails thinking they’re food. Once a week I give him the frozen and freeze dried bloodworms and some fluval bug bites, I’d say about 5 or so “pieces” of each. How much should I be feeding those foods and how often? Thanks
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On 12/11/2021 at 11:18 AM, PineSong said:
Okay, so that suggests (to me) that it's not any kind of reaction to anything suspicious in the water or changes in water quality and perhaps it's just a behavior. I've had a couple of fish spend more than the average time adjusting to the tank before they stop glass surfing or doing weird things, and they still turned out to be fine.
If you don't already have them, you could try adding plants or a betta leaf hammock or things like that to perhaps make him feel more secure/provide enrichment.
Yeah I have a decent amount of plants and also have a betta hammock (although it keeps falling off the wall and I don’t know why). I’m trying to get my plants to grow more so my betta has even more cover but that’s a whole other can of worms 😂 Thank you for the help!
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On 12/9/2021 at 8:41 PM, PineSong said:
How long have you had your fish in this tank, and how long has he been doing this?
He’s been in the tank for 2 weeks now and has done it since he first got in there
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On 12/8/2021 at 11:34 PM, Bjorn said:
Maybe he sees his reflection? If the inside of the aquarium is brighter than the room outside it sometimes acts as a one way mirror. If that could be the case try turning down the aquarium lights or increasing the brightness in the room and see if his behavior changes.
That’s what I thought too, but even when the aquarium lights were off he’d still do it so I wasn’t 100% sure. I will try to use a non reflective background and see how that works, thanks!
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My betta fish is swimming along the side of the glass 80% of the time. The glass he usually swims along is near the heater and filter but I don’t think that’s related. He will swim along it, swim towards it as if he were “digging” at it, and he’ll turn around and go back and forth along that side of the aquarium glass. Is there a reason for this? Is there something I need to do to limit this behavior? I’ll include some water parameters.
Ph 6.8
ammonia : 0 ppm
Nitrite : 0 ppm
Nitrate : 20 ppm
Kh : 0-1 dkh
Gh : 12 dgh
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On 11/26/2021 at 4:40 PM, Colu said:
That looks like scale damage to me I would add a small amount of aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 5 gallons at that level it shouldn't harm your plants and monitor Bettas can develop tumor that start like this so I would monitor closely
Ok, how long would I have to wait for a water change after adding the salt? Is it possible for it to heal on its own? The aquarium salt won’t ship to me for close to a week so I’m worried about whether or not the damage will get better or worse by then. Also is there any other alternative to aquarium salt? I have snails in my tank that I’m worried about
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On 11/26/2021 at 11:19 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
It could be. I would try ich X per direct on the bottle. If that doesn't clear it, I would do an antibiotic in food per directions. I would use Seach Kanaplex.
Here’s a better photo. So I should use ich X just to be safe?
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Is this ich on my betta fish? It just got out of quarantine and I premedicated
with ich X so if it is I’m not sure what to do
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On 11/20/2021 at 9:08 PM, KBOzzie59 said:
Setting the red pointer to the actual temp is the "calibration".
How many gallons is the tank?
What is the temperature in the room the tank is in?
Is there a lid on the tank?
Depending on these variables, overnight may not be long enough to see a significant temperature change.
Another possibility is the heater may be defective. What wattage is the heater?
I suppose I have a misunderstanding of what calibration means then. The tank is 10 gallons, the room temperature is 71°, there is a lid on it, and the heater is 100 watts. I believe the instruction manual said turning the blue dial would make a clicking a sound which wasn’t the case for me, that’s the only variable I can think of that could possibly be affecting the heater. Not sure if that’s abnormal, but that’s the only step that happened differently when I set up the heater.
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On 11/20/2021 at 2:49 PM, KBOzzie59 said:
You procedure seems ok. But why didn't you set the red pointer to 83 then just use the blue dial to set 78? In my opinion 83 is a little high, we keep ours 76-78ish.
I was under the impression the red pointer was purely cosmetic and since I’m only using it for quarantine I didn’t care for it show the correct temperature since I know what the temperature really is. Is the red pointer just cosmetic or does it play a role in proper calibration?
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I recently set up my eheim heater for my quarantine tank and followed the directions carefully (when I say I annotated the instruction manual I’m not kidding). I set the temp to about 78 using the blue dial then waited around 2 hours. I came back to check the temp using a digital thermometer and a glass thermometer and they both measured around 83°. I unplugged the heater and turned the blue dial to about 73 hoping it would heat to around 78 since there’s a 5 degree difference then plugged the heater back in. Checked back 2 hours later and both thermometers still read 83°. At that point I already had the betta fish and figured it’d be better to acclimate the fish already then take my chances spending more hours recalibrating the heater. That was last night, as of this morning the thermometers still read 83° and my betta fish is doing good. Am I doing something wrong with calibrating the heater? Is it urgent that I get the temperature down or is my betta ok with 83°? Ideally I would’ve liked to lower the temp to 78 so acclimating my betta to the display tank would be easier, but at this point I’m a little afraid to mess with the thermometer seeing how finicky it’s been with me. Thanks in advance!
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On 11/17/2021 at 6:54 AM, Gator said:
@BeginnerFishKeeper; Bettas' originally came from SE Asia where the water is blackwater, it's very acidic, very soft, and very warm. Betta breeders, myself included when I bred them, try to duplicate those conditions as much as possible. Even if I were to buy one today, I'd still want to place it in one of my blackwater tanks where the Betta would be happiest.
So you think my waters high gh will be a problem?
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I plan on getting a betta fish in a few days but the gh of my water is extremely high. It measures 18 dgh from the tap but in my cycled tank it’s usually 13 dgh. I’ve seen some say 3-4 dgh is needed for bettas and anything higher can harm them. Some say under 20 dgh is fine. Thoughts? What should I do? Thanks 😊
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On 10/29/2021 at 7:59 PM, Jennifer V said:
@BeginnerFishKeeper I'm a huge fan of bladder snails for the reasons @Guppysnail mentioned. They clean the tank beautifully, eating up diatoms and dead plant matter/algae. They're also fun to watch and because they can live in horrible water conditions, they're pretty indestructible. It's fun to see something live in the tank while you're waiting for conditions to stabilize to add fish.
They may "explode" in population at first, but they will die back. That may actually aid in getting the tank cycled (ammonia = nitrite = nitrates) You could also reach out to local clubs or Facebook groups to get rid of your extras. I'm always looking for more snails to feed my puffers!
The other thing is the egg sacs are pretty noticeable so you can remove the ones you see, although you'll still likely end up with quite a few.
I say enjoy your little guy(s) and don't worry too much about an overabundance. They're such a cute and valuable part of the ecosystem!
Thank you both @Guppysnailand @Jennifer V !!! I’m most likely going to just let nature take its course and only interfere by removing algae if it starts becoming excessive, hopefully all goes well. Thanks again!
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On 10/29/2021 at 3:17 PM, Guppysnail said:
If the only thing in the tank is a betta and food never hits the ground and you have no almond leaves/driftwood and you keep your plants maintained they will not overpopulate. They only populate to the amount of food available. This includes algae, excess food, decaying wood plants etc. They are excellent gardeners but they produce a lot of waste as they eat constantly. Some Betta will eat them some will not.
if you are unsure put a plant some substrate in a vase and put it there. These things are near indestructible unless crushed or poison is used. They are Mother Natures cleaners. They go into uninhabitable areas and clean them up. My understanding is they are so tough waste water treatment plants get infested.Did I mention their faces are very cute when they eat? 🤣
Thank you! How many snails would it take to majorly impact ammonia production? My planted tank isn’t balanced yet so unfortunately that means algae growth and melting plant leaves. I’m 100% ok with snails being in the tank I just would not want them to produce more ammonia than the tank could process. And I’ll be sure to look at their faces when they eat haha.
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Ok so I have seen 1 snail in my tank (I believe it’s a bladder snail) and I’m conflicted about what to do. On one hand I don’t really want to kill it, but on the other I don’t want a tank with hundreds of them. I plan on putting a betta fish in the tank, will it eat the snails? Im also worried about if the snails overpopulate, will that increase the bio load significantly? Is it possible to keep them in the tank without having them overpopulate? What affect would they have on the tank? Thanks 🙂
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On 10/28/2021 at 3:47 PM, Guppysnail said:
Prime is safe to dose up to 5x the normal amount.
Ok sweet, do you happen to have any ideas of what could have caused my ammonia & nitrite spike? I’m nervous to get a fish now because I don’t know what’s happening
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On 10/28/2021 at 1:41 PM, Colu said:
You can just double dose prime with water changes if you have lots of plants that will help remove the ammonia
Alright sounds good! I always question whether I’m dosing prime correctly because according to the bottle it ends up being like a couple drops per gallon. I don’t want to dose too much prime but I also don’t want to dose too little
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On 10/28/2021 at 1:01 PM, Colu said:
If your getting ammonia from your tap water what I would do is set up a large bin for water change and.add small heater to temperature match the water and add a small filter with seachems matrix to adsorb the ammonia before you add it to your tank
I use seachem prime to dechlorinate, won’t that detoxify the ammonia from my tap water? I don’t think this ammonia and nitrite spike is from my tap water though because I haven’t run into any sudden ammonia spikes with any of my prior water changes
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On 10/28/2021 at 7:42 AM, Guppysnail said:
Have you tested your source water for ammonia and ph?
Yes, my sink water ph is 8.0 and ammonia is 0.5, but I’ve been doing water changes for 2 ish months now and everything’s been fairly consistent until yesterday when I tested my ph and it was higher than what it usually is and my ammonia and nitrites suddenly were up.
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I just finished cycling a little over a week ago (at least I thought I did) as I was able to dose my tank with 2ppms of ammonia and 24 hours later ammonia and nitrites were 0. Since then I’ve been dosing 2ppms of ammonia daily and ammonia and nitrites are always at 0 the next day. Suddenly today I test the water and both ammonia and nitrites are at 0.5 ppms? I can’t think of anything that could have caused that? I don’t see any snails in the tanks, I haven’t dosed any anti bacterial medications or anything like that all I’ve been doing is dosing 2ppms of ammonia daily. Is there anything I might be missing? I do weekly water changes every Friday, and during my last water change which was 5 days ago I trimmed and removed some dying plant leaves. Thats the only change I could possibly think of but every day since then the tank was able to process 2ppms of ammonia until now so I don’t think that affected it. Does this mean my tank isn’t cycled? Did beneficial bacteria just die off? Also I’m not sure if this is relevant but my ph was also 7.6 today, which I thought was strange because when I test ph before my weekly water change it’s usually 6.4 - 6.6, I was going to add crushed coral to raise my kh and hopefully my ph too but now my ph is 7.6 and I’m just confused. Any possible explanations or advice would be appreciated 🙂
with ich X so if it is I’m not sure what to do
Betta tanks mates, panda corys?
in General Discussion
Posted
Thanks for your response. I was looking at albino corys to begin with but someone said if you don’t have a tank larger than 20 gallons then to stick with panda corys since they’re smaller. Are there any plants that corys would like? I want to make my tank more heavily planted and figured I should get the plants that future tank mates would like