Sorority Tank

So, as I said, I have gotten the sorority tank going. Here are the pics I promised. The top one shows the whole tank - and I'm pretty sure you can see all the fish too, if you look hard enough. The slideshow is just the same as always - mouse over to see any of the pictures properly, click to see them full sized.

The girls (in pecking order):
Maddi (big red one, you've already met her)
Big Blue (the bigger of the two blues)
Runt (little reddish one... orange/dragon mix, I believe)
Little Blue (the smaller blue one)
Silk (a.k.a. that little white one)

Not very original names, I know... but often I start calling them something before coming up with a real name and it just sticks. That last image of Runt is my fave... she's so cute ^^

Anyways, they seem to be getting along. I tried adding in Specks and Iri, but they're too aggressive, which is strange because when I had my three original girls (Maddi, Specks and Iri) together, Maddi was the most aggressive. In some of those photos you can see them chasing each other... Maddi chasing Big Blue and Little Blue chasing Silk... but there hasn't been any damage yet. Silk has a bite taken out of her tail, but she was like that when I got her. She also spends a lot of time hiding - there's a pic of her hiding in that slideshow, too, see if you can find her. You might also have noticed that some of them look a little bloated... I haven't gotten the hang of how much to feed them yet.

One kind of pellets in my inventory are too big for any of them to eat all at once... and I love watching them eat them... they all grab one and dart off to their caves and then repeatedly let go of their pellet and attack it again until it's gone... so amusing...

Only other thing I wanted to talk about was how I decorated the tank. Went out and got some more gravel and buried an air stone in the front left corner. Then I went to Sears and found a whole bunch of mugs on sale for $1 each, so I bought six of them. That log ornament in the middle was on sale at WalMart for less than $10, and I got the plants mostly on ebay, though some were donated by other betta owners who didn't need them anymore.

So it really didn't cost me much to set up this tank. Got the tank, lid, light, gravel, filter and aerator along with a bunch of other useful stuff for under $50 from a friend and the decorations cost me around $30 all together. It may seem over planted, but female bettas like crowded tanks, they need places to hide from each other.

Testing

Just testing out a new firefox add-on. If I like it, this'll probly make me likely to update more often... I've kinda fallen behind.

Sorority Tank!

Alright... bad news first. I lost two of the girls that got shipped to me and two others are still sick... hoping I won't lose them too.

But, me being impatient, I can't wait for them to all get better before starting my sorority, even if it means extra work in the future if I want to add more fish in eventually. So, I bought two more females yesterday and stuck them in the 12 gallon tank with two of the females I got from Ontario Betta. They seem to be getting along fine... which is good, because that tank is so stuffed with hiding places that I don't know what I'd do if they still couldn't get away from each other when they needed to.

I want to put my three original females in, but they're really big now, so I'm going to wait for the new girls to grow up a bit and then see if I can add in the older girls.

I'll try and get you guys some photos later.

Got the girls!

Ok, so they finally came. The five girls I ordered plus two extras that Ashley (from Ontario Betta) decided to throw in. They're all alive, despite the delay. They were supposed to be shipped overnight, meaning they should have been here yesterday, but I assume the delay was due to the weather.

Anyways, they're alive and seem to be ok for the most part... which is better than I expected with that delay. Still, one of them appears to have dropsy, which I have never dealt with before, and it's usually caused by kindney failure, which means there isn't really a cure. Another has some cuts (I think they're cuts... I hope they're just cuts...), which should be ok with clean water and aquarium salt and I suspect that a third may have ich, but that should also clear up with the salt.

Now... I have school work to do... I'll keep you guys posted.

A whole week!

Sorry, I've been kind of busy with college applications and whatnot. I still am, but I'm taking five to post on here because I haven't in a while.

So... I'm dealing with a lot of fin rot lately. Been doing daily water changes instead of every second day as usual and adding aquarium salt. And... I don't really have much else of interest to report. I've ordered a lot of plants for my 12 gallon and they should be coming soon, and those five females should be coming (finally) on Tuesday, because we finally have a few days of above zero coming.

Other than that... I donno, give me something to talk about. I might not manage to post features tomorrow, we'll see... definitely don't have time to do it today.

Update

I was so preoccupied with bad news and features that I forgot to say everything else I had to say! So now that I'm done those water changes, I'm posting again.

I moved Maddi to the 12 gallon by herself for now. She has always had a chronic case of fin rot in the .5 gallon, even when I change her water every day, so hopefully she'll do better in there. When the other five females come, I'll take her out temporarily before putting all eight females in together. Don't have to worry about her claiming territory because there are only a couple decorations in there right now, and I'm going to be adding tons of plants before putting all the girls in, so she won't recognize it. I have a couple live plants and tons of silk ones on the way, so by the time I get the fish and quarantine them for a week I should be all set.

I should be (finally) getting those five other females in the next week. I'm getting to be less and less of a fan of winter. I don't normally mind it all that much... but it's keeping me away from my fishies.

Also, I'm moving Sky to the 2.5 gallon. Alpha's not happy to give up his tank... but Sky is so jittery about everything, I don't want to freak him out with water changes every second day.

And... I joined Technorati. So if you've got an account, there's a link to fave this blog on the left.

It's getting there...

So I got Lisa over here on Saturday to help me set up the 12g. She's the one I bought it off of, so set up went a lot faster with her help. I'm sure I could have figured it out on my own... but then I might have made some tiny mistake somewhere that made it not run smoothly.

So I now have a huge tank full of water... still need six more caves and a lot of plants. I bought some tumbled stones at Michaels and got some aquarium sealer and was planning on making some caves with that (using the sealer as glue) but when I got home I realized the stones said "not for use in aquariums". So learn from my mistake and read the fine print before buying these things. If it was summer, I'd just head to the beach and find my own rocks... stupid Canadian winter... but now I've wasted like $15 on useless rocks. They're not even anything worth putting in my old stone collection (that has been sitting under my bed untouched for two years now).

So, I'll continue my cave search... and if anyone has any plants or caves to donate, let me know. I'll pay shipping. Right now I have two clay pots in there as caves, but I need more. There should be one cave for each betta - and I think I'm going to try putting in all eight and I'll pull out the more aggressive ones if there's a problem.

I'm also looking into bottom feeders to cut down on the work I have to do. I wanted a little catfish, because catfish are cool, but they don't like temperature fluctuations too much - or rather they like them less than most fish - and with the thermostat in my house being constantly fiddled with, sometimes my heater can't keep up. So corries are being recommended - but I really don't like them that much.

So... ya, that's my update.

As for next year when I run off to a different city for school... my half of the dorm room will be a box of clothes, a bed and the rest will be covered with clothes XP I can do homework on campus somewhere, right? The rate I'm going, I'll have my 12 gallon and like ten half gallons. Really, so long as I can find a place to set up the 12g, I should be able to find space for the others easily enough - and most dorm rooms have a desk... I should be able to share a desk with a 2'x1' tank.

My mom doesn't think I'll manage. But I always do.

Sky

Ok, so this is like the best "slideshow" template photobucket has come out with yet and I'm going to change all my fish slideshows to this style. Mouse over the pictures to see them properly.

So this is Sky, my new male. He's tiny, barely an inch long (not including fins), but he's still a baby. And I think he's absolutely gorgeous. The pictures don't even do him justice. I wanted to call him Sunset or Iris because that's what he reminded me of... but somehow I started calling him "Sky" for lack of another name and now I can't convince myself to call him anything else. I tried, I just forget.

I was also supposed to get Alpha today, he's a male in the area who needed a home... but we had a pretty nasty snowstorm, so I'll be getting him on Sunday.

And... I bought some females from Ontario Betta. There were two solid orange ones! So excited! I also got two dragon/orange crosses and one blue one. So that's three females I already have, plus five more on the way - and the owner of the site said she might even toss in a couple more because they need homes. I finally got started on actually setting up that 12 gallon, too. So it'll be ready when they come. I think I'm still only going to put 6 in there, though, 8 might be pushing it.

But I'm so excited! Everyone over here is laughing at me because I can't stop talking about my fish tanks!

So... ya, that's all, I think. Check out Ontario Betta if you're looking for fish (and you're in Ontario), and join the mailing list. It's one of the better sources for fish in Ontario, in my opinion.

Post!

I realize I've been neglecting the blog... sorry... so busy...

Anyways. Maddi has recovered from ich, constipation and fin rot. It was wierd... I did a water change and didn't have time to put the decorations back in, and she's suddenly fine. I think it was the marbles I was using as ground cover. Either way, she's fine now. The constipation and fin rot went away on their own and ich went away with salt and darkness.

Just got some fish shipped to me from someone in Winnipeg. Four fish and only one survived. I think it was because there was only one heat pack and it's winter up here. If there had been two and they were attached to the bottom rather than the top (heat rises), all four might have lived. The one that survived is currently floating in my heated 2.5 gallon to try and get him to perk up a little.

Also, I bought a 12gallon tank, along with a heater and a filter and some other miscellaneous stuff off of a friend for $40. Such a good deal. Once I have a chance to clean and decorate it, it'll be my new sorority tank.

Had to separate them again...

So my females are now in separate tanks once more. If I can get my hands on a 5 gallon tank that isn't going to take up all the space I have for my bettas, I'll get it. In fact, if I get one in the same style as my 2.5 gallon, I can stack my 2.5 on top of it and hopefully still have room for the others. My other option would be to make some kind of clear shelving unit... but I don't think I have time to do that.

Still planning on posting photos, still have no batteries.

Females!

So I picked up two female bettas yesterday... why? Because they were there! It was the first time I'd managed to find them at an aquarium store (everyone - Al's is awesome!). So anyways... at the store there were about a dozen fish in what looked like a ten gallon tank... and now I have the two I bought in a 2.5 gallon (the math worked out well...) but I had to separate them last night because they wouldn't leave each other alone.

Even now, they keep following each other up and down the barrier, flaring at each other and looking like they're trying to show off. I have to admit I'm kinda amused by watching them... but I really want them to get along. They were in the same tank at the store and they have plenty of room (they're each less than 1.5" long).

Hopefully I can get this sorted out soon...

And... now that I have more fish, I'll be posting pics of them soon - as in whenever I get around to getting batteries for my camera...

Edit: ok, found the problem, supposed to keep them in threes... so I guess I'm taking another trip out to Big Al's...

Edit2: ok, I have three females now - got them a bunch of plants and places to hide and whatnot... and now they seem to be doing well. Haven't seen them flare at each other in a while, and there's none of the biting that was going on last night when there were just two of them. I also got really cool gravel - black with random coloured pieces that glow under a blacklight ^^ I like neon.

So ya... we'll see how it goes.