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.

Hum... felt like I should say something...

... but I don't have much to say.

I've been too busy planning for Valentines (Devin and I are celebrating tomorrow) to find photos to feature, so that'll start next week... not that anyone's suggested any.

And... hum... I still haven't taken photos of Spike, I'll do that over the next week sometime hopefully. Sky made a bubble nest today ^^ so proud of the little guy - and Alpha's bubble nests are getting bigger all the time. I'm not going to try breeding until I have a bit more money and it's a bit warmer in case I have to ship any of the offspring.

Stupid weather - it was supposed to warm up this week, but it doesn't look like it's going to. So I have to wait even longer for my females. I'm starting to get quite a collection of plants for their tank, though, and I'm gonna go buy some nice mugs to use as caves later.

Oh! There's something I've been meaning to post: what is generally safe to put in your tank.

Anything sold as dinnerware has to be high enough quality that it's safe for us to eat out of. So it's safe enough for the fish, too. I generally don't use anything that isn't dishwasher safe, but a lot of people don't worry about that rule and are perfectly fine, it's just a comfort level thing for me. Also, terracotta pots work really well, just plug up the hole in the bottom so no one will get stuck.

Alpha and his bubble nest

Alright, so I keep on saying I'll add photos of Alpha... and here he is. He's much happier since I moved him to the 2.5 gallon - he's much bigger than any of my other fish, so he needs the extra space. In the 1 gallon he just kinda... sat there... But now he's happy and I had fun taking pictures. He even flared at the camera! Unfortunately I wasn't focused properly and that photo's just kinda a blur... so it's not here. I'll try and get another one sometime.

And yes that's a beer bottle, even though beer is disgusting... I needed to put something in the tank and the bottle was there XP If you're going to use that idea, make sure you clean out the bottle really well and fill it part way with gravel or something, especially if you don't have any ground cover, and fill it with water.

And today I came home and went to feed him and there was a bubble nest! It's not a very big one, but I've never seen one in person before... so I was really excited. I'm going to try breeding him... with Maddi, I think... when I have the space and time. Also have to wait for a little tear in one of Maddi's fins to heal - think it was a bit of an ammonia burn, I didn't have time to do any cleaning on the day I normally would have cleaned all the tanks out so I had to leave it an extra day.

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.