My 5.5g Betta Mansion

[kellyinvancouver]

Hello,

Just thought I'd share the setup from my Betta tank... Lou Reed was living in a dorm-room fishbowl for about 8 months (I googled 'Betta Bowl' to get my care info-- oops!) until I discovered, upon getting further into the hobby, that my Louie needed a larger, heated tank to be happy.

Since he is a more aggressive guy (his cherry shrimp friend would have told you so if he were here today) he has the tank to himself, allowing me to devote all the paramaters, etc. to his liking!

The result...

And a spam of my number-one fish, Lou Reed

Here are the specs: I hope this information will be useful to others currently keeping their bettas in bowls...

Tank:
Tetra Water Wonders 5.5g Starter
16”W x 8”D x 10”H

Hardware:
15W Screw in CFL, 10 hour photoperiod
Cheap Hagen Sponge Filter
25W Hagen Heater

Ferts:
Gravel Substrate
0.5mL of Flourish comprehensive 2x a week
0.5mL of Excel daily.

Flora
-Salvinia Natans
-Water lettuce
-Anubias nana
-Cryptocoryne wenditii
-Java moss
-Wisteria
-Rotalas ?
-Grass thing ?
-Cambomba
-Sunset Hygro

NOTES: I screwed a 15W CFL where the incandescent used to be and put in some floating plants to shade my Betta. I grow low-light plants and stir up the floaters every day so that each plant gets equal light. Light is on for 10 hours a day.

After the picture, I added a terracotta pot (drainage hole plugged) for shelter although Louseems to prefer the Anubias plant for shelter.


Thanks for looking and I hope you found this info useful!

 

[dreamsINdigital]

Looks good, he looks like my betta.

 

[kellyinvancouver]

So it seems from your avatar

Looks good, he looks like my betta.

 

[mgamer20o0]

looks great.

 

[An t-iasg]

That is a great betta home!

 

[rubyfire]

Is he half Double Tail?
He's pretty cool either way

 

[kellyinvancouver]

Thanks

I am actually not sure what he is... When I saw him in the LFS, him and his brothers were all in breeder boxes in the display tanks... there were so few of them and they all looked identical, so I am assuming he was a breeder cull. My best guess is that he is a veiltail-based doubletail.

Is he half Double Tail?
He's pretty cool either way

 

[WhiteDevil]

Very nice planted betta tank.


if/when you trim the tank, shoot me a PM I got a 15g now that I want to plant and have a planted 52g already.

 

[kellyinvancouver]

Hmm... where are you located? Customs are a nightmare about letting plants into the country so I think it would be easier for you to buy the wisteria at a LFS if you're american. Great plant, though! Grows like a weed (LITERALLY.)

Very nice planted betta tank.


if/when you trim the tank, shoot me a PM I got a 15g now that I want to plant and have a planted 52g already.

 

[Etunes]

Good job on the aquascape.

 

[kaiofcanada]

Nice looking fish and tank

 

[FishEggs]

great job and very nice looking betta. whatever type he is.

 

[kellyinvancouver]

UPDATE

Added 3 zebra nerite snails (Maureen Tucker, Brian Cale and Sterling Morrison) to keep Lou Reed company and scrape algae. Also, I modified the hardscape... I will post a pic later.