help! need opinions on what to do.

[annnie]

hi,

My betta has become very horrible to my corydoras lately and is always harrassing them. Today i found a big chunk of dorsal fin missing and definatly think it was mr betta!. I want to move all my catfish into the only other tank i have which is being occupied with guppy fry. Half of the original amount of fry i rescued where infected with Flexibacter columnaris and died but i havent had any deaths for about a month. Will my injured cory contract columnaris if i put him in the fry tank?. i read that it is always in tank water and will attack when the fish is stressed so is it better to put the corys in the fry tank or keep them with the angry betta?.

The betta used to be ok so but now hes a grump.

anyway thanks for any advice!,
annie

 

[dkpate]

Is there any way you would be able to divide the tank to seperate the betta and cory's? I recently purchased some plastic canvas, so my bettas could not see eachother and stop ramming the divider, and decided the next time I have to divide a tank, I am going to use plastic canvas instead of paying $15 for a divider. I got 6, 1 foot long pieces for $2.

 

[annnie]

mmm i dont think i should divide the tank. it's only 8 gallons and the tank is well planted and has a good bit of driftwood that would be in the way of a divider. Thanks for the suggestion tho. I have a feeling that the corys should be ok in the fry tank but i just dunno. Moving them will probably stress them out a little but i think my betta is doing a good job of stressing them.. they usually spawn every week and a half.. they havent this time :/

 

[dkpate]

I have a 5 gallon divided tank for my bettas, and also a 10G divided. I am thinking you could just divide it until you find somewhere else for the cory's. I would not put them in with the fry until their wounds are completely healed, JMO.

 

[annnie]

ok well i wont put them in with the fry until the little guys healed. But i think i'll do a water change today and try to move things around the tank.. but i doubt i can arrange it so that a divider can be put in.. might try and make a divider with plants haha to block his sights.

thanks for the advice again.. by the way i really like your dwarf gourami! there my favourite.

 

[dkpate]

I hope you can find something that works! I just read that rearranging things helps establish new territories, so that might work.
As for my little gourami....the powder blue one, Gimli, is quite the pest. He has bullied one to death and another one had to be moved. The flame one, Willow, is REALLY sweet and nice though!

 

[annnie]

hmmmmmm i dont think re arranging helped .. i put him in "time out" in a bucket for a while and re-arranged things (was nice not worrying about him attacking and jumping at me while in the tank haha). He's flaring at the poor corys so much and i've found hes bitten the other males tail but the female is fine.. I want to do your dividing thing but my anubis on driftwood is in the way.

aww gimli (grumpy dwarf off lord of the rings?) sounds like my bubbles (betta) haha. I'm going to get a neon blue with my next future tank .. Hope he turns out like your flame one. Do you think the blues are more aggessive than the flames? i've heard alot of aggressive blue dwarfs :/

 

[dkpate]

Sorry that the rearranging didn't work out! LOL @ the time out!!! Mine attack me when it's feeding time...And one decided that his recently healed tail fin was too beautiful, so he decided to bite it off. AGGH!
Is there any way you would be able to lay the wood cross ways and then just put the divider in crossways too? Just for a while, until you can get those fry healed up?
Yes, that would be the same Gimli lol! Willow is from the movie Willow, but it's a pretty old flick. I bought 4 to start out with, 2 reds and 2 blues, and both blues bullied the red ones, and grew much faster because they hogged all of the food. One blue ended up passing away after about 2 days (he was all bloated and there was nothing I could do), and one red one was pestered to death by Gimli and stressed to death. He started bothering the last red one I had, so I removed the red one, put him in the 75 with my BGK, Elvis, and crossed my fingers. He has been in there for about a week and so far so good! They hang out together lol. Elvis is only about 6-7 inches right now though, so Willow can't fit in his mouth. And Willow is not a fin nipper so it works out pretty great! Willow now has more space to follow me around too.

 

[annnie]

haha i had bubbles in the bucket in the ensuite and pointed him out to my boyfriend "bubbles is in time out!". hmm i think i'll go out and buy that plastic canvas tomorrow and see if i can make some sort of area for him.. but i know he definatly wont appreciate it.. he acts like he deserves a giant tank haha.

haha willow! thats so funny. Good idea on there dwarf names haha and there names kind of match there personality haha. Thats good willow is doing well!. Maybe i should get a flame instead then. But i was thinking of having 1 dwarf gourami with a small school of neon tetras. In your opinion would gimli get along with tetras? haha

 

[dkpate]

I got the canvas at WalMart in the craft section for $2, pretty cheap! You can make all sorts of shapes out of it if you have some fishing line, so you might want to pick some of that up too! I made a hang on box for a sick fish I had, made a tube for my BGK which I am hoping the moss I have will grow on, and I also made a "lattice" which I am hoping the moss I tied on there will grow too lol. I got quite creative at 2 am LOL!
Yes, their names match their personality lol! I am not sure how the gourami will be with the neons. Gimli is a fin nipper. He nipped off all the fins of the one he stressed to death...BUT, he is in there with some Harlequin Rasboras right now, and the only time he bothers them is when he wants all the food, and they avoid him like the plague. When I was looking for more fish, I put my hand up to the tank at the LFS kinda fast to see which ones darted away fast. And I picked the HR's because they were able to get away from him if he decided to hassle them, and they're pretty cute.
I would see if the neons dart away fast before I got them to go in with him. Other than that, I have no experience with neons, because I am not a big fan lol. I just fell in love with the Endler's Livebearer recently, and that will for sure be my next purchase! Unless I decide to get another betta lol!

 

[annnie]

We dont have Walmart in Aus but im sure i'll find it in any crafty store. How do you make it into a divider tho? how do you keep it into place? haha 2am is the time for creativity. I study design and we're usually in the studios working on masterpeices at that time hahaha. Thats good gimli doesnt bother the rasboras.. i heard that dwarfs r mainly aggressive to each other so i thought a small school of something should be ok. I'm not really into neons but would rather galaxy rasboras but heard there very shy.. so i spose i'll just keep deciding what schooling fish i want . Endlers are quite pretty but these guppy fry are making me dislike livebearers! haha there my housemates and he couldnt look after them in a vase so they've taken over my empty tank.

 

[dkpate]

LOL, yeah I didn't even notice you were in Aus....I am SO observant! I would just cut the canvas with scissors to slightly bigger than the space you want to close off, and then cram it in. It probably won't be very pretty, but hey, it's only temporary lol! Or if you could find something to lace between the holes and then make that hang over the outside edge of the tank to kind of keep it in place? If you look at a pic of a divider then you will get what I am trying to explain hahaha. Or if your wood is still in there, I would stick one side of the canvas in the corner of the tank and let the other side rest against the wood?
Have you ever seen Kuhli loaches? I have some of those in there with him, and at first I only got them to clean up the leftover food on the bottom cause they look like eels and kinda creeped me out, but they are HIGHLY entertaining, and have a low bio-load. They would be good bottom fish, they are bananas! I don't think they ever stop going nuts in there. I am going to take a video sometime soon when I feed the fish in that tank, because it is CRAZY!

 

[DragonFish71]

Another idea is cutting a piece of plexiglass (from local hard ware store) drill small holes in a grid pattern and use that. That's how we've divided our tanks for our bettas. Filter currents still flow through fine. They will still be able to see each other but over time they will start not caring and only flare up once in a while.

 

[annnie]

i couldnt find any plastic canvas at the shops i went to (seems textile hobby isnt so popular) so i ended up getting aluminum fly screen which wasnt too bad.. $7AU for a metre.. and some sucton cups. The divider is sort of in a strange spot so looks terrible haha but not too bad.. the fly screen was easy to work with because you could just bend it and mold it due to the aluminium.

anyway heres pics:

sorry about the picture quality.. the camera will only focus on the fly screen -.-

For some reason i think bubbles will escape.. i can see his little brain ticking haha.

thanks for the advice!! dragonfish if i ever want to divide a tank and make it look nice i'll definatly try plexiglass.

and dkpate thanks for all your help.. i have considered khuli's.. i always enjoy looking at them when at the fish store.. there so cute and playful with each other. I think when i get a larger tank i'll probably get a few of them.

 

[annnie]

mmm looking at these photos has made me realise i should have thought out the plants better haha. I had to rip heaps out and shove some randomly..

heres a nicer pic .. you can see bubbles staring angrily at the divider.

 

[dkpate]

I don't think you took bad pics! They look pretty good to me!
Great job on the divider! If you do end up keeping it in there, maybe you could get some moss to grow on it?
Anyway, I think you did a great job and I am sure your cory's will be much happier! I don't think that will be the case with Bubbles though lol!

 

[annnie]

thats a good idea with the java moss! i think a java wall at the back would be nice.. at the moment the corys have arranged the moss how they want... there not very good interior decorators ..
The corys are soooooooo happy! i got them out by feeding them and now there just constantly all over the place. Its pretty funny watching them going up to the divider to say hi to bubbles haha.. right now Bubbles is devising plans of escape. I've seen him considering jumping over it.. and thinking about squeezing through the small gaps where the suction cups are. Hope he doesnt try doing those tho!

 

[dkpate]

HAHAHA! Sounds like Bubbles is on a mission! 2 of my bettas jump too, but I lowered my water level so they couldn't. I have it about 1 inch below the top of the divider.
I am glad to hear the cory's are happy! And that is funny that they are taunting Bubbles! HAHA! My BGK likes to rearrange everything he can in the tank too lol. I had planted some bulbs, and have had to rebury them about 75 times haha!

 

[Lynae]

Keep us posted!

 

[dkpate]

Yes! I want to know if Bubbles should be in the Olympics for hurdling!