Letters of a Betta Addict

Ok so I’ve done a bit of work, not much since my last post.

In terms of lighting and substrate I now have a bit to report. Mostly this is from browsing Fishlore so I’ll probably keep looking around to see what everyone says but this is the foundation.

Substrate: Apparently there are 3 different schools of thought on substrate. First the lingo is DSB, BB, SSB(?). In translation they’re:

• Deep Sand Bed - typically 4-6″ of sand (or crushed argonite) this is the old school method according to what I’ve read so far. The idea is that they’re enough things living in the sand to break down all the nasty decaying bits. However rumour has it that after 3 years or so these “septic tanks” are full and will cause a spectacular disaster in what was a mature stable tank without any problems. Since my tank is only like 6-8″ deep this is already out. :p
• Bare Bottom - like the name implies in this tank all your rocks and coral are set directly onto the glass bottom of the tank. Here the idea is that you can super size your current in the tank without fear of turning it into a sand storm. With all the current going around things are slower to settle to the bottom so they’re sucked up by the filter and dealt with that way. A good plan it sounds like. However I’m not 100% in love with the bare bottom look. Also I’ll be losing valuable biological filtration. However since my tank may have an AC 50 acting as a “filter” then a current induced sand storm could be a concern.
• Shallow Sand Bed - Again the name is pretty discriptive. A thin layer of sand. None of the septic worries of the DSB, none of the cosmetic looks of the BB, however the sandstorm could still be a problem.  ATM this is what I’m leaning most towards.  In the end the filter might decide. (One other issue with the SSB is that it has a dendency to compact down to “rock”)

Lighting - It may be possible for me to do my on DIY lighting hood but I’d need to decide between LED, flourecent etc. I know that LED is the cheapest but at the same time I don’t really understand any of it. However I did find the Coralife: Aqualight Mini at mops.ca. That would be almost perfect for my tank I think, but I’ll wait and do some more reseach but it sounds like the winner right now. I’d just have to figure out how to build my hood around it.

More Links:

HOB dimensions (found by ccb04 on fishlore)

Bayside Corals (The saltwater store in Saskatoon… Haven’t gone there yet but…)

Ok so for awhile now I’ve had 2 2.5 gal tanks staring at me, empty, and I haven’t been able to think of anything to do with them. One I put a layer of dirt in to use as a plant nursary but so far haven’t been impressed with the results. The other I used as a tempoary QT tank but now… I’m not so sure. The rest of the freshwater fish that I’d like to get are going to be too large to QT in there so really it’s just giving me the evil eye. I was going to move a betta over to it but after thinking about it some more I think that unless I fall in love (which is known to happen) I’ll avoid putting my betta’s in anything less then 5 gals.
So where does that leave me?
With two 2.5 gal tanks that aren’t doing anything. Now I also have another 2.5 (the evil evil hex) that I hate in terms of fish so actually 3 2.5 gal tanks with no real purpose. However I may have now found an idea for them. I’ll be alot of work but I’m really getting into the research on it and liking the results so far.
I’m thinking about setting up a pico saltwater aquarium. Yeah that’s right. Saltwater. It’s a scary thought (and not just from my wallet’s point of view). I’m pretty comfortable with my freshwater tanks, I understand them. Saltwater seems a lot like learning a whole new language. SPS, LPS, RO/DI, and I’m not even sure I want to get into the lighting end of it yet we’ll just say that never again will a light simply be a light.
However for all of this I’m thinking that it will be a really fun challenge. I’ve got a few different ideas for how to set up this whole system, though the whole idea of current I’m still working on trying to figure out. After a lot of searching I’ve found a few neat web-sites which I’ll link to here later when I’m back on my home computer where all the links are saved. :p
Since I’m here and thinking about it now I’ll throw a couple of the idea’s out here.
The basic:
For this one I’m basically just going to set up the simplest system. First is just my 2.5 rectangular with a modified HOB. One of the sites I’ve found has a guide on how to modify an Aquaclear 50/70 into a fuge(?). Macro algae is “farmed” to help keep nitrates down and mechanical and chemical filtration occur there as well. The filter “super-size” creates a good flow of water in the tank and a small powerhead could be added to turn the flow into a proper current. I think with some possible modification on the intake I could maybe set it up so that the water is taken in at the bottom of the tank as far as possible from the output so there’s a pretty solid flow across the tank.
More complicated:
In this second idea I’m looking at one of the extra 2.5’s I’ve got as the potential to act as an, I want to say sump but that’s not the right word… refugium(?) I need to do some more reading up on this before I can flesh this idea up and give it a yea/nay. One final possibility is to drill the tanks and combine them so that I can filter one so that one would have a high turbulent current while the other would have slower flows… though just as I was typing this up I got the idea of chaining the three of them togeather with the hex in the center with the filtration and the other two drilled to allow water exchange… I’ll have to do some more thinking on it to see if this is possible. If so it could maybe be really neat.

Anayway before any of these idea’s can be fine tuned there are a couple of things that need to be over come. First regardless of what I do there will have to be some sort of hood construction since right now none of them have one that would work at all. Also I need to look into live rock pricing…. oh things to do and decide on.
Anyway I’ll leave you now and I promise to come back later to add the links… take care.