Letters of a Betta Addict

So I suppose I should record the events of the weekend.

I got back to the apartment Friday evening and did a check. Patch and Ember were looking poorly and Babie was MIA. After I searched the tank and surrounding area there was still no sign of her. I can only conclude that the Cory’s must have taken care of her body. RIP my beautiful baby girl… :’(

I did a tank vac and water change for everyone, destroyed part of Ember’s tank by accident with the Python. From now on no Python in tanks under 20 gals without help… especially the el-natural tanks. I put a new filter in with Ember. It’s an old box filter I found so I hope that it’ll fix the filter issues that I’ve been having with him. Once I fixed that I went to Wally because I needed air-line tubing. And with that fateful decision began a new chapter in my fish keeping experiance.

The New Chapter:

Usually when I’ve had a really bad few days a trip to any store typically results in a  betta following me home. However I stopped in all my usual fish stores and not a single one of those boys or girls looked out at me and declared, “Mine! My person! Now get me outta here.” I guess after losing my two favorite Betta babies I just wasn’t ready for a new one. I’d just moved Mama into Coolie’s 5 gal and upgraded Wraith into her 3 gal but I just wasn’t ready for a new baby. So during this bit of soul searching I ended up wandering into Wal-Mart- and falling in love.

I’m serious it was a love at first site moment. My MTS kicked in and all I could do was watch him. I could maybe still have walked away at this point yet. Could have held onto common sense… but then that thought crossed my mind. “Charlie- you’re name is Charlie…” That was it the war was over. Now it wasn’t just an adorable little Fancy Goldie that I wanted to take home. It was Charlie, and he was coming home with me. I put up a last struggle, I argued against it. No tank cycled, I wanted to paint the tank and stand, no TSS… but then I realized… this was walmart. The likely hood that these guys would be here alive and well when I came back next week was… slim to say the least. So off my mind goes trying to figure out a compromise.Inspired by a thread I’d read on Fishlore I wend off in search of a rubber-maid tub.

The resulting set-up (I may have gotten carried away) was a jumbo size rubbermaid tub (about 4′long and 18″ high) a giant size Lily, 2 adorable fancy goldie babies and 1 snail. Once I had it all set up i started to have doubts (mostly because the tub was bowing alarmingly). I left it but the next morning I gave in and moved them over to the 56 gal. Luckily I had a partial bottle of cycle from back in the day so I dosed with that to get them through the week. When I go back I pick up some quick drying paint and put them in a temporary tub overnight while the stand and everything dries. Then I’ll re-fill and re-dose with cycle until I get back again just prior to orientation.

So I’ve been doing reasearch and working on the article for the last few days. Part 1 is going well and Part 2 needs some more work yet. I’ve been thinking on the 56 gal and I think I’ve settled on a goldfish only tank. So to break down my stocking:

56 total gallons

-20 gallons (1st goldie)

leaves : 36 gallons

-10 gallons (2nd goldie)

leaves: 26 gallons

-10 gallons (3rd goldie)

leaves: 16 gallons

- 10 gallons (4th goldie)

leaves: 6 gallons

Therefore with this method I’ll be fully stocked with 4 Goldies. Now I’m going with fancy golies rather than comets of common feeders. However I still need to decide on a filtration system.

GREEN AND GROWY:

This system will give ideal biological filtration as well as be very good for alage control along with visually appealing. Now there are 3 parts to this plan that need to be ironed out.

1st: Construction. - What will I need? How am I going to put it togeather?

2nd: “Media”. - What to use as plant anchor/bio filter?

3rd: “Plants” - What plants to use? What layout? How many?

or

CONVENTIONAL

Set it up it’s done.