Letters of a Betta Addict

Well I have good news bad news and news that makes me want to pull my hair out.

First the Bad news, sometime on March 27th while I was out of town for my Grandpa’s funeral disaster struck at my apartment. Three of my breeders, Blaze my red Male, Heels, my red female, and Munchkin the little cambodian girl from Ontario died, they were discovered on the 28th by my fish sitter.  When I got home that evening my green dragon male, Draco, was in rough shape and I wasn’t sure if he’d pull though. A 100% WC and a round of Tetracycline later he’s made it back into the land of the living. I wish that I could say that that’s the end of the losses however that isn’t the case. While I was gone home for Easter on the weekend RT, my Rosetail male from Ontario, passed away as well. All of the lost kids will be missed, RIP babies, I didn’t have you long enough.

Onto the realm of frustration now, onto of all the fish losses the lights in three of my tanks have decided to give out on me. The one I knew about, the whole hood is dead and will need to be replaced. Another I suspected as I’ve had trouble with it in some form or another for quite some time. However the light on NightHawks 5 gallon hood comes as something of a surprise. I’m hoping that a quick trip to Dollarama today to pick up a new bulb will fix that one at least. However I’m not holding out hope. Also with finals coming up (much faster then I’d like) I need to do something with the 56 gallon. The sound of running water is driving me totally and officially insane now. (At least more insane then I was before :p )

Moving onto to good news… I have a car, if only for the week, so will actually be able to do SOMETHING about these various fix it type projects. I also discovered (to my delight) in Micheals last night that they sell “project” plywood! Hopefully after lab today I can run around and pick up the various bits and pieces I need to get things back up to snuff. I may get fancy and sketch up some new designs for the hood of the 56, I’d like to set it up with plants running around or above it. I’ll look into setting up something to “suspend” the lights above it but we’ll see.

Until Next time take care,

A Betta Addict

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.