# Advice for my 26 gallon betta tank



## Prodigal Son (Nov 30, 2007)

Hello!

I am building a natural betta tank for a small harem (a male and a few females), and I could use some advice. I'm new to the natural meathod, though bettas are not very demanding anyway. So far the tank has about 1.5" of black Florite, a large stone buddha, some drift wood and a thicket of blood stargrass. There is also a good size powerhead with a spraybar, a heater, and a 65wt power compact light.

After reading a bit on this site, gravel is recomended over the soil. I suppose this is to catch detrius? Should I consider adding a layer of gravel over the florite? I also want to cover the top with duckweed and lilly pads, which I would imagine is going to seriously limit the light in the tank. I'm sure the stargrass and moss will do fine, but any other recomendations for what can thrive under a thick layer of duckweed?


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

The gravel is actually to keep the soil down and to have something to anchor the plants in. Since you aren't using soil you really don't need a gravel cap. 

Try to keep the floaters to about half the tank. Just scoop them out when they block too much of the surface, after all bettas need to get to the air. Some good plants are Rotala sp "green" (my bettas love wiggling into a mass of it and then just resting and watching the world go by), the various java ferns, Anubias, Sagittaria subulata, Hygrophila difformis, and of course Cryptocornes. 

BTW, are you sure you want duckweed? There are other floaters like Amazon frogbit, red-root floater and Salvinia that are more interesting and easier to control.


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## Prodigal Son (Nov 30, 2007)

I wasn't totally sold on the duckweed, just a bit unsure what to use. I'd actually like to find some lily pads (maybe 3-4"?) and use 2-3 of those, though I'm not sure which lily's will be happy in such a small aquarium. Many thanks for the plant recommendations!

BTW, I've been told that my 65wt pc is going to cause an algea explosion with the low light plants I wanted to use. I figured with the low fish load and high plant volume it won't be an issue. There is obviously much more experience with non-filtered tanks here, what do you guys think?


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

Right at first use a bunch of fast growing plants to use up the nutrients and keep the algae at bay. Once things settle down you can start gradually removing the fast growers you don't want and adding in the slower growing plants you do want. You can start with a few slow growers + fast growers, but you may end up with algae buildup on the slower growing plants. The floating plants you plan to use will help as they take up a lot of nutrients. I usually use hornwort in a new tank since it does a good job helping to keep algae at bay and it's easy to remove later.


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

I believe I read that bettas don't like powerheads in a betta forum. Too much turbalence would destroy the bublenest. Please do more research and be carefull with the bettas. They have attitudes. That is some male betta's are very aggressive and will kill female betta if she is not ready to mate. Most people don't keep female and male together unless breeding. From what I have viewed at utube there are exceptions.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

dawntwister said:


> I believe I read that bettas don't like powerheads in a betta forum. Too much turbalence would destroy the bublenest. Please do more research and be carefull with the bettas. They have attitudes. That is some male betta's are very aggressive and will kill female betta if she is not ready to mate. Most people don't keep female and male together unless breeding. From what I have viewed at utube there are exceptions.


In a large tank with lots of plants, it's fine...
I've have 3 sisters killed a male once... They shredded his fins.

And if you mean stargrass as in d. diandra, they don't do well in low lights...


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## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

mistergreen said:


> In a large tank with lots of plants, it's fine...
> I've have 3 sisters killed a male once... They shredded his fins....


Lol, I can relate. That happened to a male betta I bought a long time ago. Petstore staff told me that it would be okay to put two female bettas with a male as the betta and one of the females would mate with the male. Instead the two females killed the male. The poor guy wasn't fast enough to escape the attacks. They shredded his fins   If this is part of some Betta Mating Ritual, I don't want any part of it. I would rather have a lone horny Betta, then have a Betta savagely attacked and killed.


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

After reading the previous replies, I am glad I did not put male with 3 females in 10G tank. It was a thought after seeing someone on utube with 3 female and 1 male betta in a 8G tank.

After the drought here in Ga, I am going to set my 30G tank up for bettas. I will be using silicon to set binders in the tank, so if there are any problems I can seperate the bullies.

From past expierences I have concluded that betta's are unpredictable and it is best to be prepared for problems. They are like simease cats. Some are very aggressive and some are very docile.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

In general, keeping bettas together isn't recommended. Ms and Fs can coexist, but some might end up fighting and/or dead. If you're going to go for a betta tank like this, you need to have LOTS of plants to provide plenty of hidning places for harassed fish. And yes, females can be more aggressive than some males. I tried to breed a pair once but didn't remove the F soon enough. She killed the M then ate all the eggs! (oops!) Be aware that if they breed, one or more may end up dead, especially if you don't have enough hiding places.

Also, you should consider a betta's natural habitat: they come from shallow, often stagnant (hence the labyrinth organ), puddles and rice paddies. (Although some species, I believe, are collected in streams, but not the ones we buy at the store). As such, bettas are not used to strong currents. So, if you're going to use a power head, I would find a way to angle the flow of water downwards and turn it way down. Now, even if we consider that none of the bettas we buy in the store come from the wild, they are still bred by a hobbyist or, more likely, a commercial betta breeder. In either case, they were bred in tanks with little to no water current. As such, adding current may stress them out a bit. (It's hard to swim in a strong current when you have such long "flowy" fins.)

Lastly, keep in mind that if you hope to breed your bettas you should set up separate breeding tanks. Between the current, number of fish and lack of hiding places, your fry will more than likely not survive in your current setup.

All that being said, I have read experiences of people keeping, not only M/F betta fish together, but even of keeping multiple males together, successfully. The one thing they all had in common is, again, lots of hiding places.

Do keep us posted and let us know how things turn out! 

-ricardo


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

flagg said:


> Also, you should consider a betta's natural habitat: they come from shallow, often stagnant (hence the labyrinth organ), puddles and rice paddies. (Although some species, I believe, are collected in streams, but not the ones we buy at the store). As such, bettas are not used to strong currents.


I thought that too but I found my betta sisters (name: bubble, toil, trouble) would swim again the current of my little hagen internal filter for fun.

Oh! an on them killing the males... They killed 2 males.. One was their father, the other was their brother.. I think They really don't want to inbreed.


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## Prodigal Son (Nov 30, 2007)

Hey guys, thanks for all the info! I've had my attention turned to my 100 gallon tank for a minute here, so the betta tank has been sitting, starting to get nice and settled. I dropped my crowntail betta in there, and he seems to like his new digs. The Stargrass has plenty of light, the whole fixture is 130wt, though I've been using only the 65wt day bulb, with the actinic used for a short "dawn/dusk" period. The betta's behaviour with this cycle is neat, with lots of activity under the actinic, and occasional forays out of the plants during the day.

The powerhead didn't seem to upset him much, but I moved it to the big tank to better balance the flow there. I had a Red Sea co2 system ready to go, and I think I'm going to use it on this 26gal rather than the 100. The big tank is doing just fine, and I'd like to try a tank dominted by red plants with the betta tank.

I've been doing my research on the betta and decided against any females. I'll probably stick to a brushy nose pleco, a few otto cats and some shrimp. I know the betta may harass the shrimp, but we'll see.

I'll report when I get going on this one in earnest again. Maybe I can post some pics of the 100 gal if I stop screwing with it for 5 seconds


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