Advice Needed Asap

[missigfunk]

Hey Hey!

I'm waiting on 5 lovely bettas from Thailand as I'm going to start breeding them.

Here are their pics...


This is Francois (I will breed him with Jovi, the one in my sig)

This male I am going to breed with my females Sambora and Domino. I also bought the sibling female of him.

This is a Purple Dragon HMPK pair. I only have a pic of the male though

Now, after showing off my new lovelys.....I have some serious questions.


My parents told me that I could get as many fish as I wanted aslong as I didn't leave myself short money wise. I said fair enough and went ahead and bought the above fish.
Last week when I was going to start setting up their tanks, my olds had a go at me about all the heaters and filters and stuff and told me I couldn't plug anymore in (I have 5 tanks set up ATM). I was like HOLY SH!T WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW!!!


So I found myself a really good Ebay special. It is a 3 part divided tank. Now, it isn't an ideal size, but it is big enough until I find out what else I can do about this. The problem lies with the heating...
I'm unable to put a heater in there for 2 reasons.
1. My olds said I can't.
2. It wouldn't fit anyway.

So for the past few days I have been doing an 'experiment'.

It is spring here now and the weather is getting quite warm, but not consistently.

For a few days I had the tank in the kitchen near a window so the sun and light could get to it. The highest the temp went was 17 degrees.

I then moved the tank onto the top of my 3ft tank because I figured somehow the heat could get to it?
Anyway, I was a bit right.
The temp has gone up to a steady 22 degrees.

I know that isn't an ideal temp either, but will it do until I find a way around this dilema?




Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[newfishy]

sell a few of your small or random tanks and buy and set up one large divided tank. you could also go filterless and relie on water changes to keep the tanks clean. or run several sponge filters off one air pumpy to save electricty. I also have only one light bar for several tanks, if I need to take a close look at a particualr fish I move the light bar.

 

[missigfunk]

Thanks newfishy!


So will 22 degress be enough for them to be atleast a little comfortable?


As for the tanks, there is nowhere to put a bigger divided tank. Plus, all my parents would see it as is me conning them into letting me have another tank.


They are under a lot of stress lately too due to family issues and illnesses, so I don't want to be pushing their buttons if you know what I mean.


I would rather try and figure out a way myself and do it all discreetly so that they would never know, or barely notice.

 

[Syphoniera]

Hi, missigfunk,
have no suggestions to offer likely to be of use, just sympathy and - OMG what incredible fish!!!
But if you follow newfishy's suggestion of running several sponge (or box) filters off one air pump, isn't there any way you could do this in all tanks, (are your current 5 aquaria scattered around or in one room, and will your lovely new fish be with them or elsewhere?) and possibly free up a few outlets for heaters?

I'm guessing there's prob. no way of partitioning several of your other, existing tanks - don't know how big/high they are or what's in them (all bettas or other fish, tropical or not, whatever) - to add your new bettas so they don't freeze, maybe one per sectioned-off tank end or something?
The premade partitions usually don't seem to be very sturdy, although they could be braced/reinforced, (or if you're handy, made-to-measure out of sturdier materials,) and probably not high enough to prevent jumping, but I did see a DIY thing somewhere about a 'fish fence' some people made around the edges of their open-topped tank, and I expect something along those lines could be rigged over a divider as well, although it might not look very nice...

Any breeder nets big enough and secure enough, (if several of your tanks are large and understocked enough,) to use something like that to keep them separately warm in various ones, at least until summer kicks in?
Maybe with a temporary 'fish fence' supported by something flat resting on top of the tank?

I know some people have heated their fish-rooms rather than running individual heaters, but I'm guessing that wouldn't work here...

Nothing but barrel-scraping for suggestions, I'm afraid...

How horrible to have something like this coming up just when your dream fish arrive - and how the heck are you supposed to breed without electricity?
I'm sure you'll work something brilliant out, but I hope you'll pardon me for saying that this doesn't seem very reasonable, stress and illness or not, to create such potentially health-destroying stress for you by allowing you to buy such fabulous breeders and then telling you that you can't keep them in safe and healthy surroundings - and over the miniscule electrical use of a few heaters...
Good luck.

 

[missigfunk]

Thanks Syphoniera

My parents have been pretty good with me about all my tanks as I admit, I have gone a little overboard

I have a 2, 3 and 4 ft tanks, a 42L tank (which I would be using for the breeding and start of grow out tank), and I have a 30 or so litre hospital tank.

The 2 ft tank has a divider in it.
1/4 of the tank has my male CT Moey in it, and the rest of it has my recently imported HM females (7 of them)

My 3ft tank is my community tank

My 4ft tank is a newly purchased ebay special and hasn't been fully set up yet.

I have a fair few 'decent' sized breeding nets I could use in my 3ft tank.

Oh, and I still have that divided tank I got off ebay that I mentioned in the first post. I would have to do water changes every second day or so, but that doesn't bother me. It's just the temperature I am worried about, but if they can live alright in 22 degree water, then I think everything will be fine until I either set up my 4ft tank or find other arrangements.

 

[twilight_angel]

as long as you have enough knowledge on breeding such a kind of fish, do whatever you wanted...

update us when your females had gave birth already...

goodluck...

 

[missigfunk]

update us when your females had gave birth already...

Oh don't you worry.

I'll be telling EVERYONE!!!!!

 

[lilfishie]

especially if it Jovi, cause i want to steal her!

 

[missigfunk]

lilfishie

I wish I could post them over to you. I would give you one that looks closest to Jovi.

 

[tibby25731]

So you are just running heaters and filters in the 2ft, 3ft and hospital?
Tell your parents you are doing away with the hospital tank for now, and plug in an air pump with sponge filters for the 4ft, plus a heater. You have just switched 1 filter and 1 heater for 1 pump and one heater. And divide the 4ft. Use breeding nets until you have the materials to divide it properly, and then just use the 4ft for your boys.

btw - amazing fish!

 

[missigfunk]

Yeah I was thinking of turning the hospital tank into a divided tank for the boys for now, but knowing my luck I would get an outbreak of something and would need the hospital tank lol


The girls I can just put in my sorority tank, or will it be too many and will they fight because they are new?

There is heaps of hiding places in there and I had made 2 coconut caves aswell. Moey doesn't use his coconut cave so I could probably put that in there aswell.

Maybe I can move Moeys divider over a little bit to give the sorority side a little extra space?

 

[lilfishie]

i guess i'll just have to drool at all her piccys then lol am hopefully getting mine breeding in a week or two yay

 

[ibbledibble]

you say the 4ft is not set up yet, why is this? does it need some sort of repair done to it?
if not, my suggestion would be to divide it in half. then divide one half into four. that will give you four sections the same size as moeys current home, which would house him and the 3 new males, you would also have a 2ft section for the girls which should be fine for the amount of girls you have (including the 2 new ones) just make sure you bag up all the old girls, and arrange things in the tank differently, then add all girls (old and new) together and they will sort it out amongst themselves.

if you have the money to spare, it might be worth buying a new filter and getting an external type (if it includes a heater which some models do, even better!) put the intake tube in the end boys compartment, and the output at the opposite end of the tank in the sorority this will force the flow through all 5 sections and ensure its all adequately filtered and heated. the female will be better able to cope with the current than some of the males, and also have more room in their section of the tank to disperse it.

its not an ideal solution, as theres still a risk of disease spreading, but IMO 22degrees is too low, and you are more likely to suffer problems due to lowered immune systems (especially if the fish are coming from nice warm thailand) but it means everybody gets a filtered heated home, without using any extra plug sockets

and you still have the hospital tank if you need it.

the other tanks could be put away until your parents are in a better mood and you can persuade them to let you use more sockets

 

[newfishy]

I would jut take the big tank and divide it up like crazy, like a gallon per fish. might look a wee bit odd, but you could house many more bettas safely and healthy that way.

the way I do my dividers is cheap and easy, I go to the craft store and buy sheets of needle point backing, and a few suction cups. then go to an office supply place and get the plastic report spines. I used that and the price to make 4 dividers came out to less then 5 dollars.

heres a pic of how it goes together.

 

[Syphoniera]

Thanks Syphoniera

My parents have been pretty good with me about all my tanks as I admit, I have gone a little overboard

I have a 2, 3 and 4 ft tanks, a 42L tank (which I would be using for the breeding and start of grow out tank), and I have a 30 or so litre hospital tank.

The 2 ft tank has a divider in it.
1/4 of the tank has my male CT Moey in it, and the rest of it has my recently imported HM females (7 of them)

My 3ft tank is my community tank

My 4ft tank is a newly purchased ebay special and hasn't been fully set up yet.

I have a fair few 'decent' sized breeding nets I could use in my 3ft tank.

Oh, and I still have that divided tank I got off ebay that I mentioned in the first post. I would have to do water changes every second day or so, but that doesn't bother me. It's just the temperature I am worried about, but if they can live alright in 22 degree water, then I think everything will be fine until I either set up my 4ft tank or find other arrangements.

Gee, I feel hard done by because I'm limited to an eventual dozen, not counting the little Q tank, and can't have anything over 35 gal. which is my biggest - although I'll bet I could have a decent-sized tank in the rec room, if I could manage to find one suitable that's cheap enough, if I ever had money to get and do it up, if I thought I'd ever spend time down there, if I could figure out how to carry it in the house under my jacket...

I do not have MTS - I'm a astrological watersign, and it's written in the stars...