Betta Cottage

[Sarette]

Wow!!! Thanks for posting the vid, I shall be dreaming of fish now haha!
 
The tank looks brilliant, and the girls look very happy Great job xx

 

[attibones]

Thanks! I'm sorry my phone kept drifting to the floor and such.

 

[Ninjouzata]

They're gorgeous, and I love the tank! Should definitely figure out if that white/green one is aquatic or not, I would think that it isn't.
I hope that one day I can have a beautiful sorority like yours

 

[Shelster]

Yes I agree about the plants, I think a tank can never really be too heavily planted

Some lovely crypts at the front maybe?

Can I ask a potential silly question? How do you go about feeding bettas in a sorority? When I feed my boys I count the pellets/bloodworms so they get their correct amount. How do you do it with so many females? Does the hierarchy scoff a lot more and you struggle to feed the quiet ones??

Ha ha I was thinking about this last night!

 

[attibones]

Well when I open the lid in the evenings, six of the girls (including Hera who has basically established herself as HBIC) are waiting for me at the top. I open up my pellet jar (or if it is Friday, I have a capful of brine shrimp, of which they get about half) and drop pellets in front of each of those girls. As they eat, other girls realize "oh hey, noms" and come up to the top. By this point, the original six are cruising for more pellets (or shrimp) so I usually drop more pellets than the number of girls who have appeared. They eat and some get seconds. It's kind of hard to avoid. Then there are my shy ones. They stay at the bottom amongst plant stems and the caves and such because they are more comfortable there than up at the surface with all the big hosses. So I take a few pellets between my fingers, dunk my hand in the water and release them in front of the more nervous ones. They eat, but I do this one more time in the other corner of the tank so I can assume that everybody's got what they need.

I need to get like a... Um... Uh... Not a turkey baster, but similar to that? You know? Ah, snap beans. You know what I mean. Anyway, this mystery item will help me deliver food directly to the fish without having to drop extra pellets along the way.

And, yes, Shelster, I want to get more crypts like the two I've already got (wendtii and undulata), and maybe some larger species to go along with it. I want more elodea, more anubias, and more swords. I like the swords because they really do flesh out pretty quickly.

They're gorgeous, and I love the tank! Should definitely figure out if that white/green one is aquatic or not, I would think that it isn't.
I hope that one day I can have a beautiful sorority like yours

Thanks! I'll definitely look into it. I found a plant similar to mine in a different LFS listed as "semi-aquatic" so I dunno. Either way, I'm really impressed with the way things have been going lately. The girls are all really peaceful now. At first there were a few scuffles (and some of my girls are showing minor fin damage) but they've got their pecking order all sorted out so they're all cool.

 

[Wildbetta]

The plant you are calling "white sandy" is a ribbon plant which is not aquatic.  
 
Love the tank!!!  The girls appear to be settling in nicely.  When I fed my big group of girls, I would knock on the front of the tank so that they knew it was time to eat which brought everyone to the front of the tank.  Then I took some pellets and would disperse them from one end of the tank to the other that way all the girls could break up from each other and get some food.  Plus it always let some fall to the substrate for the few girls that didn't want to come to the surface.

 

[attibones]

Update time!

All the girls are doing really well. This evening when I opened the lid to feed them, fourteen of them had gathered to receive their dinner. I did my usual routine and they all started swimming between my fingertips and against my palm! They were essentially acting like cats do when they rub against a person's legs.

Also, I'm looking into the ribbon plant (thanks for the id WB!) to see how I could possibly grow it in the hospital tank which is an open tank.

Tomorrow I'm using store credit for shrimps and more plants I think. I'll post pictures when I'm back from the LFS.

 

[Shelster]

Brilliant Atti, that's great news, they are settling in so well

I'd love to have a go at this myself in the future

Looking forward to more pics

 

[Sarette]

Sounds great! I'd also love to do this myself.. 

 
Looking forward to more pics 

 

[AlitaConejita]

 I'll post pictures when I'm back from the LFS.

yay!

 

[attibones]

It appears that white ribbon plants do best with their roots submerged and leaves exposed. I am now considering a way to pot these plants so that the pots hang off the interior wall of the hospital tank. The bottoms of the pots would be submerged to the halfway point of the stem of the plant, but the rest would be emerged. Your thoughts?

 

[Wildbetta]

What kind of filter are you using?  If it is a HOB you can "plant" the ribbon plant in your filter.  That gives you extra filtration and a way to make the filter look pretty.  

 

[attibones]

I'm running a Fluval 30, and I've done as you suggested. I'm hoping the plants will do well enough in this sort of environment.

Also, today, whilst doing a water change, all the girls surrounded my siphon, swam up the vacuum part, and made me stop and start about a dozen times. I can't tell if they are being dolts, if they are just happy to be near me, or are extraordinarily curious about this item they have seen inside their tank plenty of times.

 

[AlitaConejita]

I'm running a Fluval 30, and I've done as you suggested. I'm hoping the plants will do well enough in this sort of environment.

I'm curious to see how this looks. Please post a picture if the plant does well

 

[attibones]

I'm running a Fluval 30, and I've done as you suggested. I'm hoping the plants will do well enough in this sort of environment.

I'm curious to see how this looks. Please post a picture if the plant does well

Luckily, I haven't left my house to go tutor, so I snagged a few pics.

And some of the girls: