Chrs's Tank Journal

[Chrs]

This is a journal to show you how my tank has started and how it is now.

Heres the first picture that has the tank with a big driftwood decoration that started creating a toxic smell and almost killed my betta.
2nd week of cycling.

heres a picture of the tank after I took out the driftwood and cleaned everything. I went to petsmart that weekend and returned the driftwood and bought plastic plants. I also added 3 rocks from my backyard and added a plant bulb that was in my betta old tank. 3rd week of cycling. Still only a betta in it. I removed the old heater that was used when my dad had the tank set up as a kid.

Heres the tank after I took out the rocks and added two terra cotta pots. The plant bulb started growing alot.
4th week of cycling.

This is the tank after I added a piece of malaysian driftwood for the center piece. I also tried making a better cave by cracking one of the terracotta pots.
5th week of cycling

Heres some cool pictures of the current fish in the tank. The cory ones are just pictures of one of them, I have 4 of them.(all four of them are males hoping to breed).

Same one

Betta in his old tank (may be moved back for the summer)

Updates coming soon!!

 

[paul_219]

WOW cool fish. I like the cories.

 

[england]

great tank for a betta, whats the final stocking plan?

 

[Chrs]

Im either going to do this,

4 peppered cories,1 male crowntail betta, 1 coolie loach, 5 white cloud mountain minnows

this,

4 pepperd cories, 1 male crowntail betta, 9 White cloud mountain minnows

or this,

4 peppered cories, 1 male crowntail betta, 1 coolie loach, 5 endlers live bearers

I want 1 or two the most. What do you think?

 

[azzaknight]

i would go with three as whitecloud mountainminnows like cooler temps without a heater so go with the endlers

 

[Chrs]

azzaknight- I keep the temp at about 75 degrees farheniet. Would this still be okay?
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Just incase your wondering,

I've had the betta since feburary 7th And the cories since May 23rd.

The betta is 2 inches long and is from petco(how old do you think he is?)


And the cories are 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches long and theyre from petsmart.

This weekend i'm planning on picking up 1 coolie loach and 5 white cloud mountain minnows. Are the coolie loaches hard to feed? Wont they stay in the gravel all day?

 

[azzaknight]

how many corys do you have atm? whats 75 farenheit in degrees?? dont go with whiteclouds honestly, they prefer tanks without heayers or at low temps but youur betta and corys nead higher temps than the whiteclouds so go with endlers.

 

[jacko9901]

i wouldnt go with endlers. due to their longish finnage the betta will see them as a threat and probably kill them. white clouds will probably be fine as they are sold as both tropical and coldwater fish.


however it being 20 gals you could maybe if you had the room and money get a small 5-10 gallon tank for your betta and having a 20gal community setup as the betta limits on what sorts of fish you could put into it.

hope this helps

 

[bagu]

kuhli loaches need to be in groups, have you looked at dwarf chain loaches?

you could try a nice community tank?

but a betta with tetras or endlers etc is a big nono =(

 

[Chrs]

Update!
Well I decided no kuhli loaches and no WCMM and decided to go with...........GUPPIES!!! I'm planning on keeping about 5 of the fry.
Today I went to petsmart and picked up 2 red and yellow female guppies(i think theyre called "blonde" guppies) and 1 male-white,pink, and orange lyretail guppy. I also picked up some more food for the cories and bought this three foods in 1 thing that has 1 compartment of shrimp one for tropical fish granules and 2 for tropical crisps which, in my opinion, was a good buy. I got a "Lee's Net Breeder" also. How long can I keep the fry in there if its dimensions are 6x5x4? I'm also going to put the fry in my old bettas 1.5 gallon until theyre big enough to go into the community aquarium.

My betta seems to be doing well with the guppies and doen't mind them.

Any ideas on what the fry will look like for the guppies?

I'll post pictures of the guppies tommorow.

 

[azzaknight]

ive read in the betta section not to long ago that you shouldnt put bettas with guppies because with guppies having long tails and bettas having long tails the betta can mistake there tails as other bettas and might attack the guppies. it can work sometimes so i hope it works out for you!!

 

[Chrs]

Azzaknight- the betta is to lazy to care about the guppies

Hi, I forgot to mention that my betta is either sick or SUPER lazy. I usually wake up with him sticking his face under a plastic plant or with him laying on his side motionless. After a while he'll get mor active and dart to the top and then just sit in the same spot on the surface. Last night, at about 11:00 I went to bed after I watched a movie and saw the bettawith his head DUG into the space between a "leaf" on the small plastic plant in the front of my tank and the gravel and then went to bed thinking this was normal for him. This morning I woke up and he was still their so I stuck a net in and tapped the top of the plastic plant and then he came out and went a few inches higher and then layed on the rim of the terra cotta pot until he started falling down and flipped upside down. He then tried to swim upside down until he hit the same plastic plant as before and then darted along the bottom of the tank until he reached the plant in the right corner. after that he started swimming up along the plant but kept on hitting the little leaves on it until he finally hit reached the surface and took a breath. after that he swam back down and layed along the filter input and got "stuck" there so I jiggled the tube and he came off and then went and layed down. Now hes still there.

I tried taking pictures today and they turned out pretty bad because the guppies are still not used to the tank and just dart to the back every time I walk by it so, I'll just post pictures in about a week or so.

 

[Chrs]

Ok, It's been a LONG time since I posted so heres some new pistures and a update.

The Betta died early June . I moved him back to his new tank becuase he was sticking his head in the gravel again and I figured he was sick and was going to die soon so I moved him. Now the 20 gallon has 3 guppies(1 male and 2 females) and the 4 cories. On june 26 one of the guppies gave birth and then on June 28th my second one gave birth. Now I have over 40 guppy fry I'm going to "donate" the fry to petco. I'm also planning on getting an oto and a ram in about 3 or four weeks.

Now for the Pic's
Here's the male guppy(Pic doesn't do him justice) What color variation/tail type is he?

Here's the female guppy(well,one of them)

Heres pictures of all of them

Here's pictures of the Fry and their setup

I decided that it would be easier to take out the gravel and just have floating plants for easier cleaning.

What it was before the last recent tank change

Current scape of the tank

I made a cave on the right side for a Ram that I'm going to get in the future and a cave for the cories on the left side. The cory cave is just a piece of a one gallon water jug thats covered in gravel. Its dug out underneath so it looks flat when you look at the tank

 

[RShinjiro]

I had flashbacks of my own old 20 tall when i saw your pictures. My first tank was the same and oddly enough it had 4 Corydoras Paleatus in it just like yours. THough instead of a Betta I had Platys.

 

[bagu]

looks lovely mate; well done