My little 30g planted

[MyBirdIsEvil]

This is my little 30g. It has a betta, two bumblebee gobies, two peacock gudgeons, and 5 baby bristlenose plecos (my mother in law's spawned a bunch of babies ), and a couple of snails.
The aquatic plants are aponogeton (the green grassy ones) and tiger lotus (both grew from dry bulbs from Walmart). The semi aquatics are red mangrove (left) and lucky bamboo. (right)
All I have is a double t5 fluorescent strip from Home Depot hanging over it.
I like the tank, but I'm kind of thinking I need to add a bit of blue light, because the yellow plant light does NOT do wonders for pictures lol.

http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/b.../Planted%2030/

Above you can see my tank over several months and what I started out with (most of the stuff did well but I got bored with a few of the plants like the pothos and removed them). Also, once the mangroves and lucky bamboo got tall enough to be on the bottom and still reach out of the water I removed the pots. The closeup of the one lily bulb is from oct 17th apparently of last year, so you can see how much they've grown since then. The lilys are from just two bulbs that kept making new rooted plants, and I'd break them off and move them. The aponogeton is from one bulb and now there's 3 individual plants.
The tank is super low maintenance and was cheap to set up. Everything in it is stuff beginners could grow and maintain easily also. The only filter in there is a corner air driven box filter (got it already cycled from my friend's fish store), and along with the plants it does a great job. The only key I think is to stock very lightly with fish, and do periodic water changes so the tank stays stable and algae free. Though, I do also top off with RO water since the tank is lidless which leads to a lot of evap, and I don't want the water chemistry to get out of whack (much like with a saltwater tank, minerals and salt don't evaporate. so topping off with regular water would eventually raise the mineral content to very high levels). Someone without an RO unit could easily top off a tank of this size with distilled though.

[MyBirdIsEvil]

Wow, didn't quite mean to make my post that long. I figure if someone new to plants wanted to do something similar they might find the info helpful though.

Oh and I did forget to add that I also add liquid iron supplement about every two weeks.

[chico2]

MBIE,it looks great,so much better with live plants...I have not had an aquarium for a long time,so excuse my ignorans,but will not the Betta eat the other fish??
I love plecos,I had one who grew from a couple of inches to half a foot,loved him.

[MyBirdIsEvil]

Thanks

The other fish are too big for the betta to eat. He did chase them when they were first added but they were way too fast for him and he'd lose sight of them behind plants and stuff. So he eventually got bored with it. Now they all come to the top and eat together and he pays no attention. There's one baby pleco he might have been able to eat, but he never even noticed them being added; he only cares about stuff that swims around, not stick to glass.
The only living thing my betta ever ate was shrimp, which they're known to do. They were pretty big shrimp, and he ignored them for quite a long time, but then they molted and they were goners.

[hazelrunpack]

That's pretty cool, MBIE. What do you plant them in--some sort of special substrate? I like the ones toward the center the best--are those the tiger lotus? The stems make such a graceful arc.

I knew that male bettas didn't like other male bettas, but I had no idea they'd try to eat other types of fish!

[shirley1011]

but MyBirdisEvil...what was the outcome of the results from the tests done on your poor dogs.

I have always thought so much about them and how much you and your hubby cared for them....Walnut was such a sweetheart..I so enjoyed meeting him.

[MyBirdIsEvil]

Originally Posted by shirley1011

but MyBirdisEvil...what was the outcome of the results from the tests done on your poor dogs.

I have always thought so much about them and how much you and your hubby cared for them....Walnut was such a sweetheart..I so enjoyed meeting him.

Believe it or not I STILL don't know. It's not the vet's faults, it's the lab, and they're not sure what the deal is with them. Makes me wonder if it wasn't some weird chemical that's not real common and that's why it's taking so long . If it was something common like rat poison you'd think the results woulda come back pretty quick. It's already been about a year and as far as I know it generally doesn't take more than 6 months.
Luckily though my other dogs are doing just fine just so everyone knows (I still have Bheka and Morgan, and I have a little old dog I just inherited from my cousin who passed away. I'll post some pics soon.)
I still have most of the kittens too (well, cats now). And with the flooding there's even more animals homeless, so I guess they're here to stay.

That's pretty cool, MBIE. What do you plant them in--some sort of special substrate? I like the ones toward the center the best--are those the tiger lotus? The stems make such a graceful arc.

They're red tiger lotus, yes.

Everything is planted in Eco Complete plant substrate.

Bettas really don't try to eat other fish btw (maybe small fry at the most). But they sometimes don't get along with other colorful fish similar to bettas. Most fish are way faster than them though, even the shortfin plakat varieties like mine. Plus bettas are pretty lazy, so they get bored after awhile of not being able to chase down the other fish.
Shrimp, though, are like little betta treats to many of them. Even if they're pretty large shrimp they'll rip them apart. The last one mine ate, he was carrying around the decapitated body flaring at me and shaking his head back and forth as if he was extremely proud of himself. He came right up to the glass to display his prize .