Double overhaul

So I redid Coda's tetra cube yesterday as planned, but since I had some plants leftover I did Zeta's as well!

Plants are anacharis, dwarf hairgrass, wisteria, java fern and dwarf lily. The lily looks to be melting a bit, but otherwise everything is doing well. Just worried about the anacharis since I dose Excel and I've heard they don't do well with it. We'll see how it goes!

I put the extra wisteria and a crypt in Zeta's. He's loving it in there :) I think I want an anubias to go behind the helmet, or anchored to one of the horns. And I'm still waiting on some cholla wood in the mail to put in both tanks.

Bonus of the (snail?) eggs I found on the wisteria in Zeta's tank. I could end up with snails in three tanks (floating the leftover wisteria in Lola's critter keeper). e_e

Lola!

I got up a little earlier today and so was able to get a few decent photos of Lola with the morning light. Not the best, but they show her coloring well. Her fins are mostly red, with a bit of blue, and dark blue scaling on the top part of her body. The rest of her I thought was black but almost looks dark brown, though it's hard to tell because her water is quite tanned.

She's doing very well, more active and not quite so skittish. We were a little worried because she wasn't active at all the first few days, and I'd seen her a couple times in the pet store so I know she'd been in that cup a while. She has the feeding routine down and eats everything I give her, and looks like she's grown a bit since I brought her home.

Photo post - Nova

Tetra cube plans

I've only had Coda's tank set up for about a month and I'm already planning to completely redo it. Even though I really like the purple and yellow of the silk plants I definitely want a very natural looking tank, possibly a blackwater type setup. I've got a bunch of plants and a new light ordered, and some cholla wood on the way. I need a darker substrate, probably Flourite, but I'm still not sure if I want to go NPT and use potting soil as well. I'm thinking with the plants I've got it's not really necessary. All that's left will be to get my hands on a nice piece of driftwood!

Coda himself is still destroying his fins...I noticed today that some of his dorsal fin was bitten off. I haven't actually seen him biting, and he's acting and eating normally so I'm not going to worry about it too much just yet.

Picture post

tail biter!

Coda's top caudal fin is completely shredded, even more so now than when I took this picture. At first I thought he'd gotten caught between his floating log and the tank, but the shredding continued after I removed the log. Pretty sure now it's just tail biting, hopefully not from stress. He does have a horizontal stress stripe, which he's had since I got him, but I don't know what could be stressing him short of the filter. I baffled the outflow when I first got the tank and today I put sponge around the intake as well. It could be that his fins were too long for his liking, or he could just be bored. I haven't actually seen him biting though. I did an 80% water change and loaded his tank up with IAL so hopefully it'll help a bit. Will just have to keep an eye on him.

EDIT: I thought Coda might have butterfly coloring, but looking at this picture...I'm wondering if he bit his fins off before and the lighter parts are just new fins that have grown in. He might be even more of a brat than Zeta e_e

Splendens

Just a little introduction to my splendens. I currently have four, all pet store rescues. I've gotten all four of them within the last couple of months and they've been great so far.

My veiltail Zeta was the first betta I bought, and he seems to have the most spunk and personality of my four. He flares way more than the others and split his fins up a bit because of it, but I've taken care of the reflections in his tank and they're healing up now.

Nova is my elephant ear halfmoon plakat, bought him on Halloween! After a couple days of weird behavior and no appetite I discovered that he had velvet, so I treated him with Cupramine for about five days and there hasn't been any sign of it since. He's doing great, and becoming more and more active to the point where I think I should get him a bigger tank soon.

Coda, the double tail. He's still fairly new but doing really well so far. His ventricle fins are super curled, but they're looking a bit better since I got him so I'm thinking they'll fix themselves eventually. I keep his water tanned with indian almond leaves, hopefully that will help with the curling.

Lola is my newest and only female. She was labeled as crowntail but I'm thinking she's just a regular plakat? Not sure if there is a difference. She was super shy at first, but she's becoming a little more active each day and eating well.