Banasophia's Fresh Start: The IM Nuvo 12 g Atoll

[banasophia]

I’m going to take the nozzle off and see if that decreases the speed of the flow. 

[banasophia]

Well the nozzle idea didn’t really help so I put it back on. I did get some smaller Hikari pellets from Petco which he slurped right up... he seems to have a good appetite. 

 

He also seems to enjoy swimming around in the flow… he appears to intentionally swim into the area with more of a current and lets it carry him until his fins catch on the crypt then he swims back into the flow again… I hope he doesn’t get hurt!
 

There are certainly lower flow areas of the tank he could hang out in if he wanted to. Sometimes he goes and floats under the floating plants in the back left corner. I am worried about him tearing his fins or wearing himself out too much, but hopefully he has enough of a survival instinct to rest when he needs to. 
 

Lights are out for the night… we’ll see how he’s doing in the morning. 

[banasophia]

Good news… the pump was adjustable… just turned it down to its lowest setting. It’s so noisy though. It’s an Aquatop from my LFS. 

[growsomething]

A favorite food of my bettas were mosquito larvae.  Really seemed to make them come alive, and free food, too!

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, growsomething said:

A favorite food of my bettas were mosquito larvae.  Really seemed to make them come alive, and free 

 

Where did you get them? 
 

Zava made it through the night. 😅 The flash woke him up. 🥱 

 

[growsomething]

58 minutes ago, banasophia said:

 

Where did you get them? 
 

Zava made it through the night. 😅 The flash woke him up. 🥱 

 

Set out a 1g container of tank water outside in FL.  Wait 30 min.

😁

 

 

I harvested every few days in the summer.  It seems good for betta's psyche and they can spend an hour hunting them in a 1 g. planted jar.  They hide but seem to need to come to the surface every minute or so and that's when they get nailed.  Never had any survive more than an hour, so no worries about hatching into the house.

[ml86743]

3 hours ago, growsomething said:

Set out a 1g container of tank water outside in FL.  Wait 30 min.

😁

 

 

I harvested every few days in the summer.  It seems good for betta's psyche and they can spend an hour hunting them in a 1 g. planted jar.  They hide but seem to need to come to the surface every minute or so and that's when they get nailed.  Never had any survive more than an hour, so no worries about hatching into the house.

The mosquito larvae are a great idea for betas! 

 

Tank is looking great sophia.  Love how you scaped/planted it. 

[banasophia]

8 hours ago, ml86743 said:

The mosquito larvae are a great idea for betas! 

 

Tank is looking great sophia.  Love how you scaped/planted it. 

Thanks so much, it will be fun to see how everything grows in.

 

Some of the plants are starting to grow already… check out this ludwigia, back behind the ghostwood, it’s already growing up out of the water. It’s more of a brown rather than a red, but I’m liking it!

 

 

[banasophia]

Good call, my friends, on recommending a white betta… he does really stand out in the tank.

 

The tannins are building up though… I look forward to having clearer water over time. It also may look more brown in the photos because I have the lights on only 20% right now… I’ll try to get pics with the lights up higher in the next couple days.
 

Not really sure what percentage I should run them at yet, and I’ll be setting up a timer once I can swap out timers with our alligator lizard tank… I think the lizard tank timer will allow me to more easily run a split light schedule. 
 

[banasophia]

And I’d be pretty worried about this bizarre behavior if I hadn’t known before I ordered the cryptocorynes… I actually put that plant there near the front thinking this might happen and it did! 

 

 

 

 

Check out this YouTuber‘s betta interacting with different types of plants:

 

 

[banasophia]

Zava 💕 He’s pretty photogenic, like Hank… 

 

 

 

 

 

[debbeach13]

He is beautiful. 

[banasophia]

Did a 2 gallon water change early this morning before work because it was too late after the water changes on my saltwater tanks last night… I think I’ll plan to do salt and fresh on different days anyway to avoid any mixups.

 

The water change didn’t go too smoothly. I had bought a new bucket with a lid and a new water change pump… totally underestimated how powerful the pump would be and blasted the substrate in one spot and uprooted some plants. Replanted without too much trouble though.

 

The fish all seem to be doing well. I was able to count all 7 embers and cories, only able to count 3 otos but they are hard to spot since they’re usually attached to leaves or the driftwood and they are really small so hopefully the 4th one is still in there and okay, and Zava is doing well too. He seems to like his tank mates. 
 

The floating plants seem to be multiplying! And I trimmed the ludwigia in the back left because several stems were growing out of the water. 
 

One other mishap was that I left the cucumber slice for the otos in too long last time and it disintegrated. Need to be sure to take it out the next morning when I leave it in overnight. 😬😬😬
 

[Lebowski_]

That is a happy Betta

[banasophia]

3 hours ago, Lebowski_ said:

That is a happy Betta

I hope so. It has been interesting to see that he seems to prefer to swim in the area with the most current and seems to like the company of the other fish… I had really expected him to keep more to himself in the back left where it seems more calm.

 

I think he’s pretty mad right now though that there’s a cucumber slice and a plant right in his favorite spot. I wasn’t thinking when I replanted that hydrocotyle Japan there yesterday when it got uprooted… I was in a rush to start work. Will have to fix it later today.

 

[banasophia]

Moved the offending plant that was blocking Zava’s favorite spot and took out the cucumber this morning… I need the otos to focus on the algae building up in the tank rather thank filling up on cucumber. And I think I should have picked up a nerite snail for the back chambers while I was at the LFS/LRS for crickets today… the light shines into the back chambers so I’m seeing some definite algae growth back there!

 

I had to remove a bowl full of floaters today too… they are growing so fast there was almost no surface space for feeding the fish!

 

And check out this post that popped up on my IG today… I’ll try this next time I do my water change to see if it helps prevent the plants from being uprooted. 

 

[Lebowski_]

Insta is always listening 

 

[sapling]

On 4/30/2023 at 11:47 PM, banasophia said:

Good news… the pump was adjustable… just turned it down to its lowest setting. It’s so noisy though. It’s an Aquatop from my LFS. 

sounds like you got a fix there, but if its still too strong for the betta,

The trick Ive seen and done with returns for bettas is to poke holes into the tubing of the return pump, common thing to do with the fluval spec v tank's returns for bettas. 

 

if you arent using already, activated charcoal should help with the tannins plus WC and patience haha,

if not iirc the cories, tetras, and otos enjoy the blackwater, happy to see otos do well, they tend to last once they past the hump of being introduced to the tank. I also enjoy ember tetras haha, have a school of 12 of them in my own fw tank,

the cup looks like a cheap option for sure, if you have a spare plastic colander with a handle, that does the trick great too,
 

[banasophia]

Thanks, yes, I turned down the flow on the pump so that fixed the high flow problem. Now I’m have a problem with developing a film on the surface though. And I’m also getting algae at this point so I have to cut back on the lights.

 

I am using chemipure green, so that may be helping some with the tannins… thinking it’s probably just gonna take time for them to be depleted. I’m glad they’re probably not harmful, that’s most important, but I would like to ultimately have clear water from an aesthetic perspective. 

[banasophia]

Okay guys… this YouTuber just cracked me up… check him out! He also shows a great way to remove surface film from a tank.

 

 

 

[banasophia]

Nighty night 😴

 

 

[banasophia]

Check out this cool idea for controlling duckweed:

 

[Lebowski_]

Want to know something depressing?

 

We used to get boxes of bettas at an LFS and they would be in tiny little bags of water with only a tablespoon of water. The bag would be like a triangular prism where each edge is only 2" long. And if we didn't have enough space, some of those bettas would stay in those bags for days.

 

It's why I got out of the hobby after quitting that job. I saw the absolutely horrific conditions these fish are put in, especially the wild caught stuff. That store was a big brand store and was considered decent commpared to Petsmart down the road...God only knows what their loss rate was.

 

That's why these days I have the utmost respect for people who put more than the minimum effort possible into keeping their animals alive. Minimum tank size is just that - a minimum.

 

Anyways, that's my heartfelt rant of the day. Glad to be back in the hobby but with a very different perspective this time.

[LazyFish]

You may have said but I probly mised it. Is that a custom top? 

The atoll looks great as a planted tank.

[banasophia]

14 hours ago, Lebowski_ said:

Want to know something depressing?

 

We used to get boxes of bettas at an LFS and they would be in tiny little bags of water with only a tablespoon of water. The bag would be like a triangular prism where each edge is only 2" long. And if we didn't have enough space, some of those bettas would stay in those bags for days.

 

It's why I got out of the hobby after quitting that job. I saw the absolutely horrific conditions these fish are put in, especially the wild caught stuff. That store was a big brand store and was considered decent commpared to Petsmart down the road...God only knows what their loss rate was.

 

That's why these days I have the utmost respect for people who put more than the minimum effort possible into keeping their animals alive. Minimum tank size is just that - a minimum.

 

Anyways, that's my heartfelt rant of the day. Glad to be back in the hobby but with a very different perspective this time.

That is truly heartbreaking. And even more so if they are wild caught. 😢 Why would people think that’s okay to do to a fish?
 

Sometimes I get sad when I walk through the aisles of my LFSs, but I do tell myself that just like with keeping animals in zoos, there are real benefits to fish keeping.
 

I just looked this subject up on Chat GPT, here’s what it said if anyone is interested: