Yes it is... it turns brown because of the tannins released by the leaves. When you remove the brown (the tannins) then all the beneficial properties will be gone too...
It's controversial whether it makes them healthier... it does simulate their natural habitat and many (including myself) see improvement in their betta's overall health when using it. Here's a site generally discussing IAL and what many believe. In the end you'll have to make your own decision about its beneficial properties.
A couple of my girls had clamped fins and the beginnings of fin rot.. after a couple days in super concentrated IAL water they recovered completely! I keep IAL in their tanks all the time now. If you want to make it look better then I suggest decorating with a natural feed to it (driftwood, lots of plants). Then the brown water looks like it should be there.
do i still need to use water conditioner along with it or can i just forget about that all together?
im gonna be using them as infursia for my new fry once they come and after 2 weeks start feeding them the live baby bring shrimp, then onto bloodworms/pellets.
yea im eventually going to clean up the tank, but right now its the breeding tank for the fry so im gonna start getting it ready for that. but i am gonna eventually be putting substrate/live plants in it once the fry are all grown. i will probably have like a couple female betta in there and maybe some crabs/snails and some tetra in there. along with my squidward house which i can't wait to see. im gonna be putting the live plants in there for the breeding though. infusia from that as well right?
I'm not 100% but I don't think IAL produces infusoria. Live plants definitely do though.and yes you'll still need to use water conditioner to remove the heavy metals.
I thought it looked like a breeding tank lol. Good luck on your spawn
yep thank you. it's my first time but i've been doing tons of research. somehow missed cycling of the tank, but finally figured that out. i am gonna be adding live plants and then put a piece of shrimp in there. only thing i cant find out is when to test the water, since i think i have a limited amount of test supplies. i know you need to watch for spikes/falls of ph levels and nitrite/nitrate but when do you know? i think ill leave the shrimp in there for like 5 days, then test the levels and if they are at zero then i should be good right? then a few days later test the nitrate and see if it eventually goes back down to zero? well anyways, yeah i figured almond leaves weren't enough to feed so im gonna get some live plants.
and that site said the leaves do make infusia. but yeah i just found out that that color is fine with me. it produces more of a stream type water that these fish live in and it's fine with me as long as it's healthy. besides, looks mean nothing. i found out in more than one occasion in life. had a cute girlfriend she was mean. had nice looking water, it was mean to my fish. had nice looking headphones but my ugly ones sounded way better.
Oh no, cycling takes a lot longer than a few days...it takes about a month to do, though if you add live plants it should help speed up the proccess. If you have a petstore, a lot of them will also test the water for you if you bring them a small sample.
yeah but i already bought a test kit, and yes i know it takes that long...
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