[hrutan]

Hmm, but if he let me keep Buttercup, I could do more things to the 5 gallon at work. Maybe put in a couple of snails...change up the substrate to sand and get a ghost shrimp... switch out the bulb for something better and add more plants... I'd owe my boss 10 bucks though.

First thing I want to do is switch out that stupid filter. Hmmph. There really should have been some kind of change in water chemistry by now, and I'm inclined to blame that crappy filter for being crappy.

 

[Bikeridinguckgirl14]

Eeehhhh it took archy's 2.5g a month to get to the nitrate part of the cycle

 

[hrutan]

Patience is the hardest part.

 

[hrutan]

Mr. Kitty's tank looked horribly empty without the divider, the dying anacharis, and Buttercup, so I gave it a little remodel this morning. Nice surprise: I went to buy a couple of Java ferns, got them back to work, and discovered they'd been bundled in sets of two.

It's nice that Java Fern pretty much sinks on its own. I don't have anything decent to tie it to in that tank, so I squished some gravel around it without burying it, and it seems to be staying in place.

Mr. Kitty is busy ZOOMING as per usual, so he doesn't show up real well in this shot. He's in front of the filter.

 

[hrutan]

Oh, and on a random note - I had a chat with one of the cashiers at the local pet store. Apparently the manager is a big betta enthusiast, which explains how wonderfully healthy their bettas are. The cashier has a 3 year old betta of her own, which she's worried about, so I invited her to come visit us here. Hopefully, she will.

I warned her about the sorority tank of females that they had on display. The tank was plenty big, but there weren't nearly enough hiding places and there were some chunks bitten out of some of their tails. She said she'd felt the same way and would relay that information for me. We'll see what happens.

On another random note, I spotted an orange and white veiltail that looked like Phoenix's twin. He's zooming in this pic. They have him in with their aquatic plant display, which must be like some kind of betta palace, the tank is so huge.

He's orange, with a pretty white border on all of his fins. You can see a little of it in this pic. Sorry for the blur - he wouldn't hold still for me. He did look a little clamped - I think the water was a little too cold for him. Most of the squished-down look is from zooming, though.

 

[Bikeridinguckgirl14]

Aww you could have gotten a Phoenix for home and a pheonix for work, like he was always with you

 

[hrutan]

Haha, naaa. Variety is the spice of life! I have my handsome blue boy, my gorgeous-yet-tattered platinum butterfly(??), and soon my tough orange survivor. I'm feeling content with that number...it will hold me until I venture into breeding in a couple of years.

 

[cmwong27]

I don't know if the manager at my LFS loves bettas as much as yours, but they are in constant supply with fairly expensive morphs pretty frequently. I have to talk myself into getting more ALL THE TIME. Just keep telling myself "You don't have the space. You don't have the space. You don't have the space."

 

[hrutan]

I keep trying not to look and then wandering by anyway! Haha.

 

[hrutan]

Back from vacation. Buttercup is still looking healthy in his QT tank. He'd had some redness along the edge of one of his torn fins, and it looks like that has mostly cleared up. Gave him a 90% water change and a tank makeover. Re-added the java fern and pebbles after giving the rocks a thorough scrub with bleach, rinsing, and then giving a thorough rinse with water with extra conditioner to neutralize any leftovers.

The water's a little cloudy. I'm thinking about picking up a small sponge filter on my lunch break to clear it up. It doesn't seem to be bothering Buttercup - he's swimming around like he always does, with no clamping or gasping, but there's no point in taking chances, and the 3g really should be filtered, anyway.

In the future, I think I'll stick to bettas with color. I hadn't realized how I like being able to monitor color as an additional indicator of stress along with body language, and Buttercup's platinum and white can't really get any paler.

Speaking of color, I got back to work to find Mr. Kitty's tank utterly pristine. My work pet sitter did a good job. I'd scraped off algae on Wednesday, which hasn't returned, and Mr. Kitty is such a rich royal blue that he almost looks black when he's out of the light. The very tips of his ventrals have turned white. They were clear before, or maybe just not as bright. It looks striking.

I think I see regrowth on his tail. At least, I hope that's what's going on back there. I'll just have to keep an eye on it. The little butt won't let me take a picture. He never will. It also looks suspiciously like he took a new chunk out of his tail, but in a different spot. *sighs*

Still haven't cleaned the glass on the 75g. I have a little leftover Vegas money and I'm trying to decide what equipment to get. I wanted to get a lid next, but I realized that if I have an all-glass lid, there's nowhere for electrical cords to run through...how do people manage that? I'd go lidless, but my cats are idiots, and I don't want to find one drowned in the aquarium.

 

[hrutan]

Stopped by a little neighborhood pet shop yesterday. I'd expected something kind of "meh," maybe a little dingy and crowded the way these things often are. Heck, the last one I stopped by was stunning inside -- except the betta cups, of course.

I didn't expect a fish death house, and if I knew diddly about reptiles they probably wouldn't be much better. My stomach hurt when I left. All of the bettas and goldfish were in dirty water - the bettas were in vases with big stalks of bamboo in them, and left swimming around the roots - I have no idea about whether it would theoretically improve water quality, but since it didn't look clean, it probably wasn't. And one of the bettas was emaciated. If I had a place to put him...but I don't. I really don't, even though I keep seeing him. My hospital tank is occupied and my 10g is still cycling and belongs to Mr. Phoenix. I don't remember (or even know) what color the poor guy was, just the shape of his body from above...<>---- not <>==--

Life sucks sometimes. :-(

As for the glass panel with hard water stains on the 75g - OMG. I've tried baking soda and water, I've tried white vinegar, I've tried both in combination. I tried soaking paper towels in vinegar, wrapping the glass with it, and then sealing it with plastic wrap so it'd stay wet, then leaving it for 24 hours.

Nothing has worked. It's terribly frustrating!

 

[Bikeridinguckgirl14]

You can resort to bleach or a hard water cleaner

 

[hrutan]

I finally had the chance (oh, Time, you are so fleeting) to get the 75 outside and test my handiwork for leaks last night. Nothing so far, but it's gonna stay out there for a couple of days to be sure.

 

[Olympia]

Have you tried the razor? (the one you used for scraping silicon). If they are thick that should take em off...

 

[hrutan]

I have! I've tried everything that I can think of. The thick stuff I was able to scrape off with a razor, but the glass still looks cloudy and stained with what looks like water marks. There's absolutely no texture, it's perfectly smooth with no scratches or anything. The stains are clearly on the top and bottom surface, or I'd be thinking at this point that the glass is just like that.

I've tried bleach. I've tried white vinegar. I've tried baking soda and water, baking soda and vinegar, I've soaked it in vinegar for a full day...I really, really don't want to use some kind of industrial cleaner on it, so at this point it's just gonna be aggravating.

 

[Olympia]

You can erode a bit with sand paper. It will scrape off glass and cause scratches, so you'd have to be really careful with it. Basically suggesting you remove a very thin layer of glass from your tank. Might not be the best idea but if you are really frustrated by it... The marks on the inside may also disappear when the tank is filled.

 

[hrutan]

I might have some extra extra extra (super!) fine sandpaper somewhere...it won't look any worse, anyway. Haha.

 

[BambooTikiBettaGirl84]

Have you tried CLR? My dad used a small amount of it on my tank to remove white calcium and scratches on my tank. It worked fairly well, you just have to make sure you rinse the heck out of the tank after you use it.

 

[hrutan]

I thought about it, and decided to pass. Scrubbing the whole thing if I accidentally drip or splash seems intimidating, and there are spots where I have really bad leverage because I can barely reach.

 

[hrutan]

Gonna go shopping today! My roommate and I are going to go check out a couple of tropical fish specialty stores that we haven't been to yet. My results so far from this kind of expedition have been mixed - aside from my usual, kindly regarded LPS, I've been to one other (which turned out to be horrible), and one specialty aquarium shop (everything was beautiful but the bettas).

Seriously, I don't get this. If your specialty is aquariums, and every tank you have gleams like a jewel, and your fish are vibrant and healthy, you've gotta know what their basic needs are. So why wouldn't you clean the betta cups? Sheesh!

Anyway, a shopping list:
Flourish & root tabs (I keep forgetting these somehow)
Nerite Snails (0 for 3 on these(most common answer is, "huh?"))
Malaysian Trumpet Snails (0 for 3 on these)
Aquarium lid for the 75g. I need somewhere that does them custom, which is why we're cruising fish shops.

If I can't find what I want...well, I live in Los Angeles. I'll be able to find it eventually, the question is just where.