# 5.5 gallon planted betta tank!



## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

chilis could work, yes


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## DanPlanted (Jun 15, 2015)

What light is that? PetSmart sometimes has some pretty nice TC plants in bags, some of those are good low-medium plants, they do also have some high-light plants also. One of the Petco's near me had TC cups last time I was in, so you could check either of those stores, it's normally hit or miss as to what they have, you got to go right after they get the shipment, which I never know when it is. How about some Anubias or crypts? Maybe an anubias nana. I'm always on the look for some easy to grow groundcover plants...


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

It's a 6500k beamswork LED, I'm not super sure what it's capable of growing but I'm fairly sure it should put me in low-medium range. I'll just have to test it out with different plants. I might get crypts but they would have to be a smaller variety. I love how anubias nana petite looks so I might use that. 


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

The tank finally cleared up, I should be able to remove the AC tonight. 


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## FishRFriendz (Dec 21, 2016)

Looks like a start to an iwagumi scape. Nice rock, like the striations going up to the left. What are you gonna use for foreground?


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

FishRFriendz said:


> Looks like a start to an iwagumi scape. Nice rock, like the striations going up to the left. What are you gonna use for foreground?




I think I want to use AR mini in the front surrounding the rock but other than that I'm not sure. I'm open to all low-medium light plant suggestions. 










Completely cleared, will be removing the AC. 


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

UPDATE: 6 DAYS INTO TANK
So I went to petsmart to pick up some plants,








There were so many plants in the tissue culture pack that I had a good amount extra.
The tank is kind of a mess right now but I just want to let the plants grow out a little bit. 
The betta seems to be enjoying his new plants, I'm also going to have to buy some floating water lettuce for shade and cover for the betta.








I've always wanted a rosette sword because I like the look of amazon swords so I'm loving that. I may add a few shrimp into this tank soon! 


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

Side note:
I'm planning a complete redesign for a 7.5 gallon cube that has another betta in it. 2 questions:
Should I post progress here? Eco Complete or Fluval Stratum?


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## FishRFriendz (Dec 21, 2016)

justinmo said:


> Side note:
> I'm planning a complete redesign for a 7.5 gallon cube that has another betta in it. 2 questions:
> Should I post progress here? Eco Complete or Fluval Stratum?
> 
> ...


Post another thread, easier to find later [emoji12] 

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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

UPDATE. DAY 7 
I got more supplies but it's just in general,
I'll probably be switching out my current heater for a 50w as right now it's not super reliable heating up such a large amount of water.








Tank seems a bit cloudy, might be because I cleaned the filter a little bit. There's a little root growth on the AR, and a few tiny leaves on the sword. There's algae growth on the left side of the tank :/ 


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## FishRFriendz (Dec 21, 2016)

How are you anchoring the anubias nana? It kinda looks like it might be buried there in the foreground. Did it come with much root structure? Seems there was a nice amount of them in the bag. TC plants I've gotten didn't have much for roots.

Still planning on Chili Rasboras? They're good for 68F-82F. You shouldn't have to raise the temp much from ambient room temps anyways. In my house I like it to be around 70F room temp anyways. My retired in-laws staying with us all day essentially means the house is always appropriate temp. 

Tho it is good to have a heater that can bring the temps up if you need to treat ich. I made the mistake of giving my neighbor a preset heater... she went and bought fish that had ich! I swapped out the preset heater I gave her with my water change heater so she could beat the disease.


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

man I wish my Petco sold plants in vitro, only petsmart does that though I believe.


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

FishRFriendz said:


> How are you anchoring the anubias nana? It kinda looks like it might be buried there in the foreground. Did it come with much root structure? Seems there was a nice amount of them in the bag. TC plants I've gotten didn't have much for roots.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I made sure to just lightly plant the Anubias, the rhizomes are out of the substrate  It came with a little bit of root structure. I'm still not sure if I'm getting chili rasboras but while another tank is getting ready I'll have to put that off for a while. I ordered eco complete, should be here by tomorrow  and also BettaBettas, my petco also sells some TC plants and the tube plants. The TC is like crypts, bucephalandra, hair grass. They don't always look super great though and petsmart has more quantity and variety.



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## FishRFriendz (Dec 21, 2016)

justinmo said:


> my petco also sells some TC plants and the tube plants. The TC is like crypts, bucephalandra, hair grass. They don't always look super great though and petsmart has more quantity and variety.


Petco can place orders for pretty much anything on their affiliated site Aquarium Fish: Tropical Freshwater Fish and Saltwater Fish for Home Aquariums but charge you the super cheap in-store price. 

It's too bad your Petco isn't so good. The one near me has some pretty awesome and knowledgeable aquarium staff. One guy I talked to was really into plants and keeps their store stocked with a good variety. And other day I saw a lady refuse to sell a customer a feeder gold fish cuz her tank was too small, and she wasn't using it as food. Same girl was also trying to get a customer to buy plants to deal with nitrates cuz the customer said she changed the water like once a month.


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

Ok so I made a new thread about my 7.5 gallon cube but immediately regretted it and hopefully it gets lost in the forums [emoji23] I'll be following up here instead. So basically first I set up my cube tank and that took hours.







and realized the next day I didn't like how it looked  I decided to try a different tank with that similar aquascape. So I took out my standard 10 gallon which I didn't know how I wanted to scape beforehand (the reason why it was left empty for a couple months) The product of that was









I like it a bit more because it has more space for new plants I've been wanting to try whereas the other tank had no space. Now I need to buy a light and I'm looking into the Current USA Satellite (the smaller one) but won't be getting that for a while so the old light will hopefully be fine for now. 


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

In other notes it's 
WEEK 2/DAY 14
The tank is doing great, lots of root growth, what bugs me is the algae growth.. One side of the tank has a row of 2 white leds without any blue leds in between which is throwing off the balance and makes one side of the tank "warmer" in color than the other. It's not super noticeable but it causes lots of algae growth on one side and it seems like slower growth on that side as well. Well at least the plants are all growing well. 











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## Hephaestus (Feb 2, 2017)

Is that cube the Deep Blue 7.5gal (12x12x12)? I just set one of those up this weekend, doing a dry start method. I'll probably start a journal for it soon. They're nice tanks and pretty cheap for rimless.

I like the scape in either the 7.5gal or the 10gal. It is nice that there's a little more room for planting in the 10gal. You could do a carpet plant in the front that goes around that open end on the right. I think that would like nice. Monte carlo might work well.


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

Hephaestus said:


> Is that cube the Deep Blue 7.5gal (12x12x12)? I just set one of those up this weekend, doing a dry start method. I'll probably start a journal for it soon. They're nice tanks and pretty cheap for rimless.
> 
> 
> 
> I like the scape in either the 7.5gal or the 10gal. It is nice that there's a little more room for planting in the 10gal. You could do a carpet plant in the front that goes around that open end on the right. I think that would like nice. Monte carlo might work well.




Yeah it is, it's pretty affordable but I had to pay a lot for shipping. Thanks! That would look nice, a carpet plant, I'm looking into getting lots of java fern for the right side and ludwigia repens. You should for sure start a journal by the way!


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## FishRFriendz (Dec 21, 2016)

justinmo said:


> Yeah it is, it's pretty affordable but I had to pay a lot for shipping.


Huh, amazon only has the Deep Blue 8" cube and some 20"+ cubes. The photos of the 8" are bad(they should update the photo), and every time I see a standard cube (especially the poor pics of the 8" on amazon) I feel like going to Home Depot, picking up five 11x14 glass panels($3.50ea), and a glass cutter($3) and DIY either an 11" cube or 14x11x11 for $20 (already have silicone and gun). 

So I end up looking at special features like either curved corner glass (pen plax radius 5/7/10gal), or 45 degree mitered corners with low iron glass(ultum 25C). /sigh I'll prolly end up with a $1/g sale 5 or 10 lol


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

Update: DAY 19








There is sooo much green hair algae anyone know how to reduce this? It's over the rock and plants on the left side,  it's getting really annoying, I'm planning on doing a clean up of the tank soon and spraying it down with a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution. On the other hand, everything is growing super well, again still less growth on the left side but not terrible. The AR seems super happy and the rosette sword is shooting out new leaves every day, though it has a tiny bit of algae on it. 

10 gallon update:






















This tank looks terrible  I might also do the hydrogen peroxide water spray but does anyone know how to get rid of brown (?) algae? All the leaves of my plants are covered in a brown algae and I'm not sure how to fix it.



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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

1 MONTH+ 2 DAYS: DAY 33
it's been a while since I last updated, sadly my betta, Gould died  I've also let this tank go for a while and it was a mess. There was algae everywhere, diatoms, green spot algae, fuzz algae, green hair algae. It was choking my tank. 








Does anyone know what the algae that forms like a floating mat in the water is called? I'm thinking it's hair algae. All my plants were covered. I also introduced water lettuce a week ago and it's thriving here. I have it in another tank as well but it loves this tank, my duckweed not so much 

Someone please recommend how I should lower the fuzz algae and hair algae in my tank!

I did a restart of this whole tank today. I drained the water and added some more substrate, I scrubbed the walls with a sponge and sprayed everything down with a hydrogen peroxide mixture. I did the same to my rock and scrubbed the algae off as well. I moved the positioning of the rock. I added some bacopa and threw out the ones covered with algae. 

This is the tank now!









It's ready for another betta! Of course, once I'm ready.

The 10 gallon looks so terrible and the plants are all dying that I don't want to show pics until I get that under control.


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## justinmo (Nov 3, 2016)

This is a picture with the floating plants 


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