Love your betta. It'll be nice to put more plants in the future. Bettas love to have more places to hide and explore

Ludwigia sedioides - I found some at Nilufar. Very pretty. This was like a month ago. Oh.. I forgot. Try Sungai Buloh. The guy though, tried to sell them to me along with a humongous pot. Said he wouldn't sell separately. It's a shop selling just pots... gosh I can't remember which lot though. Maybe you can sweet talk him into selling them to you. Am also looking for it.

This may be off topic, but to me keeping a betta is just like keeping any other fish: 1. regular water change to avoid build up of ammonia, 2. space 9.5 L (or 2.5 gallons) and up is ideal (but smaller containers with religious WC are okay too, depending on the size of bettas) , 3. good quality betta food they're carnivores, they can't eat normal fish food. Fin rot is mainly caused by ammonia build up, can easily be remedied with clean water and aquarium salt if the fin rot is severe. You can also put a piece of ketapang leaf in your betta tank. It'll also be ideal to have a filter, although not necessary, because you can do less frequent water change when the tank is fully cycled. This link is useful : Water change schedule based on water volume . Having a planted tank with or without filtration is beneficial for the bettas in so many ways. Especially the floating plants. My tap water usually has 10 - 20 ppm of nitrates in it but after 3 days, when I tested the water parameters, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are 0 in my betta containers which are half covered by floating plants.

So good luck

Sniper: the dorsal fin looks a bit tattered but I can't say for sure. Halfmoon bettas tend to bite their own fins for many reasons, most unknown, sometimes boredom, or stress. The fin in fin rot usually has black or red edges and the egdes itself look frayed. I wouldn't worry about it if you keep a tight schedule on the water change. Monitor the water parameter if you have a test kit. and your plants will help. the floating ones will propagate like crazy with enough light/sunlight.

kytz: It happened to most of my halfmoon bettas. If not fin rot, it's tail biting. I kept them in these 2 gallons plastic containers. I think they were stressed out because like you, I did everything I could, alternate day WC. I bought them all nice and in a few weeks their tails were frayed. So I borrowed my mom's big ceramic containers, about 6 gallons or so, put some ketapang leaves, plenty of floating plants and released them in their respective containers. The next day they were flaring, more active, and their appetite improved tremendously. I do only do weekly 50-60 % WC with them in the containers. 2 months after they were first transferred, their fins were restored although a bit lighter coloured, they grew larger and overall healthier.

I do not know if it's the extra space/volume of water, or the ketapang leaves or the darker environment that makes them healthier and happier (I assume they're happy). I bought those long plastic planters, those Baba brands you find in garden nurseries with stoppered holes at the side and bottom to put the newly bought bettas in. They can also hold like 6 gallons of water. The downside to it is that 1. you can't see them only from the top, 2. those things may be awkward if placed indoors. But my bettas and floating plants love them. Maybe you can give them another try then

PS: Another thing i find weird, maybe if anyone care to explain this is that before this I used my filter, just one of those small Panasonic filter you install in the kitchen sink, definitely not RO water. The thing is for my well filtered planted tanks, my fish and shrimps do fine in them but the bettas in unfiltered containers got quite lethargic. Whereas the betta I have upstairs are doing quite well with normal treated tap water. Maybe it's just coincidence? Maybe there's not much trace elements in the filtered water. Anyway, I've stopped using filtered water for all my tanks. Using the filtered water in the first place was just for my own peace of mind in case I forgot to add Prime.

This post has been edited by NiniWahab: Jan 16 2015, 03:22 PM

Sniper: Not necessarily, some are sociable than others. One of mine comes to the surface and plays with my fingers every time I feed him. Another one is perfectly happy in the original 2 gallon container. By happy, I mean, he is thriving, active and not sick.

They do love their bloodworms Bettas are quite intelligent. It's good that you interact with yours. He'll soon be following your movement the moment you enter the room. Another good reason to put floating plant in your tank is to discourage the betta from jumping out of the tank. They can jump. Mine aren't good jumpers (so far) so I don't have to put a lid on the containers

Hi guys.
Gosh I haven't been here in quite a while. Anyway, my hi-tech tank has gone natural this past year or more as i have been quite busy. Not much problem until this evening when I planted hydrocotyle species (pegaga) bought from my LFS.

Bought yesterday, soaked them in a bucket of water for about 24 hours and had them prepared to be planted in my 2 feet tank. After planting, I felt dizzy, i experienced nausea and vomited. thought it was just a stomach problem. that was until an hour later I saw my green tetras which I have had for more than a year were dying!!

i strongly suspect pesticide. I lost 3 of them before i could pluck off the plant and did 70% water change immediately. my questions are: 1. is there a species of hydrocotyle which are known to be harmful to humans and aquatic life alike? 2. if it was pesticide or any other poison, is there anything else I should be doing. I am going to do another water change in the morning before work.

I feel like kicking myself as I have bought the same species of plant from the same shop a year ago and it totally wiped my entire collection of betta fish! And it did not cross my mind at all until i saw it happened again this evening arrgh! Thank you in advance for your help. Nini

This post has been edited by NiniWahab: May 3 2016, 11:23 PM