Yaay! My beta building bubble nest.

[rita_gwen]

I just noticed it today and first I didn't realize what he is doing. Fortunately my camera was nearby, so I was able to get some footage of the process. This is YouTube link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCzWfUd71jw

I don't have intention to breed betas, but this is a proof that conditions in my tank are very comfortable if he wants to build his bubble nest. I also noticed that he became more aggressive towards cardinals which share the tank with him.

The nest was quite unstable though and disappeared after 15 min, but he's still guarding that corner of the tank and chasing away cardinals swimming nearby. :19:

[Cyberra]

I have had male bettas build nests to expansive that feeding them required poking a hole in the bubbles. You should have seen the death glares I got

[rita_gwen]

I'm sorry about your loss, Cyberra.

I have this beta for half a year and didn't see this behavior before. So naturally I'm excited about it.

[Cyberra]

Thank you.

I have two males in a divided 5-gallon who seem to be competing with each other in bubblenest-building. Constantly trying to top each other in building a bigger nest. Though I'm about 90% sure Comet is doing it just to watch Rainbow getting all bent out of shape about it

[Old Marine]

That is a Beautiful tank you have there, The video was great, Thank You for sharingthumbs2:

[mgtucax]

What a beautiful betta and tank. Is this a 10 gal tank? How many tetras share this space? Thanks for sharing!!

[rita_gwen]

Thank you. This is 29 gal rimless tank. Except beta there is six cardinals and unknown number of assassin snails. I bought four of those some time ago, but it seems like they are propagating, so now it,s definitely more then four.
Originally there was seven cardinals, but one died after I left for vacation for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure what happened to him, but he was barely alive when I came back and in a few days he was gone. I think I put too small amount of food in the automatic feeder and he just starved to death.
I'm planning to add few more cardinals to form normal school (perhaps four or five) and a few cories.

[Gogi]

Very nice tank. Thats one lucky betta to have all that room. I keep cardinals too. I have 8 and they behave differently in big groups. At one point i had 11 but 3 died and i didnt replace them since my enderlers had baby, no more room. Thanks for sharing cant wait for the next vids .

[mgtucax]

Are you running CO2 into tank to help with plant growth? The plants are very impressive.

[rita_gwen]

I do have simple sugar and yeast CO2 generator, but that was added recently, these plants mostly grew without CO2. I have Eco-complete substrate and added few root tabs when setting up this tank.
I was reluctant to add CO2 because water here is naturally very soft and have little buffering capacity. So CO2 addition can lead to significant pH shifts. I might end up buying full-blown CO2 tank system to make it more stable.

There was pretty bad blue-green algae problem for few months to the degree when plants start to die. I had to use Maracin treatment which proved very efficient and now I supplement nitrogen and CO2 to give the plants competitive advantage against BGA. BGA can bind atmospheric nitrogen and have advantage in low-nitrogen environment. Since then it was going pretty well.

[rita_gwen]

Thats one lucky betta to have all that room.

Frankly, I hate to see betas in small 2-3 gal tanks. These guys are natural explorers, I think it is cruel to keep them in bare glass jar.

[yarrrmatey]

Frankly, I hate to see betas in small 2-3 gal tanks. These guys are natural explorers, I think it is cruel to keep them in bare glass jar.

i have my betta (taylor) in a 5.5 gal with two apple snails (dave and grohl...my fiancee named them...huge foo fighters fan...

the amount of interaction my betta has with all within and around his tank is unreal. it's made me a huge proponent for giving bettas at least 5 gallons worth of space to work with and plenty of plants. i'm actively working on all my friends who have or who have family members who have bettas in vases and other junk like that. showing them the results of a water test is a great motivational tool.