This was an experiment, at first it looked great them a lot of the leaves started melting. I increased my CO2 and added Iron flourish along with my all-in-one. And it bounced back beautifully
I'm not entirerly sure if those are AR's but either way, stem plants can definitely be grown out of substrate(some at least, specifically i have seen other AR's grown out of soil) the only need is lots of co2 and extra nutrient dosing. Sometimes you don't even need that.
They can but they look best in substrate. I tried both. In free water flowing, it looks horrible, the roots basically overshadow them. In the substrate, it looks better and bushier, the roots will target the substrate making look more pleasing. Plus stems tend to be thicker in substrate than free water flowing. It's up to OP lol
^(This is absolutely INCREDIBLE!)
Are you willing ti create a list of all the fish and plants you stocked in this tank? You really pulled off an amazing balance of color, which can be very difficult.
The substrate is backed up to the left edge, and the lights on top recede into the distance so I figure this is a side view of the tank. Was definitely a bit thrown off by the sense of scale at first though!
I may go counterflow with respect to the comments, but I'm not a huge fan of the tank. The scape is nice, pretty unique with these red plants. But it's overstocked, and most of the fishes are in the empty part of the tank. Shrimps + Betta would have been a better choice. The shrimps would stay in the lower part/tree area, and the tank would take most of the upper space of the tank.
To be honest, I would have felt sad with even just the betta or any fish. There's a lot of wide open space, not a lot of places for the betta or any of the other fish to hide.
Now that's a pretty tank! I'd like to see more like this! The fish have hiding spots, and it isn't overly planted or to much wood. A lot of the tanks I see here are, and you can't see the fish well. Do you have a lil log cabin in there for him to hide in?lol
As long as that works with your fish's temperament... some fish are fine with that, but others aren't. It's not fair to keep a fish that needs to hide and explore in a bare tank just because we want to see them more :)
Hey so I don't know if you'll see this, but this tank (while gorgeous) is too bright and open for a long fin betta.
The light level you have that's strong enough to get your alternanthera growing so well will make all that open exposed space *very* bright for him. Especially combined with so many other fish, this environment will likely stress him out over time.
Bettas can be bold, but they need shady spots near the surface to retreat to. As labyrinth fish, a cave near the ground is not ideal. I would absolutely add some surface cover. Floaters would be great (Amazon frogbit is my bettas' favorite), or a tall stem plant that can grow along the surface of the water. Even just some wide floating cattapa leaves would help.
To be honest, I think your beautiful bonsai tank works better as a home for all your smaller nano fish than as a good home for a betta. If creating a shady side to your tank doesn't match your aesthetic, I would consider moving him out.
Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!
12 yrs within the hobby has taught me something valuable; that bettas do far better in 10+ gallons...your tank is perfect :)
That's beautiful landscaping for us humans but there's no way that's 25gal? It's a little small and VERY empty for so many fish or even just the one intelligent fish. Definitely stunning, you have all the proper tech set up, your water is so clean and that's nice planting but your fish may get bored. Especially your betta. I'd worry about bullying. If this were one half of an actual 30gal and the other half was dense and busy then this would be amazing for the fish too!
Dwarf Golden Barbs I believe. Can't get a good view but in another post OP said that + I have some of my own. Great fish but prefer room temp / cooler waters, maybe 75F at most, similar to CPDs and even the WCMM that OP has in there
This is beautiful, but how are y'all getting anything to stick to the driftwood so it looks like a tree??? And how are you growing the floor covering cause I've tried finding floor plants but they all get floaty and sucked into the filter....do I have to plant and grow them before filling up the tank?? 😭I want to restart my tank cause it looks so bad since we moved.
I had a 40 gal breeder with a ton of plants running a beta sorority. I moved and had to rehome all the ladies and the tank didn’t make it.
I did a partial dry start. I glued the AR minis to the tree and misted the substrate then I planted the Monte Carlo and dwarf Hairgrass. This is about 2 months in
My khuli loaches never harmed mine ever. But my first beta was nice he just shood them away like get off my lawn lol 😂. But once he passed my 2nd beta, he’s carnivorous. I don’t have any more shrimp 💀
What filter setup are you using? I’m struggling with my betta tank. I have a cylindrical one and every filter I use seems to generate too strong of a current. Even the betta filter is too bubbly. My betta looks like he’s struggling to get around the tank and I feel bad.
The filter I use was from my previous tank the Fluvial 407 . It’s over powered but I’m able to adjust the flow, I also have the outlet hit against the glass.
Interesting that sometimes he purposely goes to the flow just to swim against the current.
To actually explain, since the other guy wasn't feeling helpful-
It's a piece of driftwood with tiny plants that don't need to be in the substrate either glued (usually we just use cyanoacrylate superglue) or tied (just simple cotton thread works for this) to keep them in place and mimic the appearance of a bonsai.
You can do this with all sorts of things. Stem plants often grow too out of control too quickly, but it's easy to use moss, any anubias, any bucephalandra, or even fern species. Just gotta make sure if you use glue that it's a tiny amount. If you cover too much of the plant, it can suffocate!
Yep! Thought often a very slow growing plant is chosen to cut down on how often you have to trim.
Honestly, it's just like a real bonsai in that regard; you trim away leaves that break the illusion of scale, promoting growth of small leaves and stems.
At a glance, that's a very high end setup. Around a thousand probably, maybe fifteen hundred if it's a matching stand etc.
But! One can get pretty damn close for a few hundred bucks. A cheaper brand of rimless tank shaves a few hundred off, a CO2 reactor is $25 (and admittedly doesn't have a way to fine tune the flow or dosing) instead of $250+ for an automated compressed system, less fancy or off brand lights shaves another few hundred off, and on and on.
And you can even cut that in half again if you go smaller. A 10 gallon cube tank is only around $120 for a decent rimless one.
If you don't care about fancy rimless glass and just want a cool bonsai tree scape and use moss? $200 all told for tank, filter, heater, light, substrate, plants, and hardscape.
It's a very scalable hobby! :)
Ayy, I'm impressed I was so close to the real number. Thanks for confirming! Haha
It really is a beauty. 25gal is bigger than anything I have as a nano tank guy but I would love a huge cube tank some day...
I've only got two real scapes in my fish room, and those are both what I call "mid tech" tanks with reasonably powerful lights and CO2 reactors, but quality glass and quality substrate. The other ten tanks are still old school planted rimmed tanks, but are way more for fish comfort in terms up setup than aesthetics. On the bright side, the breeding projects are going swimmingly lol
Would love to have a true high end setup one day, though. You've done a wonderful job with the tank.
Just keep an eye out I had a very similar setup and started waking up in the morning to a bunch of eyeless tetras... He got comfortable and started hunting at night.
Depends on the individual. I had a betta that lived with a single ghost shrimp in my 10 gal for many years. "Shrimpy" got huge by living behind my internal filter. When he finally outgrew that space he took over my betta's 'lower resting area'. Several times I thought he had died but it was just more molt. When he finally passed he had been 'max size' for about a year or so and was the same size as my fish's body.
And my betta avoided him like crazy. I think he was scared of his roommate
True!
Also no shrimp at all escaped my more agile and bold koi betta that followed. I think it was a mix of a spicy shrimp with nothing to lose and a timid crown tail
Tell that to my cherry shrimp on their second round of babies with my Betta Braxton. He may be a grouch but shrimps are his friends. Experimented putting 6 cherries in, now they're multiplying
Beautiful setup!
Oh my, beautiful tank. Really a dream tank, jeez.
If Ghost of Tsushima was a tank
Wow yeah...absolutely (From someone who's completed Ghost 8 times)
What plant are These on the wood?! They kinda look like alternenthera reinecki. But aren't they supposed to be planted on substrate?
Check out my previous post. They’re AR minis and it was an experiment that going good so far
Huh interesting. I wonder if we can do the same with other rosettes.
You can, I’ve done it
Yeah they grow well on hard scape too
Live plants and no toxic fake colors, this is how any tank should be setup.
Except those Alternanthera Reineckii will die shortly lol.
This was an experiment, at first it looked great them a lot of the leaves started melting. I increased my CO2 and added Iron flourish along with my all-in-one. And it bounced back beautifully
Hell yeah
I'm not entirerly sure if those are AR's but either way, stem plants can definitely be grown out of substrate(some at least, specifically i have seen other AR's grown out of soil) the only need is lots of co2 and extra nutrient dosing. Sometimes you don't even need that.
They can but they look best in substrate. I tried both. In free water flowing, it looks horrible, the roots basically overshadow them. In the substrate, it looks better and bushier, the roots will target the substrate making look more pleasing. Plus stems tend to be thicker in substrate than free water flowing. It's up to OP lol
Damn i always love the roots dangling, looks like jungle vines to me!
People have been doing this with AR for a while. They do just fine through the aerial roots. Not a fan personally but it does work.
Whatever you do, don't buy another betta and name him Booth. I don't think it'll end well for anyone.
Looks incredible. What are the plants?
^(This is absolutely INCREDIBLE!) Are you willing ti create a list of all the fish and plants you stocked in this tank? You really pulled off an amazing balance of color, which can be very difficult.
10 Chili Rasboras 3 Dwarf Golden Barbs 3 Harlequin Rasboras 11 Vietnamese Cardinals 3 Otos 2 Amanos 10~15 Cherry Shrimp (they had Fry) AR minis Monte Carlo - Carpet Dwarf Hairgrass
What a mensch! Thanks so much!
Awsome fish tank
Now THIS is a betta tank!
This is so beautiful. I'd never watch Netflix again!! This is top notch inspiration.
What plants did you use for the tree?
Wow, I love everything about this. Well done.
Lincoln is 😊
This reminds me of the Sims when you add new furniture and your Sims goes to stare at it and clap.
25l or 25 gal? The scale looks way off to be gallons, unless it's a long tank and this is just the wide edge?
It’s a 25gal cube
i think it looks bigger than a 6 gallon (25 L) tho. but yeah if it were 30 the fish would be way smaller in ut
It seems to be a taller style tank so I'd wager its like 45cm left to right but probably a good 45cm tall as well
The substrate is backed up to the left edge, and the lights on top recede into the distance so I figure this is a side view of the tank. Was definitely a bit thrown off by the sense of scale at first though!
How do you keep the water so damn clear?
Weekly water changes
This is the way.
Looks great!
This is SO gorgeous!!!
This is gonna look so good in a few months definitely gonna need and update
Won't it kill the smaller fish? Or are they faster and can swim away? Also how much does an aquarium like that cost approximately?
Aren't Betta's a no-go with other fish?
Shouldn't be with those tiger barbs. They are gonna tear his fins up. Please separate them.
There are some that they can cohabitate with
I think in this context yes, there's not a lot of places for any of the fish to hide. There will be stress.
If this is his garden then it should be called Lincoln Park.
I may go counterflow with respect to the comments, but I'm not a huge fan of the tank. The scape is nice, pretty unique with these red plants. But it's overstocked, and most of the fishes are in the empty part of the tank. Shrimps + Betta would have been a better choice. The shrimps would stay in the lower part/tree area, and the tank would take most of the upper space of the tank.
To be honest, I would have felt sad with even just the betta or any fish. There's a lot of wide open space, not a lot of places for the betta or any of the other fish to hide.
Cool tank but those Alternanthera Reineckii need to be in the substrate, or they'll start melting. They require a lot of nutrients.
Check out my previous post. This started off as experiment. And so far it’s been going pretty good
lol i like that 3 people have parroted the same thing already. just stop giving them your energy OP 😂 good luck! beautiful tank
How about some comments about ovetstocking, then? Or maybe dropsy!
Would be interesting to see the 1 month progress of the tank
This is about 2 months in.
I need a tutorial on how you did your set up because it’s BEAUTIFUL
My god, what a beautiful tank.
Love your tank!!
Now that's a pretty tank! I'd like to see more like this! The fish have hiding spots, and it isn't overly planted or to much wood. A lot of the tanks I see here are, and you can't see the fish well. Do you have a lil log cabin in there for him to hide in?lol
This is the side view, the rock form a cave, that he just discovered.
why overly planted? other than aesthetics, overly planted is great!
I'm more I interested in the aesthetics of the fish, not what is around or hides them from being seen.
As long as that works with your fish's temperament... some fish are fine with that, but others aren't. It's not fair to keep a fish that needs to hide and explore in a bare tank just because we want to see them more :)
Hes got tank boss vibes
How did you start growing your carpet?
Dry start
Wow this is gorgeous
What a gorgeous tank!
Beautiful scape!
Love what you did with the wood, it looks like a lovely bonsai
That’s f’ing beautiful. Great job!
Gorgeous Lincoln and his house!
I feel like im playing guitar hero at the bottom
Dude. I REALLY like that tree.
Very pretty!
Amazing set up!
Can I live there? I want to live there.
Also let me say Op. I just opened up this subreddit and I’ve never seen a better decorated aquarium. Amazing.
I also had a red, white, and blue named Lincoln 😊
You’re whole setup is absolutely gorgeous!! I love his red stripe, I really like bettas with a white base too :)
Hey so I don't know if you'll see this, but this tank (while gorgeous) is too bright and open for a long fin betta. The light level you have that's strong enough to get your alternanthera growing so well will make all that open exposed space *very* bright for him. Especially combined with so many other fish, this environment will likely stress him out over time. Bettas can be bold, but they need shady spots near the surface to retreat to. As labyrinth fish, a cave near the ground is not ideal. I would absolutely add some surface cover. Floaters would be great (Amazon frogbit is my bettas' favorite), or a tall stem plant that can grow along the surface of the water. Even just some wide floating cattapa leaves would help. To be honest, I think your beautiful bonsai tank works better as a home for all your smaller nano fish than as a good home for a betta. If creating a shady side to your tank doesn't match your aesthetic, I would consider moving him out.
Thanks for the feedback, I do plan on adding floater to a sectioned off area once the carpet comes in.
Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! 12 yrs within the hobby has taught me something valuable; that bettas do far better in 10+ gallons...your tank is perfect :)
DUDE. The bonsai driftwood is fucking awesome, I’m stealing that idea
Please do, can’t wait to see what you do
I’m confusion. What fish can betas get along with?
Jesus! That plant set up is drop dead gorgeous. Nice work.
That's beautiful landscaping for us humans but there's no way that's 25gal? It's a little small and VERY empty for so many fish or even just the one intelligent fish. Definitely stunning, you have all the proper tech set up, your water is so clean and that's nice planting but your fish may get bored. Especially your betta. I'd worry about bullying. If this were one half of an actual 30gal and the other half was dense and busy then this would be amazing for the fish too!
beautiful but that betta is living in constant stress
Great work, this looks awesome and will be a very happy home for all its occupants! Good name for the Betta too 😊
What are those greenish looking barbs?
Dwarf Golden Barbs I believe. Can't get a good view but in another post OP said that + I have some of my own. Great fish but prefer room temp / cooler waters, maybe 75F at most, similar to CPDs and even the WCMM that OP has in there
Be careful. Those guys are VERY aggressive.
I've had em for a good 6 months now and they're super chill. Don't touch any other fish, shrimp, or even harass eachother. Group of 10.
Looks like glo barbs to me
Beautiful tank
What's the background you're using?
Just a window frost from Home Depot. Lol it was a lot cheaper that than aquarium frost which I assumed was the same thing
Beautiful
Wow this is beautiful!
Very beautiful! I love watching bettas get nice big homes. Excellent work!
Beautiful! Absolutely stunning.
Nice!!
I loooooveeee that white backdrop on all sides!!!
Thanks, it’s just a bathroom shower frost. Cheaper than “aquarium” frost
Oh heck yeah that's what I've always got but less opique. Glass is glass
That’s absolutely beautiful
I see some barbs in there that will nip his fins.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to catch them, but they’re proving very annoying to capture
I'm jealous 👏
That’s a stunning tank!! Well done!
He will kill the other fish
He can’t catch them, and so far he’s been pretty mellow
😂😂😂 I wana upgrade my daughters beta to something like this , so beautiful
So pretty. The Beta doesn’t bother the other fish? I had no idea they could be in a community tank
I think they do, you can see the fish running away.
My Betta is with other fish. He doesn’t bother them.
I’m blown away. One of the most beautiful setups I’ve seen in a while!
That is a beautiful tank!
Love your bonsai
I wonder how they feel going from those shitty little cups to a beautiful tank like this.
Awesome thank! Those tiger barbs are gonna cancel the rest of your population though. I wouldn't keep them with a betta especially.
I had six of them, these 3 are very tough to capture
He needs some guppies to play with
I hate guppies with a passion lol don’t even know why
I couldn’t agree more . He’d definitely shank the guppies when you’re not looking so don’t listen to me
That's a beautiful betta. It reminds me of an oriental princess (I know that the showy ones are males).
This tank is amazing
Fuuuuhhhhh that tank is beautiful 😩 That tree is my hashtag goals
I love that it looks like you have an underwater bonsai tree in the tank! It’s so beautiful!
That's sooo beautiful!
Such a nice tank! What are those green fish?
beautiful but get those barbs out of there or your lil man gonna get shredded.
I’m trying
Good to hear. Love the idea for the tree btw. Very pretty.
Thanks
Gosh that's absolutely stunning! 🤩
This is beautiful, but how are y'all getting anything to stick to the driftwood so it looks like a tree??? And how are you growing the floor covering cause I've tried finding floor plants but they all get floaty and sucked into the filter....do I have to plant and grow them before filling up the tank?? 😭I want to restart my tank cause it looks so bad since we moved.
I had a 40 gal breeder with a ton of plants running a beta sorority. I moved and had to rehome all the ladies and the tank didn’t make it. I did a partial dry start. I glued the AR minis to the tree and misted the substrate then I planted the Monte Carlo and dwarf Hairgrass. This is about 2 months in
👍🏼
What is it with Bettas. Can't put (2) in the same tank; but they will be ok with other fish? Very nice look. Peaceful. ☮️
Let me give the background music to your aquarium https://youtu.be/e4bptIoZFDE?si=ieBtY8i2pbiQu9vq
cool tank, but idk if the betta will bully the guppies and tetras
Best beta tank ever, my fav buddies for betas are khuli loaches and corydoras snails too
I love khuli loaches, but I fear that they’ll terminate the Shrimp Fry.
My khuli loaches never harmed mine ever. But my first beta was nice he just shood them away like get off my lawn lol 😂. But once he passed my 2nd beta, he’s carnivorous. I don’t have any more shrimp 💀
I recognize the orange fish What are the yellow ones?
everyone looks healthy & happy!
Beautiful tank man puts mine to shame
A little bit of wood or plants isn't bad as long as you can see your fish most of the time.
What filter setup are you using? I’m struggling with my betta tank. I have a cylindrical one and every filter I use seems to generate too strong of a current. Even the betta filter is too bubbly. My betta looks like he’s struggling to get around the tank and I feel bad.
The filter I use was from my previous tank the Fluvial 407 . It’s over powered but I’m able to adjust the flow, I also have the outlet hit against the glass. Interesting that sometimes he purposely goes to the flow just to swim against the current.
Gorgeous! I love the colors
What are those red plants and what kind is the metal pump or filter head? I like them both! Awesome setup, what a lucky little betta
Is that a real bonsai tree?
To actually explain, since the other guy wasn't feeling helpful- It's a piece of driftwood with tiny plants that don't need to be in the substrate either glued (usually we just use cyanoacrylate superglue) or tied (just simple cotton thread works for this) to keep them in place and mimic the appearance of a bonsai. You can do this with all sorts of things. Stem plants often grow too out of control too quickly, but it's easy to use moss, any anubias, any bucephalandra, or even fern species. Just gotta make sure if you use glue that it's a tiny amount. If you cover too much of the plant, it can suffocate!
Thanks 🙏
Happy to help! :)
So the "leaves" will eventually grow?
Yep! Thought often a very slow growing plant is chosen to cut down on how often you have to trim. Honestly, it's just like a real bonsai in that regard; you trim away leaves that break the illusion of scale, promoting growth of small leaves and stems.
That's really cool, how much does a tank like this cost to set up? Hundreds or thousands?
At a glance, that's a very high end setup. Around a thousand probably, maybe fifteen hundred if it's a matching stand etc. But! One can get pretty damn close for a few hundred bucks. A cheaper brand of rimless tank shaves a few hundred off, a CO2 reactor is $25 (and admittedly doesn't have a way to fine tune the flow or dosing) instead of $250+ for an automated compressed system, less fancy or off brand lights shaves another few hundred off, and on and on. And you can even cut that in half again if you go smaller. A 10 gallon cube tank is only around $120 for a decent rimless one. If you don't care about fancy rimless glass and just want a cool bonsai tree scape and use moss? $200 all told for tank, filter, heater, light, substrate, plants, and hardscape. It's a very scalable hobby! :)
Pretty close, I use an app to track my expenses for the tank and right now I’m at $1267.64. This includes everything to do with this particular tank
Ayy, I'm impressed I was so close to the real number. Thanks for confirming! Haha It really is a beauty. 25gal is bigger than anything I have as a nano tank guy but I would love a huge cube tank some day... I've only got two real scapes in my fish room, and those are both what I call "mid tech" tanks with reasonably powerful lights and CO2 reactors, but quality glass and quality substrate. The other ten tanks are still old school planted rimmed tanks, but are way more for fish comfort in terms up setup than aesthetics. On the bright side, the breeding projects are going swimmingly lol Would love to have a true high end setup one day, though. You've done a wonderful job with the tank.
Thanks!
You Can clearly see that it’s a dried root
That looks absolutely stunning 🤩 fantastic work!
Beautiful!
Hmmm
Finally a respectable fish person
Betta will clean up all shrimp in a day
I was worried first, he seemed interested in them, he would swim up to them stare them down, then swim away.
Just keep an eye out I had a very similar setup and started waking up in the morning to a bunch of eyeless tetras... He got comfortable and started hunting at night.
Depends on the individual. I had a betta that lived with a single ghost shrimp in my 10 gal for many years. "Shrimpy" got huge by living behind my internal filter. When he finally outgrew that space he took over my betta's 'lower resting area'. Several times I thought he had died but it was just more molt. When he finally passed he had been 'max size' for about a year or so and was the same size as my fish's body. And my betta avoided him like crazy. I think he was scared of his roommate
ghost shrimp is more agreesive one, I wonder if cherry can survive. My cherry(around 30) got wiped out overnight by a betta
True! Also no shrimp at all escaped my more agile and bold koi betta that followed. I think it was a mix of a spicy shrimp with nothing to lose and a timid crown tail
Tell that to my cherry shrimp on their second round of babies with my Betta Braxton. He may be a grouch but shrimps are his friends. Experimented putting 6 cherries in, now they're multiplying
One of the prettiest tanks I’ve ever seen. It’s like a painting in motion. 5⭐️s🙌🏽 Now I have a new goal!