A m/f pair of bettas is a bad mix. The males will often kill the female with too much attention. A single male betta or 3-4 females will be fine, but mixing genders should only be done for spawning. Suitable tankmates for bettas include non-nippy fish that lack the large fins of the male betta, cories, most pleco type fish, snails, shrimp, and ADF--if you're willing to make sure the frogs get enough to eat. A nice setup would be a planted 10 with a male betta, 5-6 pygmy cories, and some amano shrimp.
safe nitrite levels?
- Thread starter AnitaL76
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thanks oriongirl 
i never realized you couldnt put m/f bettas together regularly... knew the males had to be seperate. as for the ADF's... i have 2 of them already and am thinking of getting them a tank away from my fish.... the fish they are with are more demanding and are eating thier food before is sinks to them.... hmmmm sounds like kids fighting over who gets the most attention LOL
anita
i never realized you couldnt put m/f bettas together regularly... knew the males had to be seperate. as for the ADF's... i have 2 of them already and am thinking of getting them a tank away from my fish.... the fish they are with are more demanding and are eating thier food before is sinks to them.... hmmmm sounds like kids fighting over who gets the most attention LOL
anita
I have a question.
Last night, I did some cleaning (vacuumed some gravel, but not much), and got the water levels back to the top. I then ate dinner and then checked thew water chemistry...everything was great EXCEPT my nitrAtes ... they were at 5.0ppm. It was at 0ppm the last I checked about 4 days ago. Anyone know why it raised? The only thing I've done different is add my Pl3co and Otto cat (last Friday).
Last night, I did some cleaning (vacuumed some gravel, but not much), and got the water levels back to the top. I then ate dinner and then checked thew water chemistry...everything was great EXCEPT my nitrAtes ... they were at 5.0ppm. It was at 0ppm the last I checked about 4 days ago. Anyone know why it raised? The only thing I've done different is add my Pl3co and Otto cat (last Friday).
What's wrong with NO3 being 5.0? The waste produced by your fish is converted to NO3 in a cycled tank.
happychem said:
So...thats cool then? Keep in mind, jamzwayne = newbie.
I thought everything needed to be at 0?
Nah, keep NO3 under 20ppm and it's all good.
NH3 and NO2 should be 0 in a cycled tank. The cycling process builds up bacterial colonies that convert:
NH3 --> NO2 --> NO3
But it stops there, NO3 has to be removed by water changes.
There are some ways of getting NO3 out of your tank w/o water changes (live plants aside), but they're not worth it. While NO3 itself has some long term toxicity (what doesn't?), it's an important indicator to us of tank health. Along with ammonia, fish wastes also include organics like hormones and other biproducts of digestion, we cannot test for these, but since they come out with NH3, which is converted to NO3, which we can test for, we can use NO3 as an indicator of how much of the other stuff is poluting our tanks.
NH3 and NO2 should be 0 in a cycled tank. The cycling process builds up bacterial colonies that convert:
NH3 --> NO2 --> NO3
But it stops there, NO3 has to be removed by water changes.
There are some ways of getting NO3 out of your tank w/o water changes (live plants aside), but they're not worth it. While NO3 itself has some long term toxicity (what doesn't?), it's an important indicator to us of tank health. Along with ammonia, fish wastes also include organics like hormones and other biproducts of digestion, we cannot test for these, but since they come out with NH3, which is converted to NO3, which we can test for, we can use NO3 as an indicator of how much of the other stuff is poluting our tanks.
Yeah, thats what I was worried about...the long term toxicity, but Frequent water changes helps heep that in check......cool.
Lets just say that if your nitrate is at 5 it's an indicator of good maintenance (this doesn't apply as well to heavily planted tanks) Most people who understand maintenance and water quality like their nitrates to stay below 20, some will so < 40 is fine. The sad reality is a lot of tanks out there are well above 80 most of the time, and people don't know the difference (the fish know the difference long term though)
Dave
Dave
Well, happychem and daveedka.....I feel a little proud of myself now. I have been working my butt off on this tank.....and it's finally good to go. Thanks for the info.
