My Betta Setup

[paulyeo]

Hi everyone,

Thought I'd share some pics of my Betta Setup

Took a while to build (Started 28/08 finished and tested 20/09) as there are so many other commitments in life...

The Setup:

For the individuals:

Breeding/Growout

Just glad it's done now so I can resume my life

and I did all this for these guys:

[Tara]

Well done, I would love to have a setup, like that. It looks great.

[fishbites]

Great looking setup there!

How are you doing the return water? Is it from a sealed overflow out of each container using the 4mm tubing to drain to a sump?

[Bender]

It looks great! Can we have some specs please? eg, the tub sizes, pump size, filter type and where the heating is located would be helpful. Did you drill holes in the lids for feeding? or do they have flaps of some sort?

[paulyeo]

There is a return water. I use a sump (10L blue tub - however i'd prefer that to be slightly bigger) which also acts as a filter where the return water goes straight into filter media (bio balls and ceramic bio rings) and filter sponge which is placed in a basket where the pump pumps the water up.

Also have a 700lph (Hydor Seltz L 20 - being 14 W which is relatively efficient) pump and two heaters (150W and 100W - the idea being that two works better together and serves as insurance if one fails).

Initially i wanted to have a water tank/filter above that overflows to feed the individual containers. But i needed a more powerful pump for that seeing that the height worked out to be over 190 cm with the water tank.

The container I have chosen to use is the Decor 2L rectangle container, as at the time it was 50%off at K-Mart and I think it'll be on discount again this coming week at Coles (where I work )

I also use a 4mm tubing for the return with a 6mm clear tubing and forced into a 7.5mm hole i have drilled on the side of the container. Since the 6mm tubing worked out to be 8mm in diameter the 7.5mm hole makes it watertight and the 4mm (black) tubing fits perfectly in the 6mm clear tubing.

And on the lid i drilled two homes (one for feeding and the other for the dripper). The idea came from Bettarazzi where he uses a small funnel to drop food in.

Although it's pretty much completed, I'll definately be finding ways of improving this design and welcome any constructive criticisms.

I'll add more details soon and also scan the sketch with the measurements for the rack (if i can still find it )

Thanks for the kind words :)

[fishbites]

Thanks for the further info... a sealed return system would be great for reducing evaporation and water loss during the heat of summer and I like the idea of not having long drip trays for the overflows.

[Goody3714]

Hey paul

Was just wondering what the advantage of having the water pump up and then overflow was ?

and if building again have you thought of any improvments to the system as i am currently in the

process of building my own Cheers Goody

[paulyeo]

Hey Goody,

The reason for water being pumped into the individual barracks and then overflow is more so for heating purposes. If I were to live in a tropical climate or have a heated fish room, then I would just have individual barracks sitting on a shelve (that's how I did it in Malaysia) and do full water changes once to twice a week depending on the size of the barracks.

If I were to build it all over, I would make it higher. Looking at the picture, I'd stop at the 3rd level (from the top). I'd have more space for the sump below (a bigger sump could be used) as the bigger in volume it is (to a degree), the heater would work less hard as there is a smaller temperature fluctuation. But having said that, the bigger the volume, the more powerful the heater must be (or use two less powerful heaters instead of one powerful heater - it acts as an insurance in case one heater fails). Also I would use clear containers, either glass jars or plastic beanie boxes, so I would be able to see the fish clearly (I did not know how beautiful some of them are until I decided to take photos). Beanie boxes are better as it is easy to drill holes but care should be taken as it cracks easily. It's limitation is its dimension. If you seen Shemma's setup, he uses plastic drink bottles.

The reason I built mine like this is because I may want to breed more bettas in the future (and have a dedicated fish room), I can use the shelves behind, rig a fresh plumbing system, and have a large display aquarium on the top with lots of plants and shrimps but no fish, which would have water pumped from the sump, into the aquarium and overflow back into the individual barracks. Thus giving the bettas 'healthy' water. Also it would solve some problems with heating as water to the sump is heated to say 26C and water in the top aquarium is heated again to 27 or 28C. But if you have a dedicated fish room that is heated, then there should not be a problem.

[Goody3714]

Hey man thanks for the reply

ive started gettign everything together now

waiting on my aunty who owns a discount store to get back to me

on the price she can do for me on 50 tupperware containers 2.4 lt each clear plastic

Was thinking what u said about glass but for round $ 1-2 dollars each i think this wld prob be alot more cost effective

with the plastic and ill just have to do what u did take em out for best pics

also how much do the beanie boxes hold Volume wise?

picked up a 6 tier shelf from bunnings and all the 19mm plumbing ect

Got a 80 lt sump container

one thing i didnt ask before was with your drain returns (in the pic ) are they running 2 drains into one t peice with a small bit of 19 mm on the tee is that how u did it

hope that makes sence to you.

Thanks Again Goody

p.s fish are all well the blue doubletail is such a fussy eater dosent like my betta pellets only eats a tiny amount of pellets i end up scooping the rest out

but when it comes time for the bloodworms mossies or brineshrimp he gose nuts lol :)