The narrow leaf chain swords are beginning to chain off siblings.
I added 4 more female betttas and my "harem" is now complete. The first few hours after adding the new females were pretty intense and several of them suffered some torn fins. Things have calmed down now and they have all figured out that there is plenty of territory for them all and that they can avoid/leave a confrontation rather than fight it out.
I found what may be the ugliest female betta ever and just could not pass it up. I added her to the tank for her "uniqueness" and character. The girls have named her "Cracker". I don't know what genetic experiments preceded her, but I think it is safe to say they failed.
A few more of the bettas. From left to right we have Buttercup, Crystal and Dragon (renamed from Princess because she is the real trouble maker).
My canopy was getting too hot. I measured the temperature at 105 degrees one evening, and I would think it gets higher than that during the day. I have been looking online at fan solutions and they are overpriced and I just have not been able to make myself buy one. Its pretty obvious that all the solutions are just computer case fans with an AC/DC adapter. So I grabbed a case fan I had here at home, found an old unused AC/DC converter (12v) from an outdated cell phone and spliced the two together. Fan worked, no fire. So I used some velcro tape to attach the fan and try it out. With in few minutes the canopy temp dropped by ~12 degrees. Not bad! Since this worked I am going to add a second fan and find a more permanent/secure way to attach the fans.
As as side note... when I was drawing up the basic plans for the stand and hood I was concerned about getting the proportions balanced. I have seen aquariums with over sized canopies or stands that are too short/tall and they don't look "right". An idea came to me from my myfamily.com website. My brother (a dentist) mentioned that veneers are done with the golden ratio in mind - DING! That was the answer to getting a balanced looking stand/aquarium/canopy. So I used the golden ratio based on the height of the aquarium to determine the height of the stand and canopy. You can't go wrong with the golden ratio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
3 comments:
Looking forward to seeing the finished canopy on the aquarium.
When you first mentioned the fish names (Princess, Buttercup, etc), I was half expecting the others to be named Inigo and Montoya.
Dude, I'm lovin' the most recent picture of your aquarium! It looks so good now that the plants are growing and filling out. Well done!
If I ever tried to do an aquarium like that, all things that were once living would soon be dead. LOL
maybe if you had been keeping up with my blog like a true favorite bro-in-law you would have seen the post saying that i was going private and to send me your email addys if you wanna see it...your loss. but i'll give you another chance cus i know how incredibly anxious you are to see how awesomly exciting my life is.
Post a Comment