# Aegir's home! Natural aquascape :)



## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Sadly, I found out that the purple plant, is NOT aquatic 
That is why I decided in the past to never impulse buy plants... but the store I was at was quite a drive for me, and the plant was so pretty, and it was only $2.... oh well.


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## balloon (Jul 24, 2010)

Love the tank! How many gallons is it?


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Thanks! :-D It's 2.5 gallons.


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Oh no... I just realized I misspelled "Natural" in the title :-(
haha, I feel so stupid.


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

shrimp 








Aegir :-D


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

I fixed your title for you.


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## newlynothere (Jul 27, 2010)

Aegir is SOO pretty! So is the tank! I love the big rock cave you made!


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## meeka (Jul 1, 2010)

oh it looks lovely. I like the more natural themes than novelty themes.
Ive also been caught in the past with buying non-aquatic plants. I wish stores wouldnt sell them.


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

dramaqueen said:


> I fixed your title for you.


:yourock:



meeka said:


> oh it looks lovely. I like the more natural themes than novelty themes.
> Ive also been caught in the past with buying non-aquatic plants. I wish stores wouldnt sell them.


Yea, I'm a fan of natural 'scapes as well. 
When I first started out with plants some years ago, I bought three plants... all of them were not aquatic. Those buttheads *shakes fist at Petco*


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## Fermin (Apr 18, 2010)

Sick
Your tank looks awesome! I see your shrimp has claimed his spot lol


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## SilverCaracal (May 9, 2010)

Your tank is so pretty! It's designed well!


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## Cobb89 (Jul 27, 2010)

I was considering, instead of bumping up to a 10 and getting two betta in a split environment, getting a ghost shrimp to go along with a 2.5

Since you've done it I've just got a question or two

How often do you clean it out?

What kind of food do you feed the shrimp, and how do you make sure it feeds instead of the beta just eating whats intended for the shrimp?

And when cleaning....what do you do with the shrimp during a 100 percent change and clean?

And btw, awesome set up. I'm leaning more towards the natural look because of it.


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## Maryrox247 (Aug 10, 2009)

beautiful tank! i love aegir too!


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Thanks! :-D



Fermin said:


> Sick
> Your tank looks awesome! I see your shrimp has claimed his spot lol


That was Aegir's spot before all the plants were added. lol, if he still wants it I'm sure he will kick as much butt as necessary to claim it back


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## CodeRed (Jun 11, 2009)

OMG. Amazing o_o I REALLY need to set up a "nice" tank soon. Some of these are simply amazing.


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Cobb89 said:


> How often do you clean it out?


So far, I do 50% water change twice a week, I'm not sure if its overkill or not. It's a new tank... and I'm new to keeping small aquariums  I'm more of a large reef tank or medium cichlid (hence the name ) tank person



> What kind of food do you feed the shrimp, and how do you make sure it feeds instead of the beta just eating whats intended for the shrimp?


I feed the shrimp bottom feeder wafers, they love it. With how my tank is, there are some parts that are too small for Aegir to get to because of the plants and rocks, but the shrimp can get to, and thats where I put the wafer. Aegir doesn't seem to really bother the wafers anyways if I feed him at the same time.



> And when cleaning....what do you do with the shrimp during a 100 percent change and clean?


Heheh... we haven't gotten that far yet. The tank isn't a week old yet. My plan was to net them, I'm pretty good at netting almost anything, I've had quite a bit of practice over the years. But I will definitely be keeping them in a separate container from Aegir... that way he doesn't go bonkers on them without anywhere to hide! Eep.



> And btw, awesome set up. I'm leaning more towards the natural look because of it.


Thanks! :-D I'm more of a natural look person myself.


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## Cobb89 (Jul 27, 2010)

So do you think just putting the shrimp in some room temp water whilst cleaning would suffice for the 20 or so minutes that I take to clean the tank?


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Maryrox247 said:


> beautiful tank! i love aegir too!


Thanks! 



CodeRed said:


> OMG. Amazing o_o I REALLY need to set up a "nice" tank soon. Some of these are simply amazing.


Thanks! 

I actually got most of it for free from freecycle, I found the rocks outside, and the rest was a b-day present.

B-Day present:
Aegir & Food $9
Shrimp $3
Plants $12

Total cost: $24


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

Cobb89 said:


> So do you think just putting the shrimp in some room temp water whilst cleaning would suffice for the 20 or so minutes that I take to clean the tank?


Yea, it should, in my experience, ghost shrimp are pretty hardy. Thats what I did a few years back, I was upgrading from a 10 gal to a 33 flatback hex, but I needed a lot of the stuff from the 10 gal for the 33 gal, I lost one shrimp and one tetra, and it took much longer to set up the 33 gal than it would to do a cleaning for a 2.5 gal.
I don't know about any other freshwater shrimp though...


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## Cobb89 (Jul 27, 2010)

Thanks for the info. 

Also...how often do you feed the shrimp? The guy at the pet store said to feed the Betta every other day, is this good for the shrimp?


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## Adastra (Jun 18, 2010)

You should feed your betta and your shrimp every day--it is best to do it in small quantities twice a day. 

I too originally fell into the purple waffle trap. Oh well, you can take it out of the aquarium and put it in a vase--it will grow roots and be a pretty houseplant at least.  Planted tanks are definitely the way to go--they absorb nitrates/ammonia and they're very beautiful and rewarding to grow. If you like the look of the purple waffle, there are some crypts that have a purple-ish look to them, although they need enriched substrate or root tabs to really thrive.

Did you test the rocks to see if they were limestone/sandstone? Some rocks will leach minerals into the water, causing the pH/Hardness to increase. The changes in water params caused by these rocks can have negative side effects for your betta--you may want to make sure these rocks are safe for aquarium use. Generally you can use obsidian, jasper, petrified wood, granite, quartz and most other crystalline rocks. Stay away from rainbow rock, mica, pyrite, limestone, sandstone, coral, or fossils of any kind. 

Do you plan on using any fertilizers? I use the Seachem line of liquid ferts--Seachem Flourish Comprehensive is a good general liquid fertilizer.


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## wallywestisthebest333 (Nov 30, 2009)

Adastra said:


> You should feed your betta and your shrimp every day--it is best to do it in small quantities twice a day.
> 
> I too originally fell into the purple waffle trap. Oh well, you can take it out of the aquarium and put it in a vase--it will grow roots and be a pretty houseplant at least.  Planted tanks are definitely the way to go--they absorb nitrates/ammonia and they're very beautiful and rewarding to grow. If you like the look of the purple waffle, there are some crypts that have a purple-ish look to them, although they need enriched substrate or root tabs to really thrive.
> 
> ...


Aw darn! =[ It's not an aquatic plant! Oh well. =/

I said this in another thread but I feel it needs to be said again:

YOUR TANK IS AMAZING!!!! It looks MUCH bigger than 2.5 gallons! =]

Yeah I hope the rock doesn't cause you to have hard water. =[ I don't think bettas heal well in hard water if they get sick.... =[ Mine's as hard as the test kit will indicate and that's without rocks that can alter chemistry. =[


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

I feed my betta and my shrimp every day, but I skip one day a week.

Yea, I was thinking about crypt wendtii, I like them. I've had crypts before. Someone on TPT suggested Alternanthera Reineckii, I looked it up, and it looks good, so that one is another possible candidate.

Someone said the rocks were granite, there is TONS of granite where I live, so I wouldn't doubt it. There is an old granite quarry down the street from me.

I'm not too sure on the ferts, the tank is so small, I don't want the plants to grow too quickly, lol.


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## Sicklidae (Jul 3, 2010)

wallywestisthebest333 said:


> Aw darn! =[ It's not an aquatic plant! Oh well. =/


Yea, I was pretty bummed about the purple waffle :-(



> I said this in another thread but I feel it needs to be said again:
> 
> YOUR TANK IS AMAZING!!!! It looks MUCH bigger than 2.5 gallons! =]


Thanks again :-D



> Yeah I hope the rock doesn't cause you to have hard water. =[ I don't think bettas heal well in hard water if they get sick.... =[ Mine's as hard as the test kit will indicate and that's without rocks that can alter chemistry. =[


I used to have an Amazon blackwater tank, all the fish preferred soft, acidic water. :-D
If you want to make your water softer, you could collect rainwater and just filter it with a simple carbon filter, and ta-da! cheap soft water  You would then take your soft water and mix it with proper proportions of your hard tap water to get the desired hardness.
The other option, is some LFS sell RO water, its rather pricey though.
But, soft water is prone to becoming more acidic faster than hard alkaline water, so be careful with that


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## wallywestisthebest333 (Nov 30, 2009)

Sicklidae said:


> I used to have an Amazon blackwater tank, all the fish preferred soft, acidic water. :-D
> If you want to make your water softer, you could collect rainwater and just filter it with a simple carbon filter, and ta-da! cheap soft water  You would then take your soft water and mix it with proper proportions of your hard tap water to get the desired hardness.
> The other option, is some LFS sell RO water, its rather pricey though.
> But, soft water is prone to becoming more acidic faster than hard alkaline water, so be careful with that


I'll try that but I'll have to check the PH of the rain first. Unfortunately we live right down the interstate from a new coal-fired power plant. =[ with those comes heavily acidic rain. =[

It's much easier than what I've been doing though! XD 
I've been using a britta pitcher to fill up gallon jugs for a while. That's getting old fast as it takes forever and I forget to change the filter sometimes and I end up with hard water again! XD


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