Making a Blackwater Betta Aquarium

what's going on everyone Tanner here and in this video I'm going to set up a black water aquarium just for my betta let's get started for this setup I'm going to use a five gallon flew vol spec that I found in the trash yes you heard that right I found this in the trash cheapskates you know how I get that drive past the house last week and I see these aquariums sitting out in their trash I'm taking for myself because with a little hard work we get him looking brand new not to mention that we got this awesome Bikini Bottom scape down in the football spec along with the whole gang we got spongebob Patrick sandy mr. Krabs and Gary he's dead [Music] it needed cleaned up a little bit but everything was in really good shape including the pump not sure why somebody would have went and thrown this out but one man's trash is another man's treasure right that said the only thing that wasn't salvageable was the light I also added a new filter media but we'll touch on that later on in the video anyways like we usually do let's start out with the hardscape what I have here are two pieces of Malaysian driftwood that will be combined into one I planned out how these would fit together ahead of time so at this point it was just a matter of seeing how they fit in the aquarium once I determined they would fit well I took them out of the aquarium and set them up as before using a stone to keep them propped up here you can get a better look at how well these pieces actually do fit together I didn't modify them in any way I just used their natural features to my advantage since I already fit together like a puzzle all that I had to do is glue them together with some superglue first I dabbed a little bit of glue on the appropriate spots then I pressed the pieces together and applied pressure for roughly a minute afterward I let the glue dry for 15 minutes or so before removing the stone that was holding everything up from there I put down a small slab of marble which will be used to hold up the driftwood as you'll notice the driftwood is pretty top having its current state that's why I had it propped up initially in the same reason that I'm going to use this marble what I did we simply put a little bit of superglue on the wood [Music] then I was pressed on to the marble and held in place until everything was stuck together once the glue was fully dried I put it into the aquarium before I move on I'm not sure if you noticed it or not but how much does this formation look like a dragon here's a picture that I posted a video on Instagram to give you a better look initially I didn't even notice it until a lot of you started commenting about it then I couldn't unsee it pretty interesting right now I'll show you some of the largest plants that we'll be using which are a few Kleiner bar swords these plants had a lot of dead sections and other bits that weren't going to last once planted searching them up before use unfortunately most of the taller growth will end up dying later on due to acclamation but I'll keep what I can't for now to give the plants a better start and here they are after good trim all cleaned up and ready for action since these plants are so large I wanted to get a better idea of how I was going to plant them prior to adding the substrate so I placed them in the aquarium and moved them around for a little bit until I got them in a location that I thought looked aesthetically pleasing I think these plants are a great choice because they will grow upwards of 18 inches tall and I really want to capitalize on the riparian aspect of the scape since the aquarium is rimless [Music] now we'll add the substrate for this tank I'm going to use some flooville stratum plant to tank substrate I'm using this because it's what I already had laying around my house but something beneficial about it is that it's gonna help lower the pH which is great for bettas anyways I started by dumping a bit of substrate into the tank then I used a brush to work it into position as I worked through this I added more when necessary so that I could get a nice slope up toward the left side and in adequate depth overall once I had the substrate just right I proceeded to plant the sword's to do so I moved the substrate to the side and dropped the plant into the opening like before I use the brush to bury the roots underneath of the substrate the same process is then repeated for the other sword next we'll add some flame moss I very well could have glued these patches in place but I didn't feel like dealing with that in this build so I simply Lodge the moss and crevices and other strategic locations on the driftwood long term I want the log to be covered primarily by lush sweater of moss I also want some going above the waterline as well as I tend to think with most of my setups I believe that the moss will really make things look interesting and I think the better will also appreciate it too once I finished placing all of the moss I proceeded to fill up the aquarium with some dechlorinated water I did so by pouring it into the filter compartment so that it didn't disturb the substrate luckily the water stayed fairly clear SEC could proceed to plant the rest of the setup right away down on the right I added a few cryptic corn 1t bronze these will get to a decent size and really fill in the space given enough time to grow you'll notice that as I'm planting the crips it's tough to get them rooted just right this is one of my complaints with fluid vol Stratton it's initially pretty light which makes it challenging to plant a new aquarium to combat this I could have capped it off or mixed in a different substrate to make it more dense next I planted a few cryptic or lutea on the left side of this setup these will also help fill in the space and provide nice texture because of the narrow leaves lastly I planted a few segments of java fern behind the driftwood as I said earlier my intent is for this to be a Blackwater setup so let's go ahead and prepare off the botannical x' I started by boiling some small kotappa leaves so that they would sink and to remove some of the tannins afterward I dropped them into the aquarium and moved them around with my tweezers when necessary then I got a bin full of miscellaneous botanicals that have been soaking for a few weeks I definitely didn't need to soak them for that amount of time but it took me longer than expected to get this setup going anyways I went ahead and added these all throughout the aquarium and let everything cycle for about a month after that amount of time my better could finally be added into the aquarium the water parameters from tank to tank were pretty consistent so it could be added directly into the new setup without any acclamation [Music] so here's my bettas new black water aquarium I should add the disclaimer that the water is not nearly as tinted as I originally intended but it still incorporates the elements indicative of a black water setup that said I probably will try to tint the water more as time goes on because this tank does need some fine-tuning I know some of you may be wondering why I planted it so sparsely well that was on purpose because of the plants that I chose allow me to explain here's what the tank looks like now but let me do a quick sketch of how will look in a few months as you can see from the sketch the better will still have some good swimming space plenty of places to rest in an overall enriching environment normally I don't even bother sketching out my designs because I have them sketched out my mind but sometimes it does help to make a visual representation of an idea hopefully this also gives you a better idea of my long-term vision for this aquarium and I'll get comments about adding other inhabitants to this setup but I'm gonna be upfront with you and say that I'm not putting anything else in this tank other than a cleanup crew I already have simulation trumpet snails but I also want to add a few narrate snails and some Amano shrimp otherwise I want this to be low maintenance and having a low Stark will help do exactly that for a number of reasons plus I want the betta to be the star of this tank as I said in the beginning I had to buy new filter media which consists of a sponge and some ceramic rings I'm also using the original pump because it was in good shape however I did have to put a chunk of sponge on the output of the pump to reduce the flow I'm still fine-tuning it but I want it to be strong enough to keep the water moving but gentle enough that the better can still swim around freely lastly I'm keeping my heater in the back compartment of the filter box I really like how it turned out and I can't wait to see how it changes with time I think my better likes it more than me though I can tell just by the way that he interacts with this environment that he's content that's always a good feeling and what this is all about anyways I'm going to end it there if you want to see the progression of this aquarium and similar projects like this in the future then consider subscribing if you're not all also if you liked this project and haven't done so already please take a second and give this video like it really does help me out and I greatly appreciate it as always thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week peace

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 1,252,340

Keywords: betta, betta aquarium, blackwater, black water, aquascape, aquarium, fish tank, planted

Id: fbY48MFmwQE

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/lackadaisical_timmy]

What's a blackwater betta? Aquarium looks cool tho