divided 75 gallon tank - help!

[guppylover2]

hi there

recently got into bettas. am now so addicted am wanting to change the occcupants of my 75 gallon tank to accomodate lots of bettas!

have currently got two male bettas in separate floating breeder traps in the communal tank. they were previously in separate aquariums sharing only with plecs, but it got so cold here (wellington) that the temp dipped down below 25 degrees celsius in their tanks despite heaters coz the room they are in is cold and not heated, also their tanks were smaller hence less able to hold temp. my main reason for moving them was that i suspected finrot esp in one, which i put down to cold room plus prob dirty water in the smaller tank (plecs) despite 50% water change (10 gallon) every week. prob fins being dragged along bottom of tank where catfish poo is wasn't good. so anyway, thought move to cleaner, larger warmer tank with more water to keep all parameters better, in lounge where there is more socializing with us humans.

those breeder traps obviously too small, so looking at ways to do divided tank. my overall plan is to convert this tank to planted, with CO2 and everything, keep the clown loaches, couple plecs (latter will go in larger tank later) glass catfish, and want to get lots of betta females (when they finally arrive in pet stores) but get cool divided system going to separate 2 males from everyone else, have their own kingdom, and only mix with females at breeding time.

i really want some sort of divided system, just not sure how to go about it. coz my tank is a bowfront, thought of cool radiating plastin compartment with holes for filtration. difficult to describe. the overall volume would be prob 10 gallons i guess. want to get someone is plastic company to make it for me maybe, coz i'm not to DIY and have little time. or maybe could make it myself.

sorry this is so long. any thoughts? really want to give my boys a good home. also have been using melafix for the finrot, read about proper antibiotics, where do you get them from?

appreciate any thoughts.

[Faran]

Hi guppylover!

There's a few plastic shops over in Petone that can help you out with the partitions. You give them measurements and they'll make whatever you want. Sounds like a good plan on the subdividing for different breeder groups, just keep in mind that the male bettas will still try and fight even through clear plastic partitions.

If you need to know exactly where to go for the plastic companies, PM Pies.

[mistymu05]

if u want to keep th males seperate from the females til ready to mate then a neat look is to have a divided section at each end of the tank (so its divided into 3 and u have a male at each end - away from each other - and all the others in the middle ........)

[guppylover2]

hi there

thanks very much for the replies. rang one plastics company and they were very helpful, will make whatever i want

will definitely put them in separate areas of the tank, with females (whenever they arrive) between them.

now i have put the bettas back in separate tanks, out of main tank, as they were looking bored in the breeder traps and i figured the fin rot on one was from dirty plec poo on bottom of tank. so put plecs in main tank and betta has 10 gallon jebo to himself.

after giving them beautiful clean water, nice warm tanks, sole occupancy what do they reward me with? whitespot! am so annoyed. i reckon, like the guppies we get in the shops, bettas are so inbred that they have poor health and get sick very easily. the rest of my fish are fine apart from the odd death.

what do you guys reckon?

[mistymu05]

i have havent had any problems with my bettas - i have had 4 from the different LFS around here and then got into breeding my own.....