Tag: Aquascaping

Last week my cube garden tank crashed so I had decommission the aquarium which I have maintained for close to 8 months. Sigh.

I never liked the tank itself due to its greenish hue which makes my planted tank more green in a very unnatural way. It’s like a dull, sad planted tank especially when the high light is on.

But instead of throwing it away, I’ve decided to upgrade my two betta’s apartment, Blue and Mustard, who are both currently using their own 20x15x15 acrylic tanks.

I’ve initially planned for a transparent plastic tank divider but later on I had to top it off with another white plastic divider due to too much flaring from my two male bettas.

The acrylic tank divider is perfectly sized for my 30×30 cube tank. You just need to put in two suction cups on its two sides to hold it inside the tank.

Next, I added some bacteria powder to help cycle the tank although I should be having enough bacteria from the two sponge filters running on the current tanks.

For the substrate, I decided to use basalt gravel instead of using aquasoil as I will not be planting plants for this tank.

After pre-washing the gravel to remove the manufacturing dust, I poured in a thin layer of gravel on the two sides of my tank.

Then I added java ferns and christmas moss and some twigs on each side of the tank.

Then I transferred the sponge filters from the existing tanks to the new divided tank.

The tank is inside my room so i had to install a mini heater just in case the room temperature drops too low during when the AC is on at night. Bettas are tropical fish so they need warmer water temperature to make them happy.

I also temporarily installed my Eheim canister filter on this tank to keep the bacteria alive in my filter while I have not set up my replacement planted tank yet for the one that crashed.

Overall, I like this tank set up a lot. It reminds me of the set up in one of the fish stores I’ve recently visited. Very neat with a really thin layer of gravel and minimal plants and hardscape.