divided aquarium

[betafish]

Originally Posted by FishMomma

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have other questions and I'll be happy to help!!!

thanks for your help, yes i have a question about starting a planted tank. i want to make it as close as possible to bettas natural habitat.
what kind of plants? do i need to use gravel? do you have any good link on the website about bettas natural habitat.. i found some on google but i would like to learn more from you guys.

[BettaLu&Meg]

You would need lots of plants!
As for 'natural', there is very little you can really do to make it completely natural. Completely natural would be a muddy bottom tank with almost stagnant current and near-choked with driftwood and rotting vegetation.
The muddy part alone disqualifies a truely natural setting; sand is your next best bet, followed by products like Amazonia and Black Onyx sand (which can be mixed with Silica or Pool sand to create the desired shade)
Next best thing to sand is gravel!!!! so go with that, i personally wouldn't get sand due to the filter corrosion and clogging!
What I would start off doing is selecting plants; It'll be very hard to make a complete Betta type biotope, as there is very little in the way of completely aquatic plants you can use: especially considering the fact that females in a group will NEED places to hide and breaks in the line of sight.

Now, you can find plants that are approriate for this; Large stems of Giant Hygro (Hygrophila Corymbosa), thick plantings of Water Wisteria (Hygrophila Difformis) are both good tall breaks for the line of site, both are proper in a SE Asian setting (though not occurring in the same habitat as bettas)

Mid level plants will be Java Fern (Monosorum Pteropus) attached to hardscape (driftwood or rough rocks) and most of the Cryptocoryne species (which require a nice sandy and deep substrate)

Of these, i highly recommend Crypocoryne Wendtii and Cryptocoryne Beckettii as both have done well in my lower light aquariums with a minimum of 'Crypt Rot'.

Java Moss (Taxiphyllum Barbieri, incorrectly called Versicularia Dubyana) can be useful as well, but must be kept in check, It should also always be rooted to driftwood, rocks or a framework lest it drift around uncontrolled making a mess (which is nigh-on impossible to clean out!)

[BettaLu&Meg]

no apple snails only climb to the rim of the tank just to lay eggs, and that case water temps and such have to be at certain levels, if you only have snails in a tank and are breeding snails then you have to worry about them comming out of the water, i have apple snails in all of my tanks and they dont climb out. They will go to top water level to eat whatever is floating that there intrested in tho. As for your community tank, remember to keep an eye on your bettas, and provide lost of hidding places for them! Those big docors in pet store of collosiums, or a pirate ship, something with plenty of spots to hide and plants to hide are good too. Real plants, i'm against fake, even silk. real plants give benefits, fakes don't. Apple snails can grow big, from what fish_friend said, he saw some at a pet store the size of a baseball, but if you purchase them and inch big you don't have toworry about that lol. the snails wont attack your fish, infact some fish like to bother the snails, just to bother them.
As for your males instead of purchasing seperate tanks, if $$$ are low, get one ten gallon with a betta condo. it houses up to 4 bettas with dividers. these dividers also come with solid colors so the nieghboring bettas don't constantly see each other. This might help out with funds also. and only one heater is neccasery.
feel free to ask any other concerns or questions you have about it or anything for that matter Oh and Post pictures when you do, i would like to see your set up!

[betafish]

That was helpfull, thanks.
Me too i don't like fake plants, i worry about the health of the fish more than how the aquarium look, in fact live plant looks better than fake ones...i haven't set-up the tank yet, i am still waiting for some (bulbs) plants to grow up, then i will add gravel and natural rocks with them.

[FishMomma]

All the plants that BettLu mentioned are all good and fairly easy to grow. I've found that if you have a bad time with algae the apple snails help out with that and also Water Wisteria and Hornwort. The Wisteria takes a lot of nutients out of the water that the algae uses and the Hornwort puts out a toxin for algae. If you have trouble finding these at your local pet shop, you can get them from where I do which is online at Aquarium Garden. Also, one other thing to remember is that when you have live plants you have to clean your filter or change the carbon, etc. in the filter a little more often since the leaves and such tend to clog things up faster. Hope this helps!