Here you'll find the recent adventures and happenings involving my Crowntail Betta Fish, Clyde. He's actually pretty exciting for a fish. You'll see.
Meet Clyde.
Clyde Henry, or just Clyde, is a blue striated crowntail betta fish. He's extremely active (especially late at night) and is quite social with us humans. He enjoys BioGold Betta Fish food and hiding in the colorful plants in his tank. Clyde often constructs large bubble nests and flares his gills when he's happy, comfortable and feeling good (which is 97.5% of the time).
The Sound of Silence.
Oh how I missed that glorious sound. The Aqueon Evolve 2 is extremely loud. The filter is way too strong for a small, two-gallon tank, and it's just loud. Clyde's tank is in my bedroom, and we could hear the filter from the basement, and everywhere else in the house. It's just ridiculous how loud this tank is! I had such high hopes for this tank; the sleek contours, the adjustable-brightness feature on the light and the extra gallon of real estate for Clyde. It seemed that Clyde enjoyed the extra space the tank provided, but he wasn't swimming around like he always had, he really wasn't eating, and wasn't very happy. I also noticed that his fin-rot had started coming back, due to the stress of continuously hiding and avoiding that filter. Due to the many problems I've had with this tank, I cleaned it out, boxed it up and I'm going to return it. As for Clyde, I replaced the light mechanism and bulb in the Aqueon MiniBow 1, set it up for him, and set him free in his old splashing grounds. He's much happier and swimming around just like he always had. I'm again using BettaFix to remedy his fin rot. It's not a terrible case like it has been in the past, but it does need fixing. As for the humans in the house, we're enjoying the lack of fish tank noise. The sound of the silent filters had again returned to our ear drums. Absolutely marvelous!
The All Night Fish Tank Blues.
The wonderful Aqueon MiniBow tank failed me again. I really do mean wonderful, it's a lovely tank. After a great eight months, the lighted hood developed a short somehow. I've had to change the light bulb once or twice, but everything was ship-shape afterwards. Not the case this time. New light bulb, still shorting out. Considering it's winter and really cold where I am, and the light (combined with the small heater, which I'll discuss later) provides most of Clyde's heat, I needed to do something. Quickly. I had been eyeing a particular tank to upgrade to for a while now, the Aqueon Evolve2. [Found here: Aqueon Evolve2 Petco] I love the look of this tank, it's really sleak and modern-looking. The open top is awesome, it had a clear cover you can put on it to make sure your fish friend doesn't jump out (I use it). My favorite feature is the light. It's an LED light with a daylight setting AND a moonlight setting. It looks so cool and it's nice for sleeping purposes. Despite all of these great qualities, there are some major issues with this tank. The filter is way too strong. Seriously, the filter they put in this two-gallon tank could properly filter at least a five gallon tank. The output creates a current so strong that Clyde had to hide under a plant to get away from it. The filter intake was so strong that Clyde's fins kept on getting caught and sucked into it. He couldn't get away from it unless I unplugged the tank long enough for him to swim away. With the filtering system turned on, all Clyde's food was being sucked instantly into the filter, and even though Clyde'e quite fast, he wasn't fast enough to eat any. Here's the other problem: it's incredibly loud. I'm not kidding. It's louder than the air conditioner and heater in my house, and I have an older house. There is no good reason for this tank's filter to be so loud. For a temporary fix, I got some "pre-filter" material from Petco so Clyde wouldn't keep getting sucked into the filter, and so I could reduce the flow of the output. Yes, the fluffy pre-filter looks awful. No, I don't like it one little bit. Also, I feel no need to spend more money on a new, quieter filtration system for the tank just because I like the light and appearance of it. I've decided to return this tank and just upgrade to the Aqueon MiniBow 2.5 [Found here: Aqueon MiniBow 2.5 Petco] and see if it's quieter. I'll let you know how that goes.
Tank You Very Much.
Okay. Those of us with fish know that picking a reliable and good quality fish tank is pretty essential. When I first got Clyde, I didn't want to just put him in a plain bowl with no filtering system, causing him to be sluggish and not very happy (my friend used to have fish and did this, I always felt bad for the fish. They were really bored.). However, I didn't want some huge aquarium (I have a very small bedroom) taking up a ton of space. I ended up choosing the Aqueon MiniBow 1 tank. [Found here: Aqueon MiniBow Petco] Here's the story of my first one: everything was going smoothly, Clyde was super happy when he first came home. I got him all settled in and he was loving his newly found volume of dihydrogen oxide (water). The first time I changed the filter, everything was fine and the water was clean and clear. A few hours later, I come back to check and find the water level has decreased by nearly forty percent and was leaking all over the place (on an antique, wood, armoir, to be specific). I had no idea what had happened. After investigation, and getting Clyde out of there and into his little bowl, it turned out something in the filter mechanism had set off the leaking. I couldn't figure out how to repair it, and was quite aggravated. I had to make another run to Petco and get another new tank. I just exchanged it for the same tank, but still, it was a process. Thankfully, the tank worked just fine, and Clyde was much happier having all his water inside his tank.
Meet Clyde.
Clyde Henry, or just Clyde, is a blue striated crowntail betta fish. He's extremely active (especially late at night) and is quite social with us humans. He enjoys BioGold Betta Fish food and hiding in the colorful plants in his tank. Clyde often constructs large bubble nests and flares his gills when he's happy, comfortable and feeling good (which is 97.5% of the time).
The Sound of Silence.
Oh how I missed that glorious sound. The Aqueon Evolve 2 is extremely loud. The filter is way too strong for a small, two-gallon tank, and it's just loud. Clyde's tank is in my bedroom, and we could hear the filter from the basement, and everywhere else in the house. It's just ridiculous how loud this tank is! I had such high hopes for this tank; the sleek contours, the adjustable-brightness feature on the light and the extra gallon of real estate for Clyde. It seemed that Clyde enjoyed the extra space the tank provided, but he wasn't swimming around like he always had, he really wasn't eating, and wasn't very happy. I also noticed that his fin-rot had started coming back, due to the stress of continuously hiding and avoiding that filter. Due to the many problems I've had with this tank, I cleaned it out, boxed it up and I'm going to return it. As for Clyde, I replaced the light mechanism and bulb in the Aqueon MiniBow 1, set it up for him, and set him free in his old splashing grounds. He's much happier and swimming around just like he always had. I'm again using BettaFix to remedy his fin rot. It's not a terrible case like it has been in the past, but it does need fixing. As for the humans in the house, we're enjoying the lack of fish tank noise. The sound of the silent filters had again returned to our ear drums. Absolutely marvelous!
The All Night Fish Tank Blues.
The wonderful Aqueon MiniBow tank failed me again. I really do mean wonderful, it's a lovely tank. After a great eight months, the lighted hood developed a short somehow. I've had to change the light bulb once or twice, but everything was ship-shape afterwards. Not the case this time. New light bulb, still shorting out. Considering it's winter and really cold where I am, and the light (combined with the small heater, which I'll discuss later) provides most of Clyde's heat, I needed to do something. Quickly. I had been eyeing a particular tank to upgrade to for a while now, the Aqueon Evolve2. [Found here: Aqueon Evolve2 Petco] I love the look of this tank, it's really sleak and modern-looking. The open top is awesome, it had a clear cover you can put on it to make sure your fish friend doesn't jump out (I use it). My favorite feature is the light. It's an LED light with a daylight setting AND a moonlight setting. It looks so cool and it's nice for sleeping purposes. Despite all of these great qualities, there are some major issues with this tank. The filter is way too strong. Seriously, the filter they put in this two-gallon tank could properly filter at least a five gallon tank. The output creates a current so strong that Clyde had to hide under a plant to get away from it. The filter intake was so strong that Clyde's fins kept on getting caught and sucked into it. He couldn't get away from it unless I unplugged the tank long enough for him to swim away. With the filtering system turned on, all Clyde's food was being sucked instantly into the filter, and even though Clyde'e quite fast, he wasn't fast enough to eat any. Here's the other problem: it's incredibly loud. I'm not kidding. It's louder than the air conditioner and heater in my house, and I have an older house. There is no good reason for this tank's filter to be so loud. For a temporary fix, I got some "pre-filter" material from Petco so Clyde wouldn't keep getting sucked into the filter, and so I could reduce the flow of the output. Yes, the fluffy pre-filter looks awful. No, I don't like it one little bit. Also, I feel no need to spend more money on a new, quieter filtration system for the tank just because I like the light and appearance of it. I've decided to return this tank and just upgrade to the Aqueon MiniBow 2.5 [Found here: Aqueon MiniBow 2.5 Petco] and see if it's quieter. I'll let you know how that goes.
Tank You Very Much.
Okay. Those of us with fish know that picking a reliable and good quality fish tank is pretty essential. When I first got Clyde, I didn't want to just put him in a plain bowl with no filtering system, causing him to be sluggish and not very happy (my friend used to have fish and did this, I always felt bad for the fish. They were really bored.). However, I didn't want some huge aquarium (I have a very small bedroom) taking up a ton of space. I ended up choosing the Aqueon MiniBow 1 tank. [Found here: Aqueon MiniBow Petco] Here's the story of my first one: everything was going smoothly, Clyde was super happy when he first came home. I got him all settled in and he was loving his newly found volume of dihydrogen oxide (water). The first time I changed the filter, everything was fine and the water was clean and clear. A few hours later, I come back to check and find the water level has decreased by nearly forty percent and was leaking all over the place (on an antique, wood, armoir, to be specific). I had no idea what had happened. After investigation, and getting Clyde out of there and into his little bowl, it turned out something in the filter mechanism had set off the leaking. I couldn't figure out how to repair it, and was quite aggravated. I had to make another run to Petco and get another new tank. I just exchanged it for the same tank, but still, it was a process. Thankfully, the tank worked just fine, and Clyde was much happier having all his water inside his tank.
