Sorry for your loss,and congrats on the new tank.Flare seems to have some great experience with bettas so i agree with all that was posted above.I do think that adding some blackwater extract for awhile will help stress,especially with the two new ladies.Remember,to mix up the decor and add some more plants too,so they dont go territory crazy.

If you are comfortable with it,order some IALs online from someone on aquabid.They have great prices and are a wonderful addition to a betta keepers fishroom.OR you can look at the IBC website,i believe there are some local breeders there who may have some you can get.Males love to nest under them an females will lounge under them too.

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Majerah, when I bought the new tank, I had to buy more driftwood, more plants, and more substrate. So everyone got new places to hide and hang-out. The new girls are currently being housed with some plants I plan on adding to the tank when the new girls get added to the tank.
I am a little sketched out by the idea of ordering things from aquabid, but if you know of someone you can recommend, go ahead and PM that person's seller ID.
If I add the blackwater extract will that be just as good as IAL? I can get that from the LFS.

BWE.Yes and no.The reason i add the leaves is the tannins are released slowly and the fish get used to the drop in PH,if there is one.plus the IALs have more medicinal and anti parasitic properties than peat,which is used for the BWE.The leaves come from Thailand where the bettas come from,and so its more in their nature.The peat i believe comes from the amazon where tetras and angels hail.Ill PM you the seller i use,or you can order from the IBC website:Indian Almond Leaves - Grade B - $5.00 : International Betta Congress!

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Majerah, I got your PM, thank you! I goign to order some IAL here within the next week days. I think I may still get the BWE though, just in case the IAL take awhile to get here.
Am having trouble not just adding the new fish into the main tank. I am extremely excited about the new girls and the cory cats I bought. Wish me luck on keeping my patients!

Only one more week until I get to introduce my three new females and my three new cory cats into my main tank! So far no one has show any sign of getting sick. I bought another H. compackta plant! It's most likely my favorite plant next to A. coffeefolia. Has anyone here had any luck with Ludwigia repens? I have tried to get this plant to take hold in my tank three different time and each time the plants will survive for about three weeks and then they just die. I am on my fourth try with it but this time I added some root tabs, I lost a few stems but so far it seems to be hanging on but just barely. Any help would be welcomed.

Good luck,glad everyone is doing well!Ya know,my 25 has great lighting and gets DIY CO2 and dosed fertz,and I could not keep repens going either.I finally quit wasting my money on it.

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Majerah, of the two pots of repens, I think maybe only about 3/4 of a single pot has survived and of that I am expecting to lose about half of that since I am starting to notice some of the stems are turning black.
On a much lighter note, am going to add all my new additions this weekend! Am going to add the two bettas on Friday and the three cory cats on Monday or Tuesday. I don't want to send my tank into a mini-cycle with the addition of so many new fish.

Yeah thats the same thing that was happening to mine.I tried to plant them individually,like other stems,thinking that maybe they were not getting enough light between all the stems,to no avail.

Yay for the ladies!Must get pics when they settle in,of all of them together.

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So, I got all of the new fish added to the tank this weekend. I added the three girls on Friday and the three Corys today. That brings me to eight ladies, three common Corydoras, and a bunch of Ghost shrimp in a 20 gallon pretty heavily planted tank.
Everyone seems to be getting along pretty well. To change the lay out so no one gets crazy, I added two Cardinal plants, two bunches of A. lutea, another H. compakta, a marbled sword of some kind, and some dwarf hairgrass (dhg). I love the look of the dhg but man, is it a pain in the butt!!! I wish the Cardinal plant would keep its purple color, but in my tank it loses all of its purple leaves and sprouts green ones instead.
I will get pictures this weekend, am going to have a REALLY busy week. :(

Sounds like its going smoothly!Cant wait for the pics.But I will I guess......


LOL

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Alright, I am not having a very great week here. I have one fish dead, one with tail fin/body damage, and one with some sort of neurological problem. The one with tail fin and body damage seems to have columnaris, luckily I think I have stopped it in its tracks. I took her out and applied Pimafix directly to the infected area and that has seemed to stop any progress. She has yet to show any other signs of slowing, swims great, eats great, doesn't hide or sit at the bottom. She just has some mouth and tail missing.
I can't seem to figure out if Maracyn or Maracyn II is better at treating columnaris, so right now I am just trying Maracyn. I feel like I am not doing something right but I have no idea what it is. I have notice though that all three of my infected fish were/are the original stock fish I saved from Wal-Mart. I wonder if it's not so much what I am doing but that the fish just aren't from good stock. Any thoughts?

Up-Date:
My favorite betta didn't die! She spend almost a month in the QT and just didn't die. She still has trouble with swimming (her tail end keeps trying to float up) but she is eating and pooping regularly so who am I to complain? I ended up putting her back into the main tank since she clearly isn't going to die any time soon.
Last week I went to the LFS to get some more Ghost shrimp and ended up getting five White Cloud "Danio" Mountain Minnows mixed in with my shrimp (Lucky, I know). They seemed to be fitting in pretty well with my six remaining ladies.
I ended up having to remove one of the girls due to a little bit too much fin nipping. She was a fish from PetSmart while the others are from Pet Extreme. I am not sure which type of betta she is, but her fins are MUCH longer than the girls from PetSmart (yes, she is a girl. I double checked) and the other girls just love to pick at them. She is currently in her own 5 gal. with her own personal clean up crew snail.
I also added two Golden Mystery snails last month and they promptly eat my two Cardinal Plants and a brand new H. Kompakta! I am going to try and post a picture of the tank from my cell phone, but who knows if it will work. Thanks to the snacking my snails did, one side of my tank looks a little bare :(

So the pictures are not very good, but you can sort of see the colors that the girls have. My favorite is the large purple one, then there is a blue one, a blue one with red tips, a light teal girl, a dark almost navy girl, and a dark almost black-ish one. The one female I have that isn't in the large tank has a dark black-ish body with vibrant red fins.
I couldn't get the Corys to come out for photo time, but all three are still doing great.

Hey Mary,the pics are not working for me.

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Darn it! I will try to get them to work here in a few. Sorry guys.

I would love to see the pics if you can get them to work! I am also working on a sorority atm so it's exciting to see others!

Up-date:
Lost one of my gold mystery snails to the filter intake. It got sucked into the tube and died, then the second one decided to try and commit suicide but luckily I got it out before it died. THEN (all of this happened on the same day) one of the fish jumped out of the tank via the 1/2 inch hole between the filter and the wall and died. Needless to say, it was a slightly crappy day. However, everything else seems to be going alright. I am going to try and get the pictures up on here tonight. Wish me luck!
- Mary