Makes sense. Definitely need a second fish then 
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As an avid fish keeper, I’ll have to say something’s. Don’t add nutrients to the water, but go ahead and feed your fish more. The ph is really high for the fish, are you using well water? If your water source has high ph, use bottled water, just not distilled or RO/DI. Once your plant is bigger, it’ll Most likely need more nutrients than the betta can provide safely. I use to sell a mini aquaponic set at the pet store I work at, mostly just good for Small herbs though. https://backtotheroots.com/products/watergarden?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9b_4BRCMARIsADMUIypJBwA85ClC0R0MWIxeTdKlY3ibYUqy6nvNlzsgtCesUWtfvEXEtsgaApIAEALw_wcB
As a different approach once the plant needs more food, try setting up two more Fish, then rotate which one the plant is feeding from. Or even one bigger tank with dividers for the fish, and the plant as a filter for the shared system.
Something like this
Or
That way you can keep collecting bettas (I limit myself to 3 now…) and you don’t need the bigger tanks required for goldfish or talapia.
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I just remembered that I read an article about a marine biologist converting a Volitans lionfish from saltwater to brackish to almost fresh, but he stopped because it was actually working and it scared the shit out of him. It can be done with excellent oxygenation of the water. They are really hardy fish and everyone hates them, except the predator keepers. There are also different species of lionfish including a few dwarfs that I think also suck but, I did sell a lot of them.
Not my picture, but I think I do have one.
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Found the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10641-014-0242-y
Really interesting stuff.
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Interesting. I often kept fish in quarantine/hospital tanks for a month at a time at gravity of 1.009-1.011, less than half the salt of seawater 1.024.
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Strange that parasites don’t like the lower salinity, but the fish doesn’t care as long as you acclimate it. My friend Greg Collinske is an occasional writer for ReefBuilders and when he worked at SeaLife Aquarium in Tempe we worked on straight buffered freshwater dips for new fish with formalin. I wonder if there isn’t something from the aquarium world that would work on spider mites in like a dip and rinse method we use to dip corals, but spray and rinse? Melafix is always a good coral dip.
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Idk about a commercial dip, but I’ve taken cuttings/clones and dipped them upside down in a hydrogen peroxide mix for a little bit, 50/50 Mix of 3% hydrogen peroxide and cold water. I’ve even let the whole cutting soak for a few mins before.
I’ve done the same solution for dipping corals to get rid of algae and infections, left them in for 8-15 mins after forgetting or during a water change.
On another note, has the use of no pest strips gone out of favor for controlling pests in the grow room? I use to leave it in the chambers at night when the fans were off, got rid of my mite problem very effectively that way.
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People seem to be using more leaf sprays with insecticide soap and neem oil. I do think people might appreciate if you start a thread to just show them what you have used and what they were effective on. I do think I will pick some up now just to put them up as a preventative.
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I think I will, I got three clones from a friend that have mites on them, a bit too tall to easily dip, so I’m going with nightly fumigating hot shots no pet strips. the peroxide spray I’ve been using seems to be keeping them at bay, but I’m not checking with a magnifier to see if it’s killing all of them or the eggs. I see lots of fizzing in some spots but, not uniformly across all leafs surface, so it’s targeting something. When I used it to dip smaller plants and cuttings, for sure anything that’s crawling around or in the webbing floats right off the surface, and the plant comes out clean, so it’s a more effective than just rinsing in water.
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I’m going to try the peroxide on my spearmint. The leaf eaters always go for my spearmint first.
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Also anything that tends to get fungal infections, I will spray them after it rains.
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Ok, so the mites don’t like the peroxide, but it doesn’t seem to be controlling them As well as I hoped. I saw new webbing this morning, maybe it’s the new ones that just hatched? I saw young ones but not the adults that I saw before.
Sorry, complete hijack of this thread lol. I’ll make my own when I get around to it.
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no worries, we are all in this to learn! I have done bud washing my last harvest with 4 buckets, first one was 1 cup peroxide in 5 gallons warm water, second bucket was 1 cup baking soda and lemon juice in 5 gallons of warm water, the other 2 were just water, last bucket being on the colder side… removed almost ALL the mites (had 2 plants really badly infested and used everything, fruit tree spray, neem oil, rubbing alcohol and water to keep them at bay during flowering which barely worked) and dirt from the buds, the taste is extremely noticeable, the buds I didn’t get around to washing make me cough when smoked… I am using a SHIT ton of lady bugs this year and so far have had better response than the sprays so far…
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In the past, like I said I use to use No Pest strips, it’s used in food storage even as it is a vapor. Just make sure to stop use 2 weeks before harvest. I found I was a bit sensitive to the fumes myself, though people use it I think their closets. I just make sure to vent out the grow room and have a carbon scrubber attached. I put it in at night when the exhaust fans were off so it could build up, using it for a week or two at a time killed all bugs, just have to wait for all the eggs to hatch. For buds that were infested at harvest, I just water cured it, no drying first as the mites will destroy the nugs as they dry.
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water cured? never heard of that? how does that work?
It’s a method to make your smoke as smooth as possible, and help leech out any leftover fertilizer and keep bugs/mold from getting to your plants before you get to dry them. Right after harvest, your trim it as much as you normally would when dry, then submerge the entire cola/nugs under room temp water, change the water daily or when ever it gets cloudy. Any water soluble stuff gets leeched out, then when the water remains clear for a couple days, you put the nugs out to dry quickly. You get lighter colored (and weight) end product with less aroma and flavor, but it goes down super smooth.
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That is very interesting… thank you, I had never heard of it done that way before, I might try a few buds this way to see if i notice the difference between bud washing, and water curing…
Bud washing… that’s new to me lol.
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I hadn’t heard of it either till a couple of weeks ago here on OG.
Here’s a link to the thread.
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