THE BETTA COMMUNITY TANK： NO CO2 ''Blackwater'' & Planted Aquascape Tutoria

Welcome back everybody, hope you're doing well. In today's video we're going to rescape this currently not so great looking display tank and turn it into a beautiful aquascape for a better. I'm excited, hope you guys are excited as well. Let's get started. So I'm currently at the Reefwachteur, a beautiful aquarium store in the Netherlands. I actually did a tour of this place a couple weeks ago. If you didn't see the video, I'll leave a link on top of the screen. And the owners asked me if I wanted to rescape one of their display tanks. Of course, I couldn't say no to that. So today we're here, let's see if we can make something nice. So this is the tank that we're going to be rescaping today. This is a Dennerle Scaper's tank, 70 liters. And this one is measuring 50 centimeters from left to right. It's 36 centimeters tall and I think it's almost 40 centimeters front to back. So pretty good size. And we're thinking to turn this into a better aquascape because right behind we have the better display tank. So all those small things over there are full of better fish. So it's going to be like a nice way to display a beautiful better tank, you know. So the plan is to do a complete rescape. So first step, take everything out, clean it so we can start from scratch. So whenever I have to empty a tank, I kind of follow the same procedure. First, I siphon out a good amount of clean water in a bucket. And I'll use this to temporarily keep the fish and other inhabitants that I'm about to catch. After that, I remove as many obstacles as possible. So in this case, that's all the plants and the rocks. Then I siphon out more water until there's just a small layer left. And then it's time to catch all the fish and shrimp. Once all the inhabitants are out, it's time to remove the substrate. Now in this tank were a couple of filter bags filled with aquasol. And these I'm actually going to reuse in the new layout. Here we go. Tank is clean, looking good. We've added an upgrade as well. We've added a light screen to the background. So there's like an illuminated LED background. Looks really cool. So we're now basically ready to start scaping. So first thing we need is a substrate. So this is why it's fun to set up a tank in the store. Because you literally have everything you need within reach. And plenty of options to choose from. So I'm starting out with these old aquasol bags. These will provide some height in the background. And they're also full of beneficial bacteria. So hopefully that's going to help kickstart this new layout. After that, I'm going to add a base layer with nutrients. And for this, I chose the Dendela Deponent Mix. I've used this in the past as well with excellent results. Then to cap the nutrient layer, I'm going with 1 to 2 millimeter black gravel. Again from Dendela. Okay, substrate layer is done. So we can now move on to the hardscape. Of course, we are in a store. So we basically can choose whatever hardscape we like. Let me show you guys what kind of hardscape collection they have here. So the shop has a pretty good hardscape selection. And for this aquarium, I want to do a classic MJ style aquascape. So a very simple hardscape with rocks and wood. And then just add loads of plants. The owner told me that he just received a new type of hardscape called Kaika Wood. And I've seen this before, but I've never used it yet. So this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. I grabbed two nice looking pieces. And after messing around with it for a few minutes, I came up with something that looks pretty good. Then we need some rocks as well. These are called dark pebble rocks. A nice dark gray smooth rock that should contrast well with the lighter color of the wood. Okay, we're almost done with the hardscape. It's pretty simple. Just use two pieces of wood and three rocks. I'm thinking to might add a little bit more details later on. But we first need to glue everything down. Because these two pieces of Kaika Wood are very light. They're definitely going to float. So I'm going to glue them down to the rocks. As always, I'm using my cotton pad and liquid super glue method. And I'm just looking for spots where the wood and the rocks are touching each other. Then I'll wedge a small piece of cotton pad in that gap. And soak it with this cyanoacrylate super glue. With this method, everything should be stuck together in seconds. After I was done gluing the hardscape, I decided to add some more details with some small gray pebbles. Now for my favorite part, planting. This shop has an amazing plant display in the middle of the store. With loads of super healthy plants. I decided to use mostly slow growing and easy plants. Because I want my layout to be easy to maintain for the guys working in the store. So I'm starting with some Crypt Parva in the foreground. And I just love how those bright green leaves look next to the dark gray pebbles. After that, I'm adding the Crypt Lucens. Which looks very similar to the Parva. But will grow a little bit bigger. In the background, I'm adding one more Crypt. And that is the Wendy Ti Brown. Then to hide some of the glue. And to add some green to the hardscape. I'm wedging some Anubias Bonsai in the gaps. In the back left corner, I'm planting some Cypress Helverii. This is an easy but slow growing grass. Very similar to Valisneria. As a final touch, I'm adding a little bit of moss on the wood. And then the planting is done. Okay, thanks all for that. Looking good. Really happy with the end result. Don't go anywhere though. In a few minutes, you guys will see how this aquarium looks. Three, four weeks from now. Okay guys, fast forward. I think it's been a month since I set up this tank. I'm now on my way back to the store. Today we're going to add in the fish. Show you guys the end result. Super exciting. Okay, so the tank is looking good. The Crypts have grown in nicely. The flowering plants have completely taken over. We do have a little bit of die-off on the Cypress Helverii. But that was kind of to be expected. The tank is in need of a little bit of a maintenance session. The guys have been very busy. So they haven't really had the time to take care of this tank. That's okay. I'm going to do a little maintenance session. Kind of pimp it a little bit. And after that, we're going to add in the fish. So I've just finished with the maintenance session. And I've also added a few more plants. So on the left side, we have the Hittadantara Sotiricolia. Very easy and fast growing plant. And here in the center, I've added the Nymphaea Taiwan. I think it's called. And one thing I didn't anticipate was that the wood would leach a lot of tannins. You guys told me they've been doing a lot of water changes. So I thought, why not turn this into like a little black water setup? So I've actually also added some botanicals. Like a little bit of mulch. Just to turn it into a sort of like a biotope slash black water setup. I think it looks really cool. So basically, we're now ready for the fish. So the plan is to still add a betta. And I think they just got a new shipment in as well. I was looking at this guy over here. He is really, really beautiful. I'm thinking though, if we should add something else besides the betta. Because the tank is like 50 liters. So it's quite big. So we could add a group of like very peaceful, like litter fish. Let's see if they have something. So these guys could be an option. The blue neon rasbora, I think they're called. But there's only like six of them in this tank. So it's a very small group. We could go with these guys as well. Like the classic green neon tetra. I mean, these guys are still very small. So we can definitely add a nice group of them. Okay, the guys gave me permission to catch the fish myself. So let's start with the betta first. Okay, here we go guys. Oh, he's already out. That went fast. Okay, he immediately went to hide in the back. So we'll give him some time to adjust. Here we go with the green neons. Not sure how many we have. We didn't count them. But I think there's about 15 of them or so. Here we go. Nice little group of green neons. And the betta has also started to explore the tank a little bit. That's really cool. Okay guys, we want to add one more group of fish. These are the Rhinoloricaria red. I'm not sure what the English or the common name is. But I'll put the name on the screen. Really cool little catfish. Orange color. I think they will suit this aquarium really well. Here we go with the last additions. Five of the red catfish. Here you go guys. Wow, they are so cool. Look at the color on them. Okay guys, that's your aquarium complete. It's kind of like a mix between a biotope and a planted tank. Really happy with the end result. It's a nice little community of fish. With the green neons, the red catfish and our beautiful betta. Yeah, really happy with the end result. Hope you guys like it as well. If you did like it, then don't forget to smash the like button. See you guys next time.