Recreating a Jungle Stream for My Giant Dragon Bettas

This is a betta, the world's most popular pet fish. For over a thousand years they've been selectively bred for aggression, different fins, and colors, almost all from a single species, betta splendens. Last year I wanted to showcase a wild type betta that has not been tampered with, grows much larger, and can live communally, betta patote. The thing is that they grew for six months before I ever showed them, and there's something I kept secret. This entire time, another group of even larger and arguably more beautiful bettas developed alongside them in the quarantine room. This video is sponsored by Fritz Aquatics. While these little dragons were finally ready for their debut in the animal room, I was not. There wasn't a spot available for their tank. Since I got them last May, I knew precisely what aquarium they should live in, this custom built long one that's been sitting idle in the furnace room. It was decommissioned quite a while ago, so I thought it was probably best to reseal it. The task at hand was simple, I had to separate the panes, scrape off the old silicone, thoroughly clean the glass, install bumpers, apply tape, and reassemble everything as it was before. After the silicone cured, it looked great. However, a few modifications were required to make it a suitable home for the bettas. I decided that I'd have to drill holes to make way for bulkheads and a canister filter. While all bettas are known jumpers, these are far more agile than standard varieties. So simply dropping the waterline below the rim like usual wasn't an option. It's also worth mentioning that these bettas originate from slow moving streams and appreciate some flow. Setting up the tank like this would allow for the tightest fitting lid and water movement from the filter's return. Heads you like and subscribe, tails you dislike and don't subscribe. Ooh, would you look at that! I originally built this to house a river setup for rainbow shiners, who unfortunately jumped out of the tank. It's kind of ironic that I'm using it again to recreate a similar type of habitat, but this time I'm not going to have any jumpers. This tank is almost 40 inches long, which will be great for the fish. That said, I didn't have any suitable materials that were long enough to create a lid. To get around this I cut down two small pieces of glass to close the gap. These aren't going to hold water or anything like that, so I thought it would be excessive to anchor them with silicone. I simply used mounting tape instead. I personally don't really care for glass lids because of how easily they can break. Ask me how I know. In my opinion polycarbonate is a much better option, even if it doesn't look as sleek. As I said, there wasn't a spot for this tank in the animal room. Well, kind of. I just moved the dwarf frogs into their giant paludarium, which they absolutely love. That made room for the new gourami tank on the lower shelf. Fun fact, bettas are technically a type of gourami. They look very similar, so it's not really a surprise, and both have a labyrinth organ which allows them to breathe air. Anyway, that left me with a metaframe aquarium which I put in place of a fountain in the studio. While this tank is quite long, it's not that big. It only holds 24 gallons of water. It's just designed to provide more surface area than a standard dimension. I added most of the plumbing pieces before moving it over here, and just had to add the return and a pre-filter. I also had to make custom mounts for the lights which I painted the same color as the wall. You'll see here that I also added clips to the lid to avoid any mishaps when accessing the inside. I had a very specific vision and idea for how I wanted that to look, and to make this design, these egg crate panels were essential to distribute the weight of the hardscape. The streams where these bettas originate are full of smooth rocks and gravel, and I can't think of many materials that capture that look quite like Hakai stone. It's not a very common stone, so I'd been saving these large ones for the perfect scape. While I have a drawer full of Hakai and could have used more here, I decided to mix in other stones instead. I felt that having a variety of colors would look more natural with the gravel, and create a more compelling design overall. From what I've seen, the streams I'm trying to replicate don't contain much aquatic vegetation, if any. I did want to include some though. As usual, I used Fritz Super Sacks to contain pockets of nutrient-rich substrate for the I think this is where the variety of stones I used earlier really began to shine. Otherwise, the contrast from the sand could have looked a little jarring. The smaller stones and gravels tied it together even more, genuinely making it appear like an authentic stream or creek, even while being contained within a glass box. I wasn't about to go crazy with the plants, but I thought some grass-like items near the edges could look appropriate. I didn't want to take away from the scape, and as I said earlier, I wanted this to resemble the fish's natural habitat closely. While plants are sparse in their native range, botanicals are not. I filled a pot with random leaves, twigs, seed pods, and Fritz Catawpa leaves and casuarina cones. Even though botanicals are present in the streams I'm trying to simulate, the water is pretty clear with minimal tannins. That's why I put these on to boil for a few hours to remove most of those and get everything to sink immediately. That process wouldn't have been complete though if I didn't rinse them all off afterward. Now I don't know about you, but I've never seen a Hakai stone scape use botanicals. Then again, I've never seen it mixed with other stones either. It's usually reserved for high-end planted tanks with CO2. Those can be really beautiful, but I think this is something I could get used to. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but this is my kind of aquarium. A slice of nature. While it might not use materials precisely from the area it represents, and maybe I took some artistic liberties, it should be a great home for the fish. The incredible Betta Antuda. Like the Patoti I showed last year, these are giants in the betta world. They're truly something to behold, especially in person. Here's my hand next to a large male for reference. They're just as personable as any other betta, but there's something about them being this large with those dragon-like scales that makes it different. They can also live communally. These are just being kept as pairs though. For reference, that male just ate a full-sized cube of bloodworms, and it's nearly the same size as that heater. I have one here, and as you can see, they're a pretty large fish. Betta Antuda are a mouth-brooding species. Here the males hold eggs and fry in their mouth as they develop into young fish. This tank houses a male and it's young, and here are a few broods of different ages from various pairs. Mine were produced here and looked like this nine months ago. I'm fairly certain that this is a pair. They appear to get along well, but only time will tell if they're truly compatible. If not, I actually have another female I could try instead. Even though they have more growing to do, they're still large fish, so it was cool to see how this tank made them appear small. Once they had time to acclimate, and after I added Fritz Turbostart Nitrifying Bacteria to jumpstart the cycle, they were free to explore their new home. At first, they seemed unsure of their new surroundings. However, it wasn't long before the male was more curious about what I was doing. He was also very intrigued by his new neighbors. It took a bit longer for the female to get accustomed to things. Eventually she did and looked beautiful. It's crazy how much more brilliant their colors became as they acclimated to this environment. I find these giant bettas fascinating and have thoroughly enjoyed my time with them so far. My hope is to get these Antuda and the Patote breeding to document the process and proliferate the species within the aquarium hobby. I'm excited to see what the future holds. If you want more giant betta content, my build for a community of Patote is a must watch. I've linked that up here, as well as the time I grew an aquarium around water lilies if you're looking for something a little different. As always, thanks for watching, and until next time SerpaSquad, take care and peace.