This month saw a new addition to the nano cube: another Betta Splenden. This is a young chap going by the name of “Firey” hailing from my local, Finn’s Aquaria on the Warwick Road, Sparkhill. I decided i couldn’t be bothered to burn the petrol to go back to Shirley Aquatics (save money and reduce my carbon footprint 
), so instead i visited my local, Finn’s Aquaria on the Warwick Road in Sparkhill. They had a few bettas in and since i was going to be out of the city over the weekend i asked them to save this little fella, which i collected on the Monday. I also got another pleco to keep my earlier pleco company.
He was ok the first few days and then he like his predecessor found the filter intake. I kept a very close eye on him and thankfully he fought the suction with success everytime and swam away. I figured if the the suction bothered him, he wouldn’t keep coming back to the intake. Maybe i’m giving him too much credit – only time will tell. I’m sure the old myth that goldfish had a memory span of 7 seconds was proven to be false – They seem to know to come to the surface everytime you go near their tank to feed them.
Anyway just as a precaution i decided to add the “protein skimmer” attachment that came with the tank. It took the form of a piece of clear plastic which attached itself to the filter intake by means of suction generated by water entering the intake grill. It has a indents running along the top edge which is what the surface water runs and thereby skimming off the protein film on the water surface. I’m sure someone thought it was a good idea but with it attached detritus was floating around the tank a full day before i took it off to enable proper filtering of the water to take place again.
So leaving the protein skimmer in place i went off to work one morning content that the Betta could no longer be sucked onto the grill only to return to a neon tetra stuck between the grill and the protein skimmer – poor fella was dead, he’d obviously been there a while. He had entered (or may have been sucked) into the gap through the indents in the skimmer attachment and obviously couldn’t get back out. So i took off the skimmer and went back to the bare grill, it’s been more than a week and the rest of them seem to be doing fine. That leaves current inhabitants at 1 Betta, 2 plecos, 7 neon tetras & 1 cory catfish.
