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i have a plant bucket set inside my house, with like 4 stems of cobadia, and anrachris, and now the plants have a white cover, and the tank is full of yucky stuff.

there are white worms on top, and a few small snails, and some other organism. so who,what,how, and how to get rid of them.

i set-up up some breeding pairs of bettas, quickly to get some young, and add them in there to eat what ever that is.

Depends what those things are- can you get piccies of them? If theyre baby leeches or something it could be a nightmare- a lot of leeches start of sucking plant sap and then turn to blood as they mature.I think we need a bit of bug identification before proceeding. Can you define the yucky stuff a bit better- if the water is totally stagnant you wouldnt wanna put fish in - but then you know that. Perhaps just chucking an airstone in might improve things a bit, or a small pump to disturb the surface or something.

It also depends on seasonal temperatures and oxygenation in the bucket,I know bettas can breathe air to some extent but you wouldnt want them having to do it all the time.Have you tested the water?

All in all I dont think id be tempted to put fish in just yet.



Last edited by longhairedgit at 10-Sep-2005 22:29

Last edited by longhairedgit at 10-Sep-2005 22:30

umm, the temp is around mid 70, and it is still water,

the yucky stuff is white worms, i think i saw a leach or two, and a snail, and so little bugs, very small(they look like bbs)

what is the best way of getting rid of them, trough out the water>?

Seems a shame to kill the bacteria that are already there, it probably saves you having to cycle the bucket. Im not a big fan of snail and parasite killing formulas but since youre putting a betta in there and most formulas have been tested against bettas maybe its worth forking out for some bug killing stuff. You could trough it but youd also have to really clean off the plants well and stuff and youd probably miss some parasites - a suitable snailacide or leechaside (lol) would probably get it all.Youd prabably have to manually catch any beetly things or bugs that arent soft bodied tho as the meds probably wouldnt affect them.

I might be tempted to chuck in a small filter with carbon in to process the ammonia from the dead snails and worms etc and get rid of the medication afterwards leave it a few weeks and then chuck the fish in.Depends how much you wanna spend really. Just a fluval 1 or something similarly cheap.

Those temps are at the cool end of the range for some bettas (depends on the species and what you have it already used to) so if the fish gets a compromised immune system from being too cool youd have to be damn sure theres no nasties in there that could infect it.

I know its not really the quick fix youd probably like and I suppose you could trough it, but its your call.Thats what id do. I know its a bucket but if youre actually gonna keep fish in it , its better to treat it like another aquarium than risk the fish. Otherwise youll end up using the betta to cycle the water and I wouldnt recommend it.I know theyre pretty tough but this sounds like it could be a close run situation.



Last edited by longhairedgit at 11-Sep-2005 00:00

i was only going to thorugh some baby bettas in there, thinking that they would eat all that stuff. i have no real use for any of those things.