one little fish

Back from my trip, the first thing I checked on was the fish and as I kind of expected, Bluet had died. The one that has been sick or cancer for a long time. So now I only have Pinkie, and here are (finally!) some decent photos of him. You can see why, even though I picked him out for his beautiful blue-green color, I call him Pinkie.

The vacant bowl still holds water (cleaned) because it has Pothos rooting in it.

I gave up on fully aquatic plants. They needed more direct light than the bettas liked so I was either dealing with stressed fish and algae or sickly plants. I will keep this arrangement instead.

The plastic lid (which came from a supermarket-bakery cookie container) I punched with holes to cover the bowls to keep the fish from jumping out (they do), while still providing oxygen. It was afterwards that I thought a cut Pothos stem would fit exactly through those holes, so I tried this. Eventually the stem will grow too large for the hole but I have three pots of cuttings plus the mother plant, so it's easy to restart more.

It is not a symbiotic system. Yes, the plant probably benefits from fish waste, and I have seen the betta resting on some roots which lay horizontally in the water, and they like to hide in the roots (mine aren't grown enough for that yet). But the fish does not eat the roots. Bettas are carnivores, they don't eat plants. So of course you still have to change the water and feed the fish. When it's time for cleaning, I lift the lid-plus-plants off and set it on top of a bowl so the roots don't get damaged.

I have been thinking of trying this with Arrowleaf plant in Pinkie's bowl as well...