Letters of a Betta Addict

It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in here. Mostly that’s been due to a combination of discouragement, moving, and work. I don’t know if I’ve said it anywhere else on here but I lost every single one of my HM pairs. This discouraging fact coupled with losing the my old boy Night Hawk. sort of put all of my fishy related things on hold for the time being. However things are starting to settle down again now and while I haven’t gone and started a buying spree on AquaBid yet I am starting to have the temptation again. However this time I think that I’ll try and handle things a bit differently. First I’m going to look around and see what stock is currently available in my area, and I’ll be working to try and keep my start up costs as low as possible. However in the mean time I’m just enjoying modifying my tanks and tinkering with the setups. For the time being Prairie Fire Betta’s is on hold and I’m going to set back, enjoy my set-ups, and work on fixing and improving my tanks.

My fishy todo list isn’t very long but I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

1. Tame the jungle of the 5 gal.

2. Reseal and re-finish the 32 gal.

3. Reseal, refinish, and redesign my 56 gallon gold fish set up.

4. Work up a workable design for new florescent hoods on my 5 gallon aquariums.

Well I have a bit of depressing news. After a long week I got home to my apartment to find that I lost two of my Bettas. Mama, one of my pet VT girls, and my remaining HM female, Darlin’. When I left I suspected that something was a bit off with her but I decided that it would be easier on her to leave her at home rather then submitting her to the stress of a car ride and a change in water to take her home to the farm with me. However with her loss I’m left with 1 of my original 8 HM’s. Not really a positive place to be.

And now I’m not sure what to do. Importing new stock would be the thing to do however until things settle down here again (and I’m gainfully employed) I don’t have the time, or cash to do so. So as it stands I have Bran, who is turning out to be my champion. Now the way I see it there are a couple of options available to me. First obviously there is going to be a delay in any spawn. Mid June now at the earliest I suspect. I’ll put some feelers out to see if there are any BBC members with stock available. If not I think I’ll take a “holiday” and check around the local stores here and see what they have for females. I might be able to find a suitable VT female and while it will hurt a bit I should be able to get the HM’s back again hopefully without having done too much damage to the HM form.

I’m not out yet but the innings are counting down…

Sincrely,

A Betta Addict

Well due to weather conditions and current un-employment my spawning plans have been pushed back a little bit. Dad is over run with Mud at home some I went home on Wednesday to help. I’m back in the city today to do water changes and check the fish then I’m gone again till Thursday.

Speaking of water changes there’s a few more then usual today. I hadn’t gotten around to taking apart various now empty tanks. The QT set-up has been dismantled, as has Draco’s tub home. Rose’s 3 gallon will be taken down as well (I may try to sell it on kijiji later), and the 10 gallon QT tank that I moved her to for easier medicating is coming down as well. While I’m at it I’m “organizing” a bunch of my fish stuff since I’ll be honest since the move it’s just been a mish-mash of things all over the place. Hopefully I’ll finish the tear-downs and the rest of the water changes shortly and can get to cleaning the rest of the apartment as well.

In other news there’s a BBC meeting tonight at 8pm that I’m definitely looking forward to. Hopefully there’s a good turn-out for it :).

Well I guess the break is over time now to get back to work,

A (wet) Betta Addict :p

Well on the breeding front we’re making some small progress lol.

Bran and Darlin’ are in the conditioning tanks and when I manage to find my camera I’ll get a photo of that set-up on here. Bran is my royal blue, marble male and Darlin’ is the green serenade female. They’re not the most matched pair I have but Darlin’ is the only breeder female I have left (RIP girls) and Draco (the green bi color male) still isn’t 100% from his run in with whatever it was that took out my Red HM pair and my Cambodian female.

So what am I hoping for from this spawn?

Well Fry to begin with lol.

Genetically I’m not sure, color wise Bran (as a royal blue) carries both the Steel Blue and Green alleles. As a green Darlin’ has only the Green alleles. The results then “should” be roughly 50/50 royal blue and green according to the Punent square. However since nothing in real life genetics ever follows the plan exactly this will be a fun spawn.

The “Unknowns” that I’m working with genetically are:

Marble - Which not only is a dominant form of inheritance but by it’s very nature is absolutely chaotic.

The “Serenade” - A coloring I still haven’t really managed to nail down. It’s a green and white bi-colour pattern with a third colour (dark green) edging all fins. However I’ve been referring to it as a “dragon type” since the scales have a thicker than normal appearance and her masking (full by the by) reminds me of the typical dragon masks (unmasked line down the middle).

Also since I don’t know for sure what the parents of either of these fish are and that they’re both from different breeders means that any recessive traits in their lines are probably going to come out in this out crossing. Well for now they’re both happily hanging out in their respective tanks and eating well. In the mean time it’s time I started making up my mind about how I’m going to do this spawn so I can make sure that I’ve got everything ready to go.

Until next time,

A Betta Addict

Wow it really has been awhile since I last posted here hasn’t it. My apologies will all the stuff going on with finals it can be hard to come up with a suitable fishy topic :p

I thought I would make a brief ammends today by posting a video of my current Breeder/QT setup. It’s not a real exotic system but it manages to keep all three of my breeders warm and individually housed.

Prairie Fire Betta's Breeder/QT setup

The set up should be pretty self explainitory but if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.