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

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

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

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.

First the Bad news, sometime on March 27th while I was out of town for my Grandpa’s funeral disaster struck at my apartment. Three of my breeders, Blaze my red Male, Heels, my red female, and Munchkin the little cambodian girl from Ontario died, they were discovered on the 28th by my fish sitter.  When I got home that evening my green dragon male, Draco, was in rough shape and I wasn’t sure if he’d pull though. A 100% WC and a round of Tetracycline later he’s made it back into the land of the living. I wish that I could say that that’s the end of the losses however that isn’t the case. While I was gone home for Easter on the weekend RT, my Rosetail male from Ontario, passed away as well. All of the lost kids will be missed, RIP babies, I didn’t have you long enough.

Onto the realm of frustration now, onto of all the fish losses the lights in three of my tanks have decided to give out on me. The one I knew about, the whole hood is dead and will need to be replaced. Another I suspected as I’ve had trouble with it in some form or another for quite some time. However the light on NightHawks 5 gallon hood comes as something of a surprise. I’m hoping that a quick trip to Dollarama today to pick up a new bulb will fix that one at least. However I’m not holding out hope. Also with finals coming up (much faster then I’d like) I need to do something with the 56 gallon. The sound of running water is driving me totally and officially insane now. (At least more insane then I was before :p )

Moving onto to good news… I have a car, if only for the week, so will actually be able to do SOMETHING about these various fix it type projects. I also discovered (to my delight) in Micheals last night that they sell “project” plywood! Hopefully after lab today I can run around and pick up the various bits and pieces I need to get things back up to snuff. I may get fancy and sketch up some new designs for the hood of the 56, I’d like to set it up with plants running around or above it. I’ll look into setting up something to “suspend” the lights above it but we’ll see.

Until Next time take care,

A Betta Addict

I’m learning that the 56 will need a few… modifications, the sound of running water is driving me up the wall so there will be some DIY on that in the next week or so as I finally start buckling down for finals and can’t take the noise anymore. I don’t know if I’ll do an upgrade on the whole canopy then or not. It’s tempting since I’ll working on it anyway.

All the Betta tanks handled the moves like champs, except for the hood on shimmers 5 gallon. For some reason I’m having issues with the light and if a new bulb (to pick up tomorrow) doesn’t fix the problem I may have to get serious and DIY a whole new hood and light for it. I know finals must be near because the thought of that is making me giddy with delight (dang procrastination streak). If I do decide to go the whole DIY route expect that I’ll just make 3 new ones since both Mama and Max have “faulty” lights of some sort or another.

Red is still in the 20 gallon though I’d hoped to have him back in his 32 gallon by now. The 32 is currently sitting empty and taunting me. Another finals project? Possibly, more likely I’ll push that off a bit more for now. As much as I’d like to get it up and running it’s too cold to work outside on it and I don’t believe that I have the ventilation in the suite necessary to work on it indoors.

On a happier note I’m working the quirks out of a design for a Betta Barrack system so by the end of april I hope to have that ready to go.

That’s all for now,

A betta addict

All credits for this system go to Debby Stainforth of Dream Betta’s.

How to Make a Drip System prt. 1

How to Make a Drip System prt.2

How to Make a Drip System prt. 3

1) Spent all morning online hitting re-fresh on the tracking number of the shipment.

2) Barely restrained myself from beating the FedEx guy to the door (just in case it was someone elces package)

3) Signed for the package then walked carefully up the stairs trying to restrain my giddyness.

4) Immediatly opened the box (remembered to take a few pictures first)

5) Dug through the newspaper and insulation to find each of the newspaper wrapped treasures.

6) Un wrapped each betta in their bag from the newspaper and tried to resist hugging the bags (obviously couldn’t cuddle the fish but it was the equivalent)

7) Checked to make sure there were no DOA’s

Took many many pictures

9) Contacted the sellers to let them know that their fish had arrived safely, re-packed everyone in with the heat-packs and took them to the new apartment where their new homes were ready and waiting.

Once I had them home the tricky part began. Acclimating the new kids to their new water.

There are alot of things that you’ll read about in regards to acclimating new fish, different techniques and methods. What I did probably wasn’t very proper but it’s turned out alright for me.

First I have to say that everyone is in QT. I’m only sharing equipment between fish from the same breeder, everyone has a separate volume/container of water, disease and bio-security are something that I take fairly seriously. None of the new fish are sharing equipment with my “pets” other then the bucket, however the new kids “used” tank water has a separate bucket just for emptying the tanks, my big bucket I’m only using to fill the tanks.

Right back on topic, acclimatizating. I left the bags to float in the tanks for about 15 minuets or so to allow them to warm up (they arrived pretty chilly). For the Ontario Betta’s, I decided after a bit of debate to just add them straight into the tank. Water and all. I figured that water in Ontario couldn’t be that different from me, and they’d only been in their bag water since Tuesday.  For the Thai kids I did a bit of a different method. I have a 1cc syringe so I cut their bags open then used the syringe to slowly bit by bit double the amount of water in the bag (which took about 10 minuets) then I tipped the bag and the fish slipped out. Most of the time when I did this most of the water in the bag actually stayed in the bag so it worked pretty well. Someone on Fishlore mentioned that once you open the bag you want to get the fish out of there fairly quickly since as the excess CO2 in the bag escapes the pH in the bag will spike rapidly and can cause extra problems. I didn’t notice anything like that but then in terms of buffering abilities my test-kit has informed me that my water is the equivalent of super-man. I wish I’d thought to keep some of the Thai water just to see what some of the parameters are but I didn’t, maybe I’ll remember to next time.  My acclimation may not have been perfect but the Thai kids aren’t any the worse for wear for it, (those boys are flaring machines!).

Some things that I’ve learned from this experiance and will try to remember for next time?

1) Make sure that you have scissors or a knife handy to get into the boxes.

2) Most deliveries won’t occur until after 8 am at the earliest (probably) waiting at 6 may have been a bit extreme on my part.

3) Make sure your tank (or QT tank) is ready and has all the nessecary bits and pieces.

4) Betta’s are tough tough little fishes, they’re not all looks :p

I don’t know if that was helpful or not. I hope that it may help someone else out and if you have any questions feel free to ask :p

The RoseTail pair have been dubbed RT and Rosie respectfully and don’t seem any the worse for wear this morning. RT is in a 5 gallon hex tank that I picked up a while back for him and is sharing a shelf with NightHawk. I think that NightHawk is enjoying it since he appears to have built his fist bubble nest in months! I guess finally having some “competition” made him decide he needs to declare what’s his territory :p RT ate his bloodworms like a champ this morning despite his tank being a bit on the chilly side. I was a heater short unexpectedly so I’ll have to run and pick up another one for him later today. Rosie is a little bit spooky yet, not quite sure what to make of everything. Hopefully she’ll settle down soon. She has some amazing coloration a soft pale lavender with a butterfly pattern. Too bad that she’s a Rose Tail but I think she’ll turn out to be a beautiful pet.

The Breeders seem to be pretty content in my “bath” set up for now. The boys were confused by the blood worms but they must have caught on quickly enough since there isn’t a single blood worm left on the floor of the containers now :p The Red HM boy has stolen my heart just as quick in real life as his picture did :p Draco and the marble are growing on me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like Draco’s coloring but it’s beginning to grow on me. Megan’s already declared him her favorite.

As for the ladies the red female wasn’t interested in the blood worms but I think that they’re gone now so she must have ate them eventually. The green girl gets some serious attitude whenever I come by her tank which is quite fun to watch. The real surprise was the extra female that I received from Ashley. She’s much younger then the others, about half their size so she has a bunch of growing to do yet. I believe that she’s a Lavender Cambodian and is from a DT line. She looks pretty promising so I’ll have to try and get some pictures of her soon. I’m interested to see how she grows out. Right now I’m thinking that I might pair her up with the marble boy.  I don’t know yet if she’ll show any sort of BF pattern but it’ll be interesting to see at the end of the QT period.

I haven’t heard back from Ashley (the Ontario seller) about the pair/trio coming from her but I hope to hear from her soon. I’m really hoping that they made it out today but we’ll see, I believe that they’re coming via Canada Post (the Thai Group is being shipped with FedEx).  I’m so excited for tomorrow it’s really not funny :p

I’m mostly ready for all the new kids, I have the containers ready for the “baths” for the breeder containers.  I suspect that once the QT period is over (paranoid of me I know) I’ll be setting up some sort of barrack system with a central water source and heater.  In my current location it’s just not feasible for me to heat a room just for them (unless I decide to build a utility shed in half my bedroom) and I can’t heat the whole place either so a barrack system is going to be my best bet. However that means I’ll need to have a close eye out for any disease that might be waiting to come through. Hence the QT period. I believe that it’s a 60 day QT but I’ll have to double check to be sure. I don’t want to take any chances with these new kids.

Edit: I just heard from the Ontario breeder and she shipped the trio today! I have their tracking number as well. Double screen refreshing woot!!!