Letters of a Betta Addict

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 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

Ok so I may or may not do more of these “How To” sort of articles but I noticed that google sent someone here looking for “what to do when you receive your fish from  a transhipper?”. Now this shipment of betta’s has been the first set of fish that I’ve ever had shipped to me period but I never did mention anything about what I did in regards to handling them once I got them. So here is a brief run-down of how it happened.

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

Well the new babies are finally here! Everyone arrived safe and sound yesterday and seems to be settling in without too much trouble.

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.

The trans-shipper (Hung) sent me the tracking number for Thailand Babies and I’m trying to resist checking it since I suspect that I’ll wear out my refresh button waiting for them tomorrow <Insert Wild Crazy Happy Dance>

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!!!