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Wild Betta Journal

265K views 2K replies 80 participants last post by  Tokui 
#1 ·
I do have a blog already, but I thought this could be more for the day-to-day lives of my fish.

To start with, here are some pictures of my B. burdigala juveniles out of captive bred parents. There are four of them. One is really small and I can't sex, but the others look like two females and a male. They have two older sisters, and all of them will be staying here with me rather than being sold on.









Currently have no spawns going at the moment. I don't mind as I have at least 100 odd fry/juveniles growing out in my tanks.

I have two tanks under treatment for velvet. One houses some juveniles (I think it is the slowest growing species in the world) and the other some juveniles and their parents. Hoping to get rid of this frustrating parasite over the next week to give my fish some relief.

Going to be doing a big overhaul of my tanks in the next week. I am going to clean most of them out and get a proper headcount on how many fry/juveniles I have still in with their parents.

Wish I could get my brownorum female to stop eating their eggs while they are spawning. The male is a very lousy father and whatever eggs survive he stops guarding and lets her get in with them. I think I am never going to get any surviving fry from this species!

Hoping to get my hands on a pair of B. coccina before the year is out, but think my chances are slim. I wish wild bettas were as easy to source as splendens are. It seems I always like fish that are either horribly expensive or incredibly hard to find.

If anyone has any questions about wild bettas feel free to post them here. I have kept over 15 species and bred many of them, so do have some personal experience.
 
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#3 ·
Haha yeah I really like these three. They are very friendly and don't act at all shy or scared when I am around. I am hoping the fourth one I rarely see is a female as well as then I could have two harems of burdigala going.

I am only focused on one complex/group of wild bettas now. The coccina complex. I currently have seven species from that complex. I think there are only 11 species in total, but two are practically impossible for me to get my hands on.

Ideally I want male/female pairs of B. tussyae (only have one that I bred myself) and B. coccina to finish my collection. If the other two species fell into my lap I would not complain, but it is very unlikely.
 
#8 ·
Got some photos of my B. persephone males sparring. I've been noticing a few torn fins so going to be adding in some more floating plants, caves and wood for the weaker males to hide in. Females are plump and have been chasing each other and the males around, but just don't have space at the moment to separate a pair out.

Thinking of selling/giving away my strohi pair as I am not doing anything with them and I need the space now with all my fry growing out.











I don't think there is any betta that can touch the beauty of a fully coloured up B. persephone male. The blue is just unreal when the sunlight hits it.

I do however, need to clean my glass.
 
#10 ·
Yeah, they are not very aesthetically pleasing but the fish seem to like them and that is what is important. Did a bit of tank maintenance on a couple of the tanks yesterday so they are looking slightly better.

Decided to sell my Betta strohi pair. I just no longer have the room for them with all my fry growing out and they have been fairly ignored where they are downstairs. Hoping someone local wants them as they are a full-sized breeding pair and they have spawned in the past (except male swallowed his eggs). I want to focus solely on the coccina complex now.

My poor rutilans juveniles look like crap because they have been scratching themselves raw from the velvet. Going to put some Aquarium salt in as well, because based on prior experience these kind of wounds can cause nasty secondary infections.

Just purchased two of these for my B. persephone tank. I am hoping that the weaker males who usually stay around the bottom of the tank will use them. Although they might be like their parents and decide to spawn in one of these (my male persephone used to nest in a piece of PVC pipe).

http://www.thetechden.com.au/D_Shape_Catfish_Breeding_Log_p/d1.htm

I want my new fish racks (getting them once the renovations downstairs are finished) to look similar to this. I am sick of being able to see all the cords and equipment in my current set-up.


(not my image obviously)

Going to boil up some more peat moss and sphagnum moss for my tanks. I have to go to my dad's this weekend and get some more oak leaves from the oak tree he has. They seem to last a surprising amount of time before disintegrating and my fish like the cover they provide.
 
#11 ·
Okay I was bored and decided I would rather take photos than clean tanks.

I did however clean my glass so the photos turned out nicer than usual.

This is my wild-caught brownorum male. He is from East Borneo apparently. Beautiful little fish with a lot of personality. He is extremely tame and not at all shy. Unfortunately, him and his female are extremely pathetic spawners. She either eats the eggs during spawning, or he lets her into the film canister to eat the eggs before they hatch. I have what I think is a brownorum sub-adult from my previous mouthbrooding pair, but I am worried about adding it because those tanks run on separate buckets/siphons and I don't want to introduce any disease.







Here is his female. She is quite plump at the moment with a prominent egg spot so thinking they will spawn/snack again soon.




They were fighting over blackworms.

Here is my wild-caught burdigala (supposedly but I am thinking he might be uberis) male. Only have one shot of him because he hates the flash. I have noticed he is quite fat now compared to the tiny little thing I got months ago. He has fathered many offspring with his female, but they have been very male heavy spawns.






Some juveniles/fry still living at home with the parents.
 
#12 ·
Got a surprise today as my terracotta 'D' caves had arrived. The seller had even put some lollies in for me.

Anyone from Australia reading this, I highly recommend TheTechDen for purchasing aquarium supplies online. Service has always been exceptional and a majority of the products are Australian made.

I just plonked one of them in there to see if they would fit and it is more than big enough to hold my wilds. So far a couple of persephone and my tussyae male have been into it.



Here's some more pictures of my rarely photographed tussyae male. He is the only tussyae I have and lives with the persephone but I am debating moving him out. He normally doesn't colour up like this, but he also doesn't sit still so the photos aren't exceptional.







I am pretty sure he was born in August of last year, so nearly a year old.

I wish I had the money to purchase some more of these D caves because I think they would be great for shyer fish to retreat to in my group tanks.
 
#13 ·
Well my pair of captive bred burdigala spawned the other day.


"Don't mind us, we're just going to spawn right where your camera can't get a decent shot"

The male has two adult daughters (one hides all the time so I rarely see her and one he has spawned with) and there are two or three bigger fry that are swimming around in there as well.

The pair in the photo, are the parents of the juveniles in the first post on this thread. That tank has given me the highest female to male ratio, and coincidentally enough it is the tank with the lowest temperature so thinking the sexes must be linked to temperature.

Dad has been busy tending the nest and I think the eggs are going to hatch today. I will have to be careful doing my water changes because usually I blast eggs and fry everywhere and he comes and gives me the stink eye before going and collecting everyone again.

My B. uberis who are suffering from velvet still have been looking perkier. The female who had an ulcerated face seems to be healing and one of the males (I think it is the father) has built a bubblenest in a film canister that she was investigating yesterday. There is one obvious female in there along with two smaller possible females. I have a spare wild-caught male uberis who lives with my rutilans that I have been trying to grow a female out to pair up with. Also have two nearly full-grown sons who are still bunking with dad that I may hold onto.

Otherwise, everyone but my B. rutilans juveniles are looking good. Rutilans look like hell but as long as they are still eating and swimming around they should recover.

I have a buyer for my B. strohi pair so will be kind of happy to see the back end of those. Never really got attached to them like I did my original pair so at the moment they are just taking up space.
 
#15 ·
I used to use it, but don't like the look of it. The terracotta once it has gotten some algae and been covered with peat moss and leaf litter looks a bit more natural.

I used to use PVC pipe for my big mouthbrooders because some of them were pretty big.

I have so many fry growing out at the moment. Not as many as splendens would produce mind, but heaps more than I am used to. I have 6 out of my 14 wild betta tanks used as grow-outs, plus the fry that are still in with their parents.

My poor BBS hatchery has been getting a workout and I have been pumping dried cat food into my two grindal worm and one white worm cultures to get them producing enough for near daily harvesting.

Bloody peeved though that after all this running around I did with my mum yesterday to get ready for a big interstate dog show, I didn't get to clean any of my tanks. The grow-outs were already overdue, but I really did not have the energy to do them at 11pm at night. So going to do a 50% clean today and 50% clean tomorrow just to get all the grunge off the bottoms.
 
#16 ·
Took some pictures of my tanks today and the other day after a bit of a clean-up.

The light is only over those tanks to take photos, otherwise the plant in there grows entirely on whatever sunlight comes through the clerestory window, which really isn't heaps.


B. rutilans tank





B. uberis tank



B. burdigala tank (wild-caught left, captive-bred on right). Male is the one you can see at front of tank.

I also accidentally tipped out all these eggs from the film canister in my uberis tank. Thought the male had just built a nest and not actually spawned as his daughters are too small and mate is recovering from velvet. But guess they felt good enough to go at it haha.

Just finished my two hours worth of water changes. I have to rest all these buckets on glass lids over the fry tanks so I can drip water in while doing the other tanks. So glad I decided to get nearly every single tank its own siphon/bucket. Would have spread that velvet through my fish room again if I hadn't.
 
#17 ·
Well decided to sell all of my juvenile B. unimaculata off except for the biggest male and his father. Someone I know from another forum is taking a reverse trio (one female and two males) in a week or so, depending on how they improve from the ammonia spike I had that my test kit for some reason wasn't showing the first couple of times I tested.

They take up too much room, and I have to be extremely heavy handed with the water changes to keep the water quality good. Plus if I kept a female, I would just end up with more of them.

They are my 'mum's' fish but I told her after peeling one of the runts half-dead off the carpet that I am selling them as I am sick of them.

Just focusing solely now on the coccina complex of bettas. Although I do want either an imbellis, stiktos or smaragdina male to keep as a pet as a replacement for a domesticated splendens.
 
#18 ·
This post has nothing to do with wild bettas.

For the last month or so, I have been thinking of setting up a native tank again for a school of 6-8 pseudomugil mellis (honey blue eyes). Since I am living on the poverty line at the moment haha, this tank is going to be made up of whatever I have on hand and whatever I can scrounge around at my grandparents' farm today.

Basically, I only want to spend money on the fish.



Tank will look something like this, but with more wood and no hairgrass. Also, I will be using my Aquaclear 20 instead of that crappy internal filter I was running before, and it will be in a different size tank.

However, I was also toying with the idea of a 3D background, which will look like the bank of a river and have room for some emersed native plants.

So plan for today is to go collect some rocks and leaves, and dig up whatever tea tree roots I can find. They do seem to have a permanent puddle that grows what appears to be glosso and other emersed natives in there so may bring some home and see if I can't make use of them.
 
#19 ·
Tonight as I was feeding everyone, I realised that the dead fish in my B. rutilans 'green' tank is not the one I expected. Now I am just hoping it was not my B. brownorum sub-adult who I had previously thought I had killed when it was younger. I am also fed up with the several non rutilans fish in there, because it is preventing my greens from spawning. I know I have a definite male/female pair because I have seen them courting.

So I am setting up a 40L tank tomorrow and stuffing my spare B. uberis male, B. tussyae male, possible B. brownorum sub-adult (if that wasn't the dead fish) and spare B. rutilans male in there. Hopefully with enough hiding places and cover they should leave each other alone.

The only annoying thing is I am going to have to tear the tank apart to catch everyone and it is just looking how I want it.

Took these pictures earlier today of a couple more of my tanks. These are along the bottom shelf of my rack:


Wild-caught B. brownorum pair left, B. rutilans 'green' juveniles right


B. hendra/B. burdigala grow-out left, B. uberis grow-out right

Here's a close-up of one of the B. uberis fry. Growth has been fairly slow on these because I have not been feeding them heaps and only doing water changes once every couple of days.

 
#21 ·
Thanks for the feedback Hallyx. Have you still got your smaragdina (I think that is what it was) male?

Also, if anyone reading this journal has anything they want me to address in a blog entry, please let me know. I have covered a lot of material since it started so I am always open to new ideas, especially coming from those looking at getting into wilds or who want to learn more.

Otherwise, today is going to be a big fish day. Going to switch my B. hendra and B. brownorum tanks around and set up the tank for my misc. fish to go into. Also going to set up my 20L tank for my four burdigala juveniles as they are getting big enough now they don't need to be in a baby size tank.

Also thinking of setting up something like this for my poliaki killifish female and getting her a male for company. Her previous male died and I did notice that they were available at the wholesalers so I may be able to get a replacement fairly cheaply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jS2lfModSEA
 
#22 ·
Well I have been having a bit of a rough patch with my fish room at the moment. I'm trying out a formalin/malachite green medication on my rutilans juveniles and their battle with velvet, because at a low pH copper becomes very toxic and I don't want to have to keep exposing them to it.

If this medication works and no one dies from it, I will use it in my couple of other tanks where the fish still have some symptoms of infection.

I must have knocked the plug to my persephone tank heater and the tank was sitting on a chilly 20 degrees this morning. They are understandably looking lethargic, and if anything happens because of this I will be kicking myself.

In good news, looks like I have a few females in my male dominant burdigala spawn. Hoping this is the case as I want two pairs to keep on and a few females to sell with males to at least recoup some costs.

Mum and dad are getting taken out and put in their own tank. It's too cramped in there now and all the male juveniles are harassing mum and fighting with dad. Just need to save up some money and purchase a couple small pieces of wood to use in their new tank.

Got these photos of two juveniles from that tank sparring. They are so adorable and very tame. They are like a school of piranha when my hand goes in the tank.










Mum coming over to investigate. She is quite shy so I rarely see her out and about.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I hate velvet. Just when I think I have it licked, it crops up in one of my tanks again. It's ridiculous and bloody hard to spot on these fish because of how strong their natural iridescence is.

Rutilans are looking a lot less clamped up in the medicated water. I have a towel over their tank and have ramped up the temperature to 30 degrees celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). This is their second day of treatment and hopefully will finally give these poor juveniles a chance to be healthy again.

And thanks BeautifulBetta. I do love my wilds even if sometimes it is frustrating to the point of tears.
 
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