Wild Species Bettas

[babystarz]

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Haha I have $255 of fish (three pairs at $85 each) hopefully coming from Hermanus in Indonesia sometime soon. So excited and terrified that I am going to end up with a DOA or have them die while in quarantine etc.

Well that makes me feel a bit better about my impulse buy! I hope you've got a live arrival guarantee. What species are they?

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Had to make the hard decision and euthanise all my brownorum yesterday. They just didn't recover well from the velvet and were not eating and looking absolutely terrible. My other fish all recovered well so I don't know why those guys got knocked around so badly.

I'm sorry :( That is strange that they didn't recover. I wonder if perhaps the strain of velvet they ended up with is a mutated version that only exists in aquariums? That would explain why a wild fish's immune system might have trouble with it. I worry about that possibility with my wilds.

[babystarz]

Originally Posted by Setsuna

Hahahaha LMAO setsunas a guy sorry if my name throw you off

LOL good to know I did assume from the username that you were female, I should know by now not to do that!

[LittleBettaFish]

Species are burdigala, uberis and brownorum. Brownorum are wild-caught while the other two are captive bred. Decided to completely re-do the way I house my wilds and use peat moss, a very dense leaf litter and only a very small amount of java moss in each tank. May or may not put some hydrilla in to help with water quality. Think this way I can get the pH down as low as possible without needing rainwater.

There is a live guarantee in that you get your fish replaced if it arrives dead at your home. However, not sure how I will get one part of a pair replaced if this is a special bulk order from Indonesia.

I don't know why my brownorum didn't get better. It could have been they just had it worse or the medication affected them more adversely than in the other tanks.

The species I keep come from very low pH environments (I think 3-4 in some cases). A lot of bacteria can't exist in such an acidic environment so when exposed to a higher pH, the fish have little to no immunity to the bacteria present and can become sick. I do wonder if it was not my wild-caught bettas who first got it due to stress and who then spread it to all the other tanks.

Will have to get some more photos of my fry growing out. Think my rutilans are almost big enough to get their photo taken. The two ones in with mum and dad are growing fast even without me having fed them at all.

[Hallyx]

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Had to make the hard decision and euthanise all my brownorum yesterday.

Ohhh...That's really a shame. I like that type a lot. I have such a hard time when losing just a single fish. Maybe because I only keep a few individuals as pets.

Are there different color phase smarigdina? I've seen the bluish ones like Babystarz's. There's the tan/turquoise ones like mine. and there's this brown/gold kind (these are two different fish):

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by Hallyx

Ohhh...That's really a shame. I like that type a lot. I have such a hard time when losing just a single fish. Maybe because I only keep a few individuals as pets.

Are there different color phase smarigdina? I've seen the bluish ones like Babystarz's. There's the tan/turquoise ones like mine. and there's this brown/gold kind (these are two different fish):

These are smaragdina too but these are hybryids not fullbloods. Fullblood smaragdinas is emerald in color and anal fin is light orange im sure you seen them before

[dragon tamer]

I'm curious if anyone de-worms their wild caught fish when they are in quarantine and what medication was used to treat the velvet on your fish littlefish. I know sometimes it is really difficult to get rid of. I wonder if a worm load ,might have something to do with it. Do you all use any prophylactic treatments of the fish when they come in.my standard practice is fomalin and malachitegreen for velvet with a temp increase to 82 and an 1/8 tsp maarine salt per gallonup to a teaspoon per ten.

[Mahachai]

Originally Posted by Hallyx

Ohhh...That's really a shame. I like that type a lot. I have such a hard time when losing just a single fish. Maybe because I only keep a few individuals as pets.

Are there different color phase smarigdina? I've seen the bluish ones like Babystarz's. There's the tan/turquoise ones like mine. and there's this brown/gold kind (these are two different fish):

That's a copper smaragdina. And like Sets said he's not an original smaragdina because of interbreed with a different species to get that copper scale but, might catch a higher price if you do plan to get one. Like that copper smaragdina, I have a metallic mahachai. True species or not all bettas are beautiful within the eye of the beholder.

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by dragon tamer

I'm curious if anyone de-worms their wild caught fish when they are in quarantine and what medication was used to treat the velvet on your fish littlefish. I know sometimes it is really difficult to get rid of. I wonder if a worm load ,might have something to do with it. Do you all use any prophylactic treatments of the fish when they come in.my standard practice is fomalin and malachitegreen for velvet with a temp increase to 82 and an 1/8 tsp maarine salt per gallonup to a teaspoon per ten.

Well i dont use anything other then IAL when my fish arrives from oversea. bettas from the splenden complex group is very tolerant of water so i dont use anything. I know that mouthbrooders are water/PH sensative especially macrostomas.

[LittleBettaFish]

Excluding macrostoma (they are a touch more sensitive), I found my mouthbrooders have been the most tolerant of any of the wild bettas I have kept. My albis and channoides didn't care what conditions I housed them in and my unimaculata male is living happily in a community tank down in my rumpus.

I don't bother worming my wild bettas. Metro needs a vet prescription here so we have to use a pig and poultry wormer instead. Only once have I had a fish (not a wild species) sick from a large worm load he was carrying. Except for the velvet my wild bettas have always been in top notch health and breeding form.

Other medications are also severely limited here. I was using a brand of medication called Ichonex that had copper sulfate or something similar along with malachite green. I know copper can be dangerous at lower pH levels but all my other fish and fry were treated with it to no ill-effect. Tanks were also blacked out, and temperature raised to around 30 degrees celsius.

My other fish have shown no signs of the disease returning. It is very difficult on these species to firstly get a good enough look at them and secondly to differentiate between velvet and natural iridescence.

I do have some malachite green and formalin, but it has absolutely no dosage instructions whatsoever. This is what I pulled off their website:

Short bath 2-4 minutes per 10 litres for 1 hour, once a day for 3 consecutive days.

For long term use use at a reduced rate of 1ml per 40 litres.

But I have no idea how toxic those ingredients are and how long I can dose it without it making my fish keel over.

Anyway, here are two very poor shots I got of my kids yesterday while fiddling around with their tank.





Don't know why the red shows up so strongly in photos. One of them in real life has a completely blue tail now and yet it still looks red in the photo.

[Setsuna]

My Wild imbellis males flaring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bRHtKp6mPU
both are wild caught