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Wild Species Bettas

97K views 1K replies 59 participants last post by  evilone 
#1 ·
Due to popular demand, I am creating a Wild Species thread so as not to keep clogging up Setsuna's thread in the Breeding forum :)

Who owns or has an interest in wild species? Do you have pics? Baby wild types for sale to others? Looking for breeding stock? Have questions about care? Are you simply looking for more information on these many species?

Resources

Link to IBC Species Management Program page and species index:
http://www.ibcbettas.org/smp/species/index.html

Seriously Fish species profiles (scroll down to the bottom of the page I've linked to see a full list of current species profiles for wild bettas):http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/betta-imbellis/


FAQ

Q: Do wild bettas need the same care as betta splendens?
A: Not necessarily. Many wild betta species prefer slightly cooler temperatures compared to bettas. Actual wild-caught pairs are the hardest to care for, and it's not necessarily ethical to buy them, seeing as over 56 species are identified by the IBC as in need of preservation. Wild bettas who were born and raised in hobbyist aquariums tend to be much easier to care for. Please be SURE to thoroughly research the species you are interested in before you acquire a pair.

Q: Do male wild bettas need to be separated from other fish like betta splendens?
A: Probably not. Many, if not most, wild betta species can be kept in pairs or communities. The general recommendation for most species is a heavily planted 10 gallon tank for a pair and a 30 gallon tank for a community, but this is not a hard and fast rule and breeders have successfully raised fry in smaller settings.

Q: Can wild betta species interbreed with betta splendens?
A: Some can. That is actually how metallic copper genes were introduced to betta splendens. However, because of the vast global spread of betta splendens and the shrinking natural habitat of many wild betta species, interbreeding is not seen as a responsible thing to do. There may come a day soon when the only populations of wild species exist in the hands of aquarists, and maintaining a pure gene pool is needed right now to boost numbers.

Q: Do wild betta species breed the same way as betta splendens?
A: Some of the more closely related species like betta imbellis are bubble nesters just like betta splendens, although the parents don't need to be separate from their fry. Other species are mouthbrooders (the males carry the fertilized eggs in their mouths until the fry hatch).

Q: Aren't wild bettas dull and uninteresting?
A: Not at all! Of course the aesthetic in wild betta species is their natural beauty, which is different from what many betta keepers may be used to. Betta splendens are the yin (artificially selected for exaggerated traits and bright colors) to the wild betta species yang (naturally evolved beauty). This isn't to say there are only muddy colors going on here. This is just a sampling of different species:


Source: IBC species index


Source: IBC species index



Source: IBC species index


And some Youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSV3nEbCVqE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5yg8Spbiw0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyEHk-A0F7M
 
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#956 ·
Yeah, it was definitely disappointing at first. They were my first mouthbrooders, so for a while I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Eventually I realized they were in fact spawning, they just didn't care for the eggs. I think it's possible they were all duds and the fish could tell. Either way, I think it was just bad luck. Otherwise they were super easy to keep happy and healthy.

I did finally spot my other male ocellata today. Still holding! I just filled the nursery tank with 5 inches of water. I'll move the males on Wednesday.
 
#955 ·
It's irritating when fish seem to have no paternal/maternal instincts. Usually they are the fish you want to breed the most. I had a pair of brownorum and they were hopeless. Ended up selling them recently because they would spawn and then the female would eat the eggs, or the male would lose interest in guarding the nest and she would get in and eat them.

I think my persephone are liking all the tannins in their water. I have been trying to make it especially dark to make them feel more comfortable.

 
#960 ·
Great news Setsuna! Macrostoma are so personable.

My stiktos pair have been doing really well. Got some fry I am raising alongside the parents.



I do have a question though, how do you distinguish stiktos from other species? Someone from the Australian Wild Betta Facebook page wanted to know and I wasn't really sure as they don't seem to have an actual species description.
 
#964 ·
Yeah. I was surprised by how nice she colours up, as I always thought the splendens comples females rather drab in comparison to something like my coccina females.

She is a little shy but slowly warming up to me. She doesn't bother the fry at all either which is good. I am aiming to get maybe 12 or so fry reared to adulthood from these first few spawns as I am rearing the fry naturally in the tank rather than in a traditional grow-out.
 
#969 ·
Yay for Macrostoma!! :D Glad to see you got some Setsuna. Are they wild caught or captive bred? Pretty male!

Skye -- that is a nice amount of fry for a first spawn. Congrats!!

LBF -- your stiktos are very pretty fish and possibly one of the prettier of the splendens complex.

As for me....I have finally gotten a pair of pallifina. I am soo excited to get them as I have wanted them for a long time. They are still quite small but are very nicely colored.
 
#973 ·
Whoa! Nice Setsuna! Those Macs do look wild caught and from Brunei by the looks of it, because the colors are very nice instead of the bland colors from other locals and captive breds. I wish you luck on breeding them because I heard they are hard, but you are a very experienced wild betta keeper and I wouldn't mind getting free macs if you breed a lot! :-D
 
#974 · (Edited)
Not sure whether to ask this here or in "diseases."

My Guitar smarigdina, my invisible fish of whom I have seen but fleeting glimpses in the last 6 months, showed up during a water change today and allowed me to be horrified at the condition of his back. It looks like someone removed the color off his back (1/16th in=1.5mm) either side of his dorsal center-line. From his head (including the tops of his eyes) all the way back to his dorsal fin.

It's not bloody, scraped, scratched or ugly. Just as if someone had taken some fine sandpaper and rubbed it on his back removing the color. The rest of his fins, body, operculae, mouth, etc look just fine. I've looked everywhere in his tank for something he might have gotten under (or goes under regularly) that would rub on his back. The only thing I see in there to get under is his IAL. Everything else is smooth plastic or Anubias or terra cotta.

I guess I'll finally get to use that Stresscoat I bought. But how will I tell it's working if I don't see him for another month or more?
 
#978 ·
Not sure whether to ask this here or in "diseases."

My Guitar smarigdina, my invisible fish of whom I have seen but fleeting glimpses in the last 6 months, showed up during a water change today and allowed me to be horrified at the condition of his back. It looks like someone removed the color off his back (1/16th in=1.5mm) either side of his dorsal center-line. From his head (including the tops of his eyes) all the way back to his dorsal fin.

It's not bloody, scraped, scratched or ugly. Just as if someone had taken some fine sandpaper and rubbed it on his back removing the color. The rest of his fins, body, operculae, mouth, etc look just fine. I've looked everywhere in his tank for something he might have gotten under (or goes under regularly) that would rub on his back. The only thing I see in there to get under is his IAL. Everything else is smooth plastic or Anubias or terra cotta.

I guess I'll finally get to use that Stresscoat I bought. But how will I tell it's working if I don't see him for another month or more?
You might have to just chase him around with a net to get a good look at him. I would say do it at least once a week so you can tell if the area is growing or looks better over time. I'm as baffled as you are though. Did this area look fully healed? Were the borders distinct or patchy?

I'd definitely advise you to post in the Diseases area too, maybe there is someone who's seen similar symptoms in a splendens who can help figure out what is going on.
 
#975 ·
Not sure whether to ask this here or in "diseases."

My Guitar smarigdina, my invisible fish of whom I have seen but fleeting glimpses in the last 6 months, showed up during a water change today and allowed me to be horrified at the condition of his back. It looks like someone removed the color off his back (1/16th in=1.5mm) either side of his dorsal center-line. From his head (including the tops of his eyes) all the way back to his dorsal fin.

It's not bloody, scraped, scratched or ugly. Just as if someone had taken some fine sandpaper and rubbed it on his back removing the color. The rest of his fins, body, operculae, mouth, etc look just fine. I've looked everywhere in his tank for something he might have gotten under (or goes under regularly) that would rub on his back. The only thing I see in there to get under is his IAL. Everything else is smooth plastic or Anubias or terra cotta.

There is no "salt" grain nor coppery dusting. And his behavior doesn't look stressed. How would I know what's normal; I never see him. Holding still so I can get a magnifier and some light on him is, in itself, a behavioral change. Not long enough to get a photo, alas.

I guess I'll finally get to use that Stresscoat I bought. But how will I tell it's working if I don't see him for another month or more?
 
#977 ·
Sorry to hear about your smarigdina Hallyx. Hope things improve with him soon.

My luck was going pretty good but then nosedived this morning. :/

In good news, my male ocellata seems to still be holding fry and should release sometime in the next few days (hopefully not anywhere near as many as before). I have a male albi who is close to releasing a new batch of fry and my male picta is yet again holding for about a week.

The seller of my single male b.simorum has fry so I will be trading some b.picta for some more simorum sometime in the next few months which is awesome news.

I am in the middle of a trade of a pair of juvie b. albimarginatas for some super red bn pleco fry which is exciting.

Now on to the nosediving. I got my b. pallifina pair in Friday. They were absolutely adorable just barely 3in total length but colored so nicely. Very shy species but they were beginning to come around and be more active. I found the female this morning crispy behind the tank. :( Could not believe it when I found her. I was sure the tank was sealed completely. I found a small spot (less than an inch) where the back strip had somehow moved away from the tank rim which is where she jumped ship from. Really irritated since these are a hard to find species for me to get a hold of so finding a female is going to be a pain. My poor male is all lonely now since this pair had "paired" already and almost never left each others side.

Got to keep looking at all the good things.....it is what I keep telling myself everytime something like this happens. Otherwise...it would be hard to keep going on with the jumping wonders.
 
#979 ·
Hmm that is odd Hallyx. Are you sure it wasn't just an odd presentation of some sort of stress colouring? Sometimes when my wilds are stressed they can develop this line down their back from head to caudal completely devoid of colour.

Hope it is nothing more sinister.

I got this photo this morning of my new hendra male. He was glass surfing in sync with the massive rutilans male next door. You can see the caudal of the rutilans is nearly as big as he is!


This is their tank


Then here is the brownorum pair's tank.


I may be getting a pair of undescribed coccina complex fish that are apparently the smallest of the wild bettas. However, there has been some confusion on the Australian Wild Betta FB page about whether or not these fish are actually a coccina complex species (even though seller and transhipper had posted they are) so I am going to contact the transhipper and verify with her before I pay as I don't want them if they aren't.
 
#980 ·
Hopefully those undescribed are indeed a coccina complex member LBF.

Seems like the male ocellata was playing with me and wasn't holding. :/ Saw him yawn really big this afternoon and I offered bloodworms and he engulfed them. So I put him back in with his lady. They will be spawning by tomorrow if not as soon as tonight.

Male albi released some fry today which is always cool. :D Now I have to figure out where the best place for them would be.

Picta is still holding strong and I expect fry from him next week.

Put the simorum and pallifina male in the same 20 gallon long which seems to be going ok so far. Neither one of them seems to even notice the other is in there.
 
#981 ·
Yeah I cleared it up with the transhipper yesterday, and based on the video she kindly took, they are. I paid for them and I believe they will getting sent out to me at the start of next week (she is down in my state this weekend for a big IBC show).

Pity about your ocellata. Sometimes I can't tell if my unimaculata male is holding or not as his behaviour and appearance don't really change at all.

Did you lose your simorum/pallifina females or did you not have any to begin with? I house a group of mixed species (coccina complex so not particularly docile) males together and they rarely fight. Most of it seems more psychological than actually physical.
 
#982 ·
I have one young male simorum who I bought by himself with the knowledge that the seller is going to let me have a deal on some unsexed juvies out of the next spawn. The pallifina male is the one I lost his female. :( They were both in a 20 gallon long that I had divided to keep the simorum on his own side cause he had been very nippy with the picta pair I had in there previously. He had shown some nippy behavior with the pallifina male when one of them jumped the divider a day after I got the pallifina so I wasn't sure how they would get along in a tank together. When I moved the ocellata up to the living room tank, I moved both the single males into the tank the ocellata had been in. Adding them at the same time seemed to diffuse any nippy behavior which has worked so far. :)
 
#983 ·
YESSSS!! After 4 days of continuously stalking my male ocellata, I finally got my shy one in his breeding net. Thank goodness! They're both ready to pop any day now. The one in the net is very pouty now but I managed to do it without him swallowing. I hope I can get the other one in his net too, just because the tank is very full of water and catching fry will be a nightmare. I ended up removing all the juveniles to their own tank and just have the 4 adults in the spawning tank. I was going to move the two adult males but it's been so difficult to just get one in his net I didn't want to risk running out of time, and I know the adults won't eat fry (whereas the juveniles very well might).

Still waiting on my microworms, they better be here tomorrow or I'm in trouble! I think I'm going to get the bbs hatchery up and running just in case. I prefer to wait a week before feeding bbs but I think these fry will be pretty well developed given their long gestation so I should be able to get away with feeding them bbs right away if the microworms are late.

I'm really proud of one of the juvenile males, he's put on at least an inch in the last month. Some of the others are finally growing too.

I have no idea what to do for a tank stand for the 90 gallon. I think I need to go to a consignment store or estate sales this weekend to see if there is an old table that will work. Or a chest of drawers, that would be lovely! The nice thing about having a 100 year old house is there's plenty of gorgeous antique furniture around for cheap if you know where to look.
 
#986 · (Edited)
After realizing my tank is going to weigh over 800 pounds, I decided I couldn't buy an old table. If I don't know how it was made, I don't know if it'll be able to handle the weight. I ended up ordering a custom-made reinforced bookcase. It was $400 for an unfinished, completely unadorned bookcase :shock: And it won't be ready until a month after the tank arrives, plus I will have to stain it. That is going to be interesting, as November in Minnesota can be freezing and snowy, so I likely won't be able to do it outside. I have already spent $1000 on this tank and I haven't even started thinking about lights, plants, substrate, or anything else that will go inside it. This thing had better turn out to be a masterpiece. The fish will have to live somewhere else for at least a month because there's no way I can fill the tank with water before it's on the bookcase.
 
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