[GunsABlazin]

So im a little unsure about doin the journal thing...but hey...whats the worst that can happen?

Soo i guess i will just start with today... because some of you know my back story.


2/18/12
Need to do another W/C on all of my tanks today, but Dad is in a bad mood...and he gets to mad about me changing water.
Thor is looking much better now that i removed the one plant in his tank...his tail is healing up from the tears it was causing. He is also flaring at the Mirror now! Back to his old super aggressive self? I hope!
Loki is starting to get more territorial...when he is presented with the Mirror he Flairs like a beast. He is also developing more Lavender on his face...i think he would be called a piebald? (i know horses with white on the face that stretch over the eye are piebald...). Its very good to see him flair so hard now, he was so shy for a while.
My Purple VT ( i need another Norse themes name...) female is annoyingly aggressive now...i think i need to get my sorority back up to 6 or 7 girls so she will chill a bit.
I think i may need to Pull my big multi and do a treatment on her...but i don't want to leave just 3 in the tank.
Valkyrie is very interested in the male Guppie i added yesterday...she used to be the Alpha but the Purple seems to reign supreme now.
Athena is getting bigger, i cant wait to see her colors once she is an adult...so far she has a black body, red CT fins (that almost look double ray) and a purple shimmer to her.

The 3 female Guppies are very fat with fry...so i hope my ladies will have some live food here soon.

 

[Snappyarcher]

Great to see things looking good for you in keeping what im assuming is the Siamese fighting fish, but just one point, please stop making the fish display by using a mirror, it is actually a cause of stress to them when they feel threatened by another specimen, or what they beleive to be another specimen. Eventually this sort of thing can foreshorten the life of what is already a short lived fish.

 

[GunsABlazin]

Its a very short time (just untill i get a single flair so only about 30 seconds), and not even twice a week. The Point is to cause a little stress, and to make them behave in a territorial way.
some people on here use it as stimulation for fin growth and will do it quite often.

 

[mardi]

That's actually a shorter amount of time than I flare my fish. I actually don't hold up a mirror to them, but my Remedio can see his reflection in his tank walls when I turn on a lamp near his tank. I flare him to give him excercise. The way I see it, there's no way Betta fish in the wild go their whole lives without seeing another fish, or feeling threatened in some way. Also, whenever fish in the wild get stressed, they normally go and hide. Remedio has figured out that his reflection is in only one area, so when he gets tired of looking at it, he'll just go to the other side of the tank and chill for awhile before going back to intimidate the "other fish". He doesn't seem overly stressed by it; he doesn't attack the glass or anything, he actually just floats in front of his reflection, "shake" dances and fluffs up his fins. I like to think he's figured out it's his reflection, and he just likes looking at himself.:bluelaugh:

I had never heard of using flaring to promote fin growth, but when I got Remedio he had lost over 50%of his caudal and a bit of his anal fin to fin rot; and now that you mention it, i'm not opposed to attributing some of his fin growth to flaring him.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to let you know you're not the only one who flares their fish.

Its a very short time (just untill i get a single flair so only about 30 seconds), and not even twice a week. The Point is to cause a little stress, and to make them behave in a territorial way.
some people on here use it as stimulation for fin growth and will do it quite often.

 

[GunsABlazin]

Thats perfectly fine Mardi

Some breeders have said that, i do beleave, you can stretch a super delta into a hm by regular flaring? but iv never tried this.
And i would think having him flair would help with the fin regrowth, because it stimulates the circulation of blood to the fins.
Plus they get lazy being the king of the tank.

 

[dramaqueen]

There is nothing wrong with flaring as long as it's not like 24 hours a day. Flaring is perfectly natural.