Betta Addicts Anonymous

Some of those who own bettas may be familiar with the marble gene, or marbling gene, or jumping gene. This is a "hidden" gene within the betta's DNA, completely harmless, but with a very unique side effect. It causes extreme, random color changes throughout the fish's life.  Not mild or subtle, most bettas' colors will darken or become more vibrant in the months after purchase.  I'm talking about a blue fish turning red, or a red fish turning yellow, or a green fish turning purple. Or a white fish turning black. Illy has the marble gene.  It took me completely by surprise.  I've had him for over six months.  And for over six months, he looked like this: Beautiful, right?  He's a gorgeous boy. But the other day, a week or so ago, I noticed a bit of a change. Did he always have that much black?  No, I must be misremembering things. Okay, he definitely  didn't have that much black!   I have a marbling fish! It loo...

Once upon a time, I was perusing through a local fish store's selection of bettas when I came across a particularly impressive blue and red male, with just stunning finnage. The label said he was a rosetail. Huh.  I'd never heard of that before.  But he was gorgeous, and I had a spare tank, so I took him home. And then I realized my mistake. For those who may not know, a rosetail is an extreme halfmoon, to put it simply.  The fins are extremely wide, and usually extremely long. Here are some pictures (all photos are assumed to be public domain.  If you own a picture posted and wish it taken down or sourced, please let me know). Pretty, right? I sure thought so.  And my male, Triton, was truly stunning to behold. But it didn't take long for me to realize the price of his beauty. His fins were way too heavy.  He hardly moved at all, instead just swimming from resting place to resting place. Finally, he took to biting them off. A...

Anakin is such a lively little guy.  And I like that he'll actually flare. Neph doesn't give two shits about flaring, and I've never been able to get Illy to flare either.  Osiris will flare occasionally when Neph gets him all worked up (which I swear she does on purpose.  I'll have to get video of her doing it). Osiris is very pretty when he flares, too.  It's difficult to get a good picture of him doing it, though, because he's so worked up and moves so fast. I do like this one, though. Of course, you can't see his face, but I love the contrast between the blue and the orange. But Anakin flares readily.  Which is good, it means that, should I decide to train him, I'll be able to teach him to flare on command. I can't teach Neph or Illy, since they just won't flare.  But I can teach Anakin. And he looks pretty impressive when he flares.  Here, I took two photos of him, about 5 seconds apart.  The first is before he flared, the s...

Finally , I finally got Grim out of that tiny tank and into a 2.5.  It feels good to have him in the bigger tank.  And he seems to love it, too! Isn't it pretty! This is his favorite spot.  And where he sleeps at night. He's still looking so good! I love watching him swim around in his new home.

So I posted my feeding schedule, but of course feeding isn't all that goes into pet ownership.  So I figured I'd post my maintenance schedule for all of them.  Of course this is always subject to change based on health issues that come up or what have you.  I'll start with the easiest, Karana. Karana Feed once a week, on Mondays.  Clean and replace water. On Wednesdays, spot clean her tank for feces.  Clean and replace water On Fridays, spot clean again and clean and replace water. When she sheds, clear out the old skin. Once a month, scoop out all substrate and replace with fresh. Spear Feed every other day as needed. Every week, lightly mist the plastic plant with water so he can drink. Every two weeks, clean out substrate and replace with fresh. Two days after he sheds, clean out the old skin. Grim Feed three times a day 25-50% water change every day Test water every other day Vacuum approximately 1/4 of gravel with each change Me...

So I've got Neph, Osiris, Illy, Grim, Anakin, Karana, Spear, and a partridge in a pear tree. Keeping the feeding of all of them straight can be tricky, particularly since the bettas require different food on different days.  So here's what I do. With the bettas, I feed them three times a day, two pellets per feeding, unless I replace one, two, or all feedings with something else.  Karana is easy enough, I feed her once a week.  Spear is pretty easy, just dump a handful of fruit flies in his tank every other day. So here's my schedule: Monday Feed Karana Feed bettas two pellets, replace their other two feedings with bloodworms Tuesday Feed bettas 6 pellets Feed Spear Wednesday Feed bettas 2 pellets, replace their other two feedings with peas Thursday Feed bettas 6 pellets Feed Spear Friday Feed bettas 4 pellets, replace one feeding with a bloodworm Saturday Feed bettas 6 pellets Feed Spear Sunday Fast bettas Feed Spe...

So Anakin has swim bladder disease. It's not fun.  But thankfully it's usually very treatable.  But to diagnose and treat it you have to understand what the swim bladder is. The swim bladder is a gas-filled organ that governs a fish's balance and buoyancy.  When there's something wrong with it, you'll notice that your fish may be stuck at the surface or at the bottom of the tank, or have trouble remaining upright. The way to treat it is to treat the cause.  Most often, swim bladder disease is not, in itself, a disease.  It's a symptom of an underlying condition.  And to treat the swim bladder disease, you must treat the underlying condition. The most common cause of swim bladder disease in bettas is constipation, which, thankfully, is among the easiest to treat.  But you must examine your fish for other signs of illness.  Look for lethargy, loss of appetite, pineconing, or dull colors.  These may be indications of a very serious condi...

So I have a new rescue betta, a gorgeous crowntail.  I've named him Anakin. He was purchased by a teenage boy because he liked the colors. When Anakin was a baby, his body was solid black, with deep red fins.  Obviously that must've looked bad-ass, especially with him being a crowntail. But as he matured, his colors lightened.  His body is now brown and there's a lot of very pale blue showing up.  The boy thought he didn't look as bad-ass anymore, so he didn't want him anymore. I still think Anakin looks cool.  and I like his bright blue eyes.

So I was sitting in bed, folding laundry, and Illy was swimming along in his tank on my bedside table. It was getting late, so the spawn came in to get ready for bed.  I paused the laundry, we fed Illy and the rest of the fish, and then I read her a bedtime story.  I hugged her goodnight and went back to my room to finish laundry. I sat down on the bed, glanced over to Illy, and promptly had a mini heart attack. Why did I have a mini heart attack?  Well, I'll show you. You know what Illy looks like, right?  You've seen his picture. Here he is.  This is what he looked like when we fed him. And this is what he looked like when I came back, literally ten minutes later.  See if you can spot the difference. Didja catch that? I mean, it's subtle.  You might've missed it. Literally ten minutes.  I was gone for literally ten minutes.  I have no idea how he managed that in ten minutes. But now I've figured out why. ...

So I've talked about how good my spawn is with the pets.  And she really is, I'm proud of her. But today we took a step backward. We were getting ready to feed the fish their nighttime meal.  Illy is always first, just because that's the routine we got into. I wanted to go wash my hands, and she asked if she could get the food from the shelf and feed him. I agreed, because she's fed the fish before. But I forgot that I'd changed their routine since the last time she fed them unsupervised. I used to feed them all 5-7 pellets at night.  I've since started feeding them 2-3 times a day, 2-3 pellets at a feeding.  I started doing this when I started doing daily water changes for Grim, and I like doing it, and I'm going to start training Illy, so I've just continued doing it. Well, the spawn forgot about that.  I walked in the room, surprised to see her still dropping pellets in, one at a time. "How many did you put in?" I asked. ...

What's the deal with aquarium stands?  Do you need one?  Or are they just for the big massive aquariums? Well, the answer to that question depends on how big your aquarium is and where you're going to put it. Bettas don't need big aquariums, comparative to what's available out there.  Most people don't house single bettas in anything larger than a 20 gallon tank, and the vast majority stick with 10 gallons or less. So that's not too big, right?  Totally manageable. Except yeah, it's not. Let's look at that bookshelf in your house, or that end table, or that nightstand.  I've got Illy's tank on my nightstand.  That's cool, right? Take a look at the weight capacity of that bookshelf. Here's a perfect example, actually.  When I got the twins, I finally convinced the husband to dump the old desk in the living room and replaced it with one of those cube shelves.  Nothing fancy, just the Walmart brand.  Nice and stur...

So I got some beads and things for Illy.  I'm going to have to hold off on other toys for now, money is tight, but at least this is something new for him. I'll have to do another post on good toys for bettas, though.  They're predators and they're smart (for fish), so they really benefit from added stimulation. "What the hell is this?" "Meh, not my favorite color.  Try again, human food machine."

What the hell is this??? He's got a chunk taken out of his anal fin.  What the hell???? There's nothing in his tank he could've snagged it on.  I do the pantyhose test with everything I put in there.  The only other option is that he took a bite out of it. But why?  He's in a 2.5.  He's the one I socialize with the most, because he's right next to my bed.  I move all of my fish's plants around once a month.  How could he possibly be bored? Dammit, man. So I'm getting some nontoxic plastic beads, like the kind you find in those kids craft kits, and I'll drop them in there.  I'll also have to find some good fish toys to play with, to keep him from getting self destructive.  We'll see if that helps. Dammit....

So I rescued Illy about 7-ish months ago, from a woman who bought him at a pet store on an impulse, then decided a week later that he was too much work. And ever since I got him, he's had this weird red thing sticking out from inside his right gill.  It's not his coloring, it's very clearly something inside him.  And it pulses and throbs with his breathing and heart rate. The woman said he had it when she bought him at the store.  Given the short time she had him, I'm inclined to believe her. It doesn't seem to cause him pain, and it doesn't interfere with his life in any way, so I just keep an eye on it and leave it alone.  I'm assuming it's just a deformation of his gill. No one, no betta expert or breeder I've spoken to, knows what it is.  So I figure it's just a part of him, something that gives him character. Here, so you can see what it looks like.  It's weird, right?  Looks totally odd. But again, it doesn't seem to b...

So we loved the butterflies so much, we decided to get the ladybugs and praying mantis egg, too. The mantis egg case arrived unharmed, and we set it up in the proper enclosure, and waited. It was fantastic timing.  The day after we released the ladybugs, we woke up to this: Lots of tiny little mantises! We dropped in some bananas for them to eat as a snack until we could get the feeder insects. We were going to release all but one, and we set up a tank for it to live. He looks very happy!  We named him Spear. I never realized how little they were as nymphs.  And these are Chinese Mantises.  They're the biggest species in North America. Snack time! We released them, and put one on the spawn's strawberry plant, to guard against nasty insects. Time for another snack! He's got a voracious appetite, and loves to eat.  Right now he's eating little flightless fruit flies and growing fast. We won't know for sure...

We loved the butterfly kit so much, we decided to go back to the site and purchase both of the other kits the company sells: a ladybug kit and a praying mantis kit. We purchased them at the same time, because the ladybugs would be ready to observe right away, while the praying mantis eggs wouldn't hatch for a few weeks. So here's the ladybug land.  We got this and 13 ladybug larvae. Fun story, did you know this is what ladybug larvae look like?  Because I didn't.  Within just a few days, they had curled up and pupated.  It didn't take long at all. While we were waiting for them to emerge, we were thrilled to see a beautiful wild ladybug in our own backyard.  It was so much fun to observe it and let it crawl around, and then wave goodbye once it flew away. And only a couple days after that, we saw our very first ladybug!  The spawn named it Mercury. It turns out they have no spots at all when they first emerge. ...