No, that’s not latin

It just means – a betta plakat (PK) fish (siamese fighting gish) with a pattern on its body called ‘red dragon’ and with finnage of a halfmoon (HM) (a circle cut in half?).

I am bad at explaining, so here’s a handy link to the Wikipedia page on bettas and their fin types – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_fighting_fish#Tail_shapes.

That’s a ‘Red Dragon’ pattern – a visible layer of white on the body with red fins.

In the above picture the betta shows his tail fin which has straight edges and a 180 degree spread. Hence the name, halfmoon – HM.

And the below picture, just to show the betta’s body in detail.

The above pictures are all of the bugger who is the star of my lot of fishes.

Update: The male ate all the eggs. The SOB. Dang!!!

My foray into breeding special types of bettas has finally started. Couple of days back I introduced the male copper black super delta (Copper Black SDT Male) male betta into the new jungle-like spawning tank. I say jungle-like because I have kept too many types of aquatic plants inside that it is quite difficult to follow the inhabitants inside. This is the same tank that I got from Surya at IAH. The poor cambodian plakats got evicted and bottled. I say poor, because the buggers are seriously depressed now and I am trying my level best to cheer them up. Hahahaha!

Anyways, the pair spawned and yesterday I ran home eagerly to find a pretty strong bubble nest and lots of eggs. Too dark to see how many, but hopefully at least a hundred. Hehehehe. Will confirm things by Saturday when hopefully the buggers would have hatched.

The male’s picture is below. I had purchased the pair of Copper Bettas from IAH Shubhankar from Pune. You can see a picture of the male below. I will post better pictures when I take them. I have to do with my old Canon powershot and I am not at home in the day time to take new pictures

I will take some more pictures on Saturday and also of the female and post them later this weekend. As most betta fans will know, the male will take care of the eggs and the hatched fry for some time. Some people will leave the male to take care of the young for a month while most people remove the male after the fry start free swimming. I belong to the second category so I will remove the male as soon as the fry can swim for themselves.

Hopefully, the eggs will start hatching tonight or tomorrow morning. And then more pictures. This is most exciting and I really wish I will get a hundred black copper deltas.

My friends circle know that I am into betta fishes and some blog readers know that too, I suppose. However, not many would know that I am an absolute crazy and insane person when it comes to bettas. I just love to look at them for hours, period. If you need someone to vouch for that, just  ask Anoop. He wrote a parody of me in his blog about my obsession with fishes.

I have been trying to import some black colored betta splendens from Thailand for some time. I noticed that on aquabid there are quite a few genuine sellers online from Thailand. However, the problem was that their business is not that great to India. So even if they can ship to India none of them were able to give absolute guarantee of delivery live. Normally, bettas survive shipping quite easily. However, I got to know that there are quite a few fish enthusiasts and aquariums importing fish regularly. So I figured it would be easier for them to get my bettas. Still no luck.

In the mean time I came to know from a member of IAH from Pune, Shubhankar, that he is shipping some fish to Bangalore and that he had a pair of Copper Delta Tail Bettas to spare. Wow. I decided to get them immediately on my last month’s incentive money. Hehehe. So went ahead, ordered for them, and received them in good health and cheer yesterday.

I am a bad photographer. But I assure you that the Copper Black Delta Tail pictured above is an amazing specimen. He is eating well and in good health. I will spawn him with the Copper Black Delta Tail Female, also shipped by Shubhankar from Pune. Thanks man. Great stuff.

So, I was at Hayath’s (an IAH member and also a full time Indian Native Fish enthusiast) house collecting the fish sent by Shubhankar. His friend Nikhil, another fish hobbyist, was also there and they both decided to go to Karthik’s nearby. I had no clue who Karthik was. I soon came to know that he was this guy from IAH who is a very serious fish hobbyist. So we went there and found that there was an actual aquarium shop. And the moment I entered I knew that this was a different dimension from previous aquariums I have visited in the past. Why? Because he had the most amazing Super Delta Tailed Bettas I have ever seen outside the internet. Right there in the aquarium.

So I bought one from him. And some live blood worms for my fish.

He was too active to take good pictures. But here’s  one below of my prized fighters showing off.

I am going to breed these buggers and send them off to Nagercoil (to my friend Joel who has a better breeding setup) for more breeding. By the time it is Christmas this year I am sure to see some good results. I hope

We were supposed to me at the monthly ASK / IAH (The Aquarist Soceity of Karnataka / Indian Aquarium Hobbyist) meeting at 9:30 AM today. But when I woke up it was already past 11. Woo! That was a good night’s sleep .

I still wanted to make it to the meet though. So I called up Shreyas (from IAH who has twins from the last 5 months) around 12 noon and asked if we can still make it. I suspected we could, so we were already dressed, hehehehe. Shreyas said the meeting was still on. So we got into our bikes and reached his house soon enough.

As usual, it was refreshing to be at an IAH meeting. Lots of digs at each other and ribbing around. Shreyas, the host, had a huge planted tank with fan tailed guppies and other fishes most notably some cardinal tetras. Really beautiful ones.

After a sumptuous lunch of bisilbelle bath (yeah, I did eat that), curd rice, rasam and more veg we broke up. At least Surya Niki, one of the IAH guys and owns a hobbyist aquarium shop in Indiranagar, wanted to leave. Since I had asked him for some microworms culture for my second betta fry, Nafisa and I left too.

When we reached his house we were surprised to see quite a few aquarium tanks. And he apparently loves Dwarf cichlids with quite a bunch of exotic fishes around. I am unable to name them since I am not so good at fish names.  But I do remember that he had some varieties of Rams.

When we were looking at his imported Cambodian, we came to know that he wanted to unload them and make way for a bigger breeding tank. So along with the Cambodian Bettas we also got to keep the tank. Wow! Thanks mate. After learning how to culture Micro worms and equipped with a starter culture of micro worms (for my betta fry or young ones) we made our way home.

When we came home we realised we needed some more plants. We had also got some plants and moss from Shreyas’ house earlier.  So we also made a trip tp the local fish store (LFS) for some sand, stones and live plants.

We also got a double tail betta splendens. Nice! Then after the weekly cleaning of fish tanks and bowls we planted the new tank.

It was a Sunday well spent.

More pictures at the IAH forum. By the way, Surya also gave us a pack of freeze dried blood worms. Amazing stuff. My betta fishes are going to be the most beautiful and colorful from now on with good food .

All my friends know that I am a betta freak. I love keeping these amazingly beautiful fish in aquariums or glass containers at home. I sometimes spend hours just staring at them and seeing what they do. It relaxes me and is one of my favorite hobbies.

I had purchased a steel blue betta a few months back and seeing how beautiful and active he was I decided to find a suitable ‘mate’ for him too. Soon I got a female (unfortunately a red since female bettas are hard to come by here) and prepared both for breeding. After a few days I put them to breed in my aquarium. Now, you should remember that breeding in a glass tank is not at all the best way to breed. However, since my cement tank was perennially leaking I had to try and breed in the aquarium. The advantage I thought I had was that there were quite a few plants and the whole setup looked like an underwater jungle with moss on the sides. I figured that the young ones (called as fry) will definitely survive better with live plants and also indirect sunlight.

So I left the bettas to breed for 3 days. They did not breed. I got frustrated because I thought I had done everything I could to help them mate. In my frustration or whatever I just left the two in the tank and totally forgot about them for a month. After a month, one day when I looked in the dirty and murky waters I found the male all skinny and almost dying. I took pity and I was filled with remorse. I had to cull it to save it any further trouble.

After a few days I decided to clean the tank and put in some fresh fishes in the tank. When I was about to start, Nafisa came out and looked inside the tank to see if she can find any fishes. I knew she was being stupid, since I remembered that I had culled the male and I could not find the female. What other fishes can there be? But then, she pointed to something else moving in the water. And lo, surprise of all surprises, there were some 1 month old fry swimming around in the murky water. I just couldn’t believe what I saw. What the hell? And then Nafisa looked back at me with a look that seemed to say, “Now who’s stupid?”.

So when I looked carefully, I found a total of 5 small ones. My excitement knew no bounds. This was my first ‘major success’, albeit unknowingly, with betta breeding. Yoo hoo. I was, and I am, on top of the world. I did get some success in betta breeding when I was in School. But the most I got at that time was two and this was amzing. FIVE!!! I did not care that proper betta breeders get about a hundred or so in one breeding at that time.

Now it has been 3 weeks more and they have grown considerably since I started feeding the young ones with egg yolk every day at least twice a day. They are looking damn healthy and very active. I should get at least 2 males by the way they look. I am not sure since they are still a bit small for me to distinguish between males and females. Check out my pictures and you tell me. Male? Female?

All pictures taken in macro. That’s the best way to take close ups.