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.
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