These D#@% Fish!

Hobbies are supposed to be relaxing. A few issues here and there.. but over all.. fun. Raising show quality Bettas has been.. fun.. up to the move to Texas. The move itself wiped out most of the fry we had at the time. All the juvies except about 20 – gone. The young fry made it but because we stopped feeding the baby brine shrimp, all but the  hardiest died out in the weeks after the move. White worms – gone. The micro, walter and banana worm cultures were almost gone. Vinegar eels, again, barely hanging on. Then we moved again to the apartment. We were sooo excited to set up and breed again. Then spawn after spawn failed.. didn’t hatch… fry never became free-swimming.. dad ate eggs/fry. The adults started to look off.. then definitely had something wrong. For the first time ever I had fins rotting. So we started to look at everything.  Discovered water here is very hard. So we searched the net and discovered filtering through peat. It changed the water enough the fish should be fine. But no change. We ran the fish room through a 10 day treatment of nitrofurazone. It helped with the fin issues and most everybody seemed to perk up. The ones that didn’t will get a treatment for internal parasites in a separate tank.

With the water better and the fish healthier we decided to spawn again. Since the fish were happier and rested we put a pair in the spawn tank. Dad was great! Huge nest, lots of eggs and dad was very good about tending to them. I left one morning and I had lots of fry bouncing from bottom to top of the tank and was so excited that I was finally going to have some fry. But I came home to dead fry on the bottom of the tank. GRRRRRRR! Now what was wrong? Water, health.. what else was there?? Had fry so parents not sterile. How could I tell if they were producing defective fry or something was affecting them at that stage? I was at the point of throwing everybody in the Oscar tank and raising cichlids. After some pouting and grumping I decided to break the tank down, clean it and set up another pair. When I started to take the tank apart I noticed the heater had risen above the water line on one end and had turned itself off. The tank was set to 82 and the house is warm.. about 78 during the day so water temps would be around 74 degrees. The water had cooled but no more than would happen in the wild at night. I’m hoping the failed spawn is just that simple.. I don’t want to have to research any more. Would just like to feed and enjoy the fish for a bit.

So I finished cleaning the tank and setting it up again. I actually set up 3 more spawns. As I am typing I have one that hatched earlier today and I will remove the male in the morning. Another young pair, a cross with my first double tail, spawned today and I have a small bunch of egg. That is his spawn pictured. Another pair was spawning when I left this morning but there is nothing in the nest and she is still full of eggs. They did not get it figured out so I guess they are taking a break. He had this problem of wrapping before.. will give him some more time before trying another male as I’d really like some offspring from him. But with better water, a full moon and a good cold front that moved through I’m hoping we finally will have some fry around here. I am wanting to continue my lines and they are easier to breed when they are younger. As I see fish mature I get excited thinking about the next generation and the direction I want to take our breeding. It would be a shame to lose what we have acquired so far. We also need to get some spawns soon to have fish ready for the Spring shows. We did not have much to show this fall and most of the ones we did show got tore up in the shipping.

This move and all the troubles have taught me more about my fish and made me rethink some things. I have come to the conclusion that even with the issues, I enjoy raising these fish. And, when that day comes when I have bettas every where, I will remember these days and be ever so thankful I have to find yet ANOTHER container for my fish.