Adrienne

very nice looking fish imo

do you want to post a pic so we could look. I used to think that if my fighters only had one front fin it may have been bitten off in a fight but now have realised that some only ever have one and some have none.

just a thought as in only ever had one eye or an empty eye socket.

i would say genetic - like faulty ventrals.

I was wrong - found the description but no pics were available then either. Under this section headed Betta Barracks. its a fairly good description though.

Congratulations - thats fantastic news. My husband and I are coming up to 27 years of wedded bliss (mostly).

Alanmin, you posted a pic of it somewhere at one stage I think. It looked pretty good - had forgotten about that. The fighters are more likely to jump out if they are floated within the tank.

I think those containers are the ones I've seen being used. there is no quick and easy way when you have to jar fighters, even now it takes me several hours to sort them out. Don't count on your first spawn not all surviving - my first spawn was my second largest ever. I ended up with nearly 200 mature fighters, about 80% of them males. I then lost most of my males at 6 mths old when I went on holiday and they were overfed. My largest spawn was over 300 and they were all males!!! Not a female among them. Fortunately they were peaceful and never fought at all.

I don't know - a lot of people seem to keep them in the small plastic containers seen on tm with fighters in them. I have also seen them floated in the top of tanks but apparently the fighters will jump easily out of them. The biggest thing about breeding these is you don't know how many you will get. My latest spawn has 2, the previous over 50, the next 13 and the one before a couple of hundred. If you only get a few space won't be an issue, if you get a lot you're going to need a lot of tanks. I've just come from turning my tank lights off and I found that a couple of my 8 week old fighters had been fighting judging by the state of their fins. Even though they have been raised together this group is obviously not going to be able to stay together and so I have had to seperate 4 males off tonight. they range in size from 2.5cm - 2cm.

Heres what I have for my males - this tank can fit 50 bottles in it at a pinch. for cleaning I change bottles once a week or fortnight and sterilize dirty bottles and stones. The top tank of the three is my adult females, the other two are growout tanks. I also run up to another 10 tanks ranging from 20 litres - 100 litres. Sorry about the pics quality, as I said in another post I had been hit by algae outbreaks.

what a great tank now for the questions - whats the plant floating at the top of the tank. how do you find the plecs/ottos get on with the discus. any problems? where did you get the lighting from? thanks

looking good - mine are still translucent although a good number of them. The second photo is definately a male.

my method is similar to Barries however I don't use a net as I used to have a shrimp hatchery (the square box) so I just tip a litre into that and hatch it that way. my question to those who use nets - where do you get the nets that are fine enough and don't the shrimp just filter through? do you rinse them off?

there are several reasons bettas lie on their sides 1. they are sick 2. the current is too strong for them to rest with their fins upright 3. they are old and tired (similar to no.2) 4. they just do (which sounds silly I know) if he is active and eating well don't panic too much. you could try spreading the filter flow into the tank somehow, even if you make some sort of ledge underneath it and see if that works otherwise try moving the filter to the other side of the tank and see what happens.

what sort of filters are you running in the tanks

lefty: 3 righty:6

I know probably the same person. If they are raised together from fry they are less likely to fighter and if the tank is really heavily planted its even better. Depends what you want.

nice looking fish, how big are they and did you get them from a shop or breeder?

We have an oil column heater than I put out with the tanks in the winter - set the thermostat to 15 degrees and it keeps the room nice and warm. Saves the heaters on the tanks running as much.

yes, I've still got that cake book, well loved and used.

These fish were purchased for a wedding in March and were used for the tables. At this stage the weather up here is not really cold enough to class them as adapted to cold water although the nights are starting to cool down a bit. A lot of people don't keep their fighters in heated tanks but do keep them in warm rooms which equals pretty much the same thing. My water out the tap here is still coming out at 24 degrees at night time.

Johannes - I looked through your photobucket pics yesterday and you have an amazing range of cichlids.

You can get some really good deals on tanks second hand. I got my big 5ft x 2ft x 2ft with rimu cabinet for $425 although I did have to go to Hastings to pick it up. You could keep your male with your females as long as the tank is planted and they have places to hide although IME I find that in a community tank there doesn't seem to be many problems.

As DavidR said you're not breaking any rules asking about something advertised and whether or not it does what its advertised to do. Anyway I would also be interested if anyone has used these as I would like to go to one pump instead of 6 or so small ones. Would save on multiplugs lol.

Not only are they very nice and he has a lot of discus they are even better to look at in real life. Amazing fish