Ice222

It could just be that they're fairly new to the tank and haven't settled in yet. Those fish seem to like being in groups, so that may be why they're less active. I'm not saying add more fish straight away, but maybe as you slowly add more fish in of the same types, they'll get more comfortable in the tank and start coming out/moving around more.

Haha those lazy long tails, sounds like he suits your tank perfectly though. My Fighter's odd, I have 2 tanks of CPDs and I have have put him in both tanks before. In 1 tank, he leaves all the other fish alone, in the other tank he chases EVERYTHING. What's weird is that he's built nest in both so it's not a defending the nest thing, and the tank in which he chases everything in is the moss tank where it's more densely planted and he loses line of sight easily, while the other tank is pretty bare and he would constantly see fish.

I'm not sure, just finished the 2nd course of furan with no changes. My betta generally looks fine, but sits at the bottom a lot with clamped fins, but then she's really energetic whenever I approach the tank and her breathing etc. doesn't look labored. I'm thinking it may just be her not liking the furan or just resting since her left side fin was almost completely gone after the ordeal.

Well I found the oto that looked like it might have velvet dead yesterday. Took the carbon out and dosed tank with furan, and going to repeat it again tonight. Meant to do it for 4 days. I've covered the tanks to black them out too, and turned up the temp 2 degrees hoping that help. Fingers crossed for no more losses

Darn it! Went to cook dinner and forgot about meeting, should've checked this section of the forum earlier.

It's true that the 2 big CPDs that died (inc the one you got) were bought from HFF at the same time about a year back so it could be natural causes. Nothing has died since that 1st CPD yet, but several fish in the female fighter tank, particularly the otos are acting sickly. Been googling velvet and most seem to say 'treat promptly since it's usually in the later stages when you notice the symptoms'.

only one other fish in tank tank had died and yea it looked the same . Wonder what's wrong, it didn't look red under the belly until I found it dead. No idea what it is. Did full course of Furan too to try stop other fish from getting sick, no one in the upsidedown catfish tank looked sick after the treatment, but hearing that one I gave you died then I'm guessing it didn't exactly work on the catfish tank either ? So frustrating not knowing exactly what is wrong. Red belly could be Hemorrhagic septicemia? But my oto in the other tank seems to have velvet. I suppose there's just a variety of diseases going on in those 2 tanks. Suppose I'll give the tanks a day with activated carbon to get rid of the remaining Furan, and redose/retry it again. I've also covered the tanks to keep them in blackout for now. Hope I'm doing the right thing, I really liked my plants and I have a feeling they won't survive this since the 1st treatment ruined most of my twisted val already and my tiger lotuses (including the red one) are starting to melt...

After I had a fish jump out and I put i back in the tank, it had looked sickly, with white fluffy stuff coming out of it's left side, so I dosed the whole tank with furan. I did the whole does of 4 satchels, and that seemed to do the trick on the white fluffy stuff, and I've done a big W/C and added carbon to remove the furan from the water, but I've noticed some other fish (my otos) are now sometimes rubbing against the plants, I can't really see anything wrong with most of them, but one oto does have a whiteish patch on it's head. Is there any other medication I could try? Or is it better if I just filter with carbon and give them heaps of WCs since I think the medication may actually have stressed them out.

My cat has fleas, been catching them and drowning the in water to kill them, but then I figured, why not try and feed them to the fish. Lol no one wanted to eat them. My betta only tried to eat one when I trricked him into thinking it was his usually pellets and promtly spat it back out when he realised it move. No appreciation for live food here :roll:.

Exactly what I though. They sure are striking fish though, so I can see why people like them.

I'll come check her out in the weekend . I'll call in to check before I head out in case if she sells before then.

Well seems that breeding him with the girl I posted is out for awhile anyway, as she became a jumper today. Just got home about 45mins ago and could not find her in the tank. Searched in the tank for ages, felt around behind the tank, and had to move a whole lot of stuff before I found her behind the boy's tank. I'm a bit surprised, since I've never had any fish jump and I had the water in my tanks a bit lower than usual to discourage jumping since i got the bettas (about 5cm below the rim) and didn't think they could jump that high. She's back in the tank at the moment, and looking rather dusty and miserable but alive for now. I'm thinking her chances are slim, since I haven't looked in the tanks since 12 or so last night, so god knows how long she's been out for. Aside from WCs, and adding Prime what else can I do for her to try and make her feel better? At the moment I've put an extra airpump on the tank, and a lid (although it's not a perfect fit), should i lower the water level and make it easier for her to get to the surface for air?

Thanks Trilobite, I tried googling betta colour genetics before, but found nothing in this kind of detail or regarding opaques since i tended to end up with quite general breeding guides. Now you've given me some more specific terms to search for in looking for info, so that's pretty helpful too. Looks like I will have to find a better female. While I don't mind if they're not perfect in F1, I would rather try and find a better female to start with, esp since I've never breed bettas before. I don't think I can get a better pic of the girl's tail atm, she was somewhat beaten up when I got her, so her tail's still torn and hard to see the shape of.

Hmm I thought as much. I remembered reading that red is one of the dominate colours that's hard to breed out. I knew opaque just means non-transparent, and that dragons are the metallic sheen, but I was just wondering if it is the dragon genetics that make them opaque or if it's something different all together. If I could find one I'd love to get an opaque white female, I've just never seen one before. And sophia, for pearlescent, do you mean the ones that are a non-opaque white (ie the ones that look kinda pinkish in the body but have white fins)?

Haha would not be the first time. I must have a very manly demeanor.

Was procrastinating from working on my project last night and ended up doing this :rotf:: It's only on 1 hand since I'll prob have a difficult time trying to replicate it on my main hand. Especially since i just used a toothpick to do the design rather than proper nail-art tools. I kinda want to keep my other hand polish-free anyway, I often find the need to stick my fingers in my tanks, so at least I'd have 1 safe hand to use. (check my avatar for my design inspiration).

Here is the pic of what I think is a female. The base colour of the body's incredibly light, and it's fins are basically colourless, but it does have quite red stripes. Can any one confirm if this is female? Since I am hoping I do have at least 1 female . Also thought I'd post a pic of my favorite male badis.

With my holiday coming up soon I'm thinking of possibly breeding my fighter. I've read the breeding sticky, and it's very helpful but I have 1 or 2 questions as well. didn't think I'd ever breed fighters, but he's just such a pretty fish that it'd feel like a shame to not breed from him. Here he is: I got him from HFF Roskill as an "opaque white" but I found that HFF Albany had fish that looked the same sold as "white dragons". Now I'm just wondering, is the opaqueness basically a cellophane coloured betta with white dragon scales covering the whole body? If I was aiming to produce some similar looking offspring, what should I look for in a female? Since I'm still on the lookout for any that might be good. I have actually got a female that is fairly pale. But I'm not sure if she'll go well with the male in terms of colour since she isn't pure white (I'd imagine it would be hard to find females that white in NZ). Not a very good photo, but she's basically a female dragon, with a cellophane coloured body, redish fins, and white dragon scales (her body's not 100% covered in dragon scales). Would this be an okay match? Also how do you tell what tail type a female is?

Mine won't even look at the fish form ore than 2 seconds when I try and do that. Just gets bored and tries to wriggle away. She doesn't even like eating fish. When I fed her on a raw diet once she always had leftovers when it was fish, any other meats and she'd keep demanding more than her portion.

I just found it hilarious how my harlequins seemed to like the trip. Or at least the big water change they got from being taken for a trip to the expo with their tank. Were spawning in the tank during the expo, and I think I saw around 8 eggs drop . They usually only drop 2-5 per spawn.

Thanks! Hmm I read that females can have some red stripping too but had a hard time finding any example photos of females, let alone any with some red. The one in the photo looked like it could be a pale male to me, but it's got quite a brownish hue that males it look quite different and I remember reading that females are often more brownish? It's just so hard trying to sex fish without good photo or real life examples to learn from. Even the lightest one I have has some red stripes and I'm quite certain that one is female, since it just doesn't have any kind of sheen to it and somehow looks different. I'll try to put a pic up tomorrow.

Yea I'd imagine it would be bad. I don't actually eat it that often, once or twice a month? But in terms of price, the more unhealthy the food the cheaper it seems to be. I mean K-fried and Maccers are pretty good in terms of price too, yet they are also hellishly bad for us too.

Haha I find that attempting to get healthy in terms of food is way more expensive than eating unhealthy student food. Packet of migoreng for dinner = 50c, any fresh vege usually = at least $3, and I won't even be full from. Thank god I only have a tiny appetite and takeaways usually lasts me 2-3 meals so $10 in takeaways actually ends up being somewhat worthwhile. Alcohol, Smokes and Caffeine habits definitely drain your pockets fast though, that's why I'm somewhat glad that my body doesn't tolerate alcohol well, my nose can't stand the smell of cigs and dislike the taste of coffee. Used to drink a red bull a day and have even managed to cut that out too. Now the only things I splurge on are materials for my design course (it's pretty darn expensive) and fish.

The Upside-Down Cats are still being shy little buggers, at least they're only being shy when I am anywhere near the tank since I see them happily swimming about when I glance over from the computer :roll:. I manged to get some okay pics of the other residents today though, so I thought I'd share. Added some scarlet badis earlier in the week. I think I have 2 Males, 2 Females, and one of uncertain gender. Having some problems with my Java ferns as you might be able to see in the pics. They went brown pretty quickly, only about 2 days after popped the new ones in, and my old ferns (ones that have been around in my old tank for are year started going grotty too. I'm thinking that they may be unhappy with the ferts somehow so I'm going 0 ferts until they all settle down. Anyway pics: Chocolate gourami - Still alive and kicking, also not as shy as I thought they'd be. I think that's a female Scarlet Badis. Not feeling 100% sure on this one since I have another that looks almost white) One of the males (the other one is prettier, but likes to hand out with the upside-down cats near the filter)

I love your pearl gourami. They look amazing when they're a decent size like that .