Betta Splendens a/k/a "Bettas" or Siamese Fighting Fish

[nootka]

Just curious since I know some around here are quite the multi-taskers so to speak.

I love these and have, at times, had several, though I have never bred and raised my own. My best friend did for a time, when we were both in High School.

Was looking at Aquabid.com and noticed how many different variations there were/are! I saw one that was just so amazing, but the shipping alone is as much as or more than the fish (they are coming from Thailand most frequently).

Oh, and the pronunciation is "bettah" as in "better" southern style not "Bay-tah" or spelled "beta" like the tape.

Here is an example of one of the fish I was drooling over:

If ya have one like this, I'd love to get it, though they are sort of addictive as in so many colors/need just one more (kinda sounds familiar, huh?)

Thanks for looking and I'd love to hear from any that raise 'em or are just interested as well.

Liz M.

 

[Marty]

Never raised them but the boys have had quite a few. They are very sensitive to stressing; that's why the little bitty bowls that you often see them in. They're awesome.

 

[Miniv]

Never bred them.........but Bri (well - ME, cuz I end up doing the caring) have owned a few. We still have one.

For some reason the hardiest out of all of them has been a female.

MA

 

[RainSong]

You're lookin' at someone who's done everything BUT breed them... I've just never had the money for the stuff to do it!

I've got loads of links, and have so much Betta info crammed into my brain that it's scary. One of the best sites, though, is Betty Splendens.com

And there's a few good message boards too. I lurk at the Champion Bettas Board

... yep. Rabbits, Chickens, Bettas (and other fish)... and horses. Not to mention cats and dogs. If I cram more info into my brain, it'll implode. And yet, people think me stupid because I never graduated high school. Pffft.

 

[FFFoxyGal]

I tried with Betta's only once,.....

actually it was this summer,...when the girls and I lived in town,..up in Saskatchewan,.....

We couldnt take Boo with us to the apartment,....soooo,.....I bought a Betta at home hardware (yes,...you heard right,...home hardware,...guess they really DO have more then just tools)

Any way,.....We brought little Freddy home and the next day,....He had fungus all over him,.....I called up to Regina to the fish pet store and he told me to get some non iodized salt and try that,...so,...I tried finding it,.....Esterhazy doesent have a whole lot of selection anyways,...

Finally I returned to the apartment,..and dumped it in,..but,....the next day,....Freddy was gone,....

The girls and I were DEVESTATED!!!!,....never again,..will I buy,...anything like that from a hardware store!!!

He was beautiful though,....

 

[Warpony]

And yet, people think me stupid because I never graduated high school. Pffft.

Those people need to grow a few braincells themselves. But that is a whole other topic.

I bred and raised Bettas in high school. I had big fish tanks with dividers in them and special small breeding tanks all over my bedroom. Mine were just common bettas, nothing as fancy as the one pictured above, but I did get some very nice colours. I ended up stopping, though. I sold to two pet shops and I walked into one one day and saw all my babys in this cloudly water in tiny plastic cups and it made me feel sick. That was my first exposure to the down side of raising animals and set the stage for me to come to the conclusion that I just shouldn;t raise animals.

I've almost always had at least one Betta in the house since then, but I never tried raising them again. I had one that lived over 4 years. He was in a 10 gallon tank with a few very cheap feeder goldfish and was very active and healthy. He never seemed aggressive to his tank mates but when we pushed our luck and put a fantailed goldfish in there he went nuts. It seems for him at least the fin length was what set him off. Short finned tankmates were fine but if their fins were longer he saw them as competition.

Right now my daughter has one, his name is Fin and he is in a 1/2 gallon tank in her bedroom. He is a lovely shade of reddish purple. She came home from her dads with him in a small flower vase. It seems someone she knows had a party and they used the fish as table decorations. They gave most of them away, and just dumped out the ones no one wanted. :-(

 

[FairytailGlennMinis]

I raised Bettas for a while. I got a pair of black/red butterfly crowntails at the beginning, but then found I was much more drawn to the halfmoons. I got involved with the IBC and met lots of great people and got great advice. My first spawn was with a steel/gold butterfly HM pair--the female was a double tail. I used a 10 gallon tank for the spawning and Cav was a great daddy. The hard part is having to keep up with hatching fresh baby brine shrimp and microworms to feed the fry without overfeeding and poisoning the tank. Then comes the time where you separate them out--there is nothing like feeding and doing daily water changes for baby fish that are now in 150 (sometimes up to 300!) different beany baby boxes. The live foods and water changes are imperative for healthy growth. It takes a good 3 months or so to get babies big enough to really see how their finnage is and to see what direction you want to go in from there. Raising bettas is not for the impatient or those with a lack of time or space.

-Amy

 

[Sterling]

I've never raised nor bred them but I've had a few in the years past that have lasted quite a while. Those pics you posted ...that variety is gorgeous!! I'd love to have one!

 

[nootka]

I figured someone on here had maybe ventured in!

I know when my friend was doing it, the live food WAS the big "bummer" though we were lucky to live in a large city where it was available for purchase if the ones she was raising failed (the brine shrimp).

Does anyone know are the "fancier" varieties (the ones you don't see in pet shops, the ones like I'm seeing/posting above) are about as hardy as the ones that we've all had for years and years (are those regular varieties called veiltails or?)

OH, and I HIGHLY recommend heading over to the websites and have a look at the different fish that are available...wowee! It's sad that someone would think of something alive as a "table decoration" and just throw it away.

I can understand using it for live food for something else more than just throwing it away...

Liz

 

[FairytailGlennMinis]

Here is another GREAT site for you...

IBC Website

It is through this website and the mentor program that I met the person that became my best friend who is like a sister to me now. She is now on the IBC board. If you ever get a chance to go to a show (yes, they have shows for Bettas like our horse shows where there are classes for the different types and they are judged on conformation, color, finnage, etc) that is the BEST place to see in person the fish that you like and/or dislike and there is usually an auction at the end of shows. You can get great deals, SEE what you are getting and meet great people. Through the IBC they will hook you up with a top breeder through the Betta Pals program who will give you a breeding pair to get you started.

-Amy

 

[nootka]

Wow, Amy, that is awesome.

Thank you!

Liz

 

[Marylou]

I have had Betts on and off for 40 years. I only bred once and I hadn't planned to. I noticed the bubble nest and asked a local breeder about it. He told me what to do and I bought a female. It was quite an experience but one I only wanted to do once. Too much work. Right now I have 2 and am going to get 2 more. Boy would like one like that one. :bgrin

 

[Leeana]

I've had bettas on and off for about 4 years. My friend, Doug actually breeds them. He's in high school and has been doing so since middle school. He keeps his females together and has (last time i talked with him) 4 males. He has allot of money put into them and he really enjoys it. I havnt had any for a year, the last 2 i had were actually given to me from Doug. I really like them, very pretty. I dont think i have ever seen two that were the same!

Liz do you have the website where your looking at them for sale?

 

[nootka]

the website is www.aquabid.com

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I think it would be great to have a black one and a white one in one of those divided tanks (I saw a round one split down the middle once).

I could see having one of every color, actually! *LOL*

Liz

 

[JeanH]

Hey Liz,

Scott and I raised Betta's when we were still in Oregon. We imported all of our F1's (1st generation stock) from Indonesia and Thailand. The fish you pictured is a Mustard Gas Crowntail. Scott and I had a Black pair, a royal blue pair and a white pair of crowntails. We had one pair of half moons, but most of our stock was delta and super delta. We also had a pair of royal blue plakats and a pair of bright yellow plakats which are the short tailed variety. The pet store variety are called veil tails - sometimes you can get lucky and find a delta. There is a Betta Club in the NW, and they have one or two shows a year that are usually in the Portland area that include an auction of show fish. You can get excellent quality fish from area breeders (one of the biggest breeders is in BC, Canada) at a reasonable cost. I paid around $14 for a yellow male super delta and around $8 for a yellow female. Of course, you can spend a whole lot more for half moons which means their tail spread is a full 180 degrees.

Here are a couple of websites for you:

BC Bettas

Pacific Northwest Betta Society

International Betta Congress (US based)

Karen Burgett, President of the PNWBS, purchased stock from us for her breeding program. All my pictures of our fish are on the other computer. I'll have to see if I can copy some of them off. We sold $600 in fish one weekend - all on aquabid and shipped all over the country. We sold a pair of Tequila Sunrise crowntails for $100. They were red based with orange and yellow finnage. At one time, we had 75 quart jars of juvenile male bettas sitting on our kitchen table! When they are 3 months old, they are sexually mature and you have to start separating the males. We had a community tank of females which generally can be kept together. There are a few females that are nastier than a male. It was a lot of fun, but also, a lot of work.

Jean

 

[JeanH]

Amy, I think we used to "chat" on the Betta forum on yahoo - the one BC Bettas does? We discovered our mutual interest in miniature horses on the chat. We were NW Bettas and belonged to the IBC, too.

Jean

 

[Dontworrybeappy]

OK, Liz, I'm blaming this all on you! Started looking at the websites listed just to look at the pretty fishies... spent too much time before I went to bed! In art class I started doodling and ended up drawing a betta without really thinking about it!

THEN, when I went to get dog food, I thought, well, I'll go see the cups of bettas while I'm here.... and the Petco actually had Crowntails! :new_shocked: So, I bought 2, and a tank, and food, and gravel..... so now I have two pretty boys next to my office desk, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!

:

 

[nootka]

Well, yeah, they are beautiful fish and I've had some of them for a couple of years at a time.

Glad you have two new beautiful boys to watch. If you put them where they can see each other, they show off or use a mirror.

Jean, that's really cool. I know when my friend and I used to shop at the pet stores in Beaverton, we occasionally saw some very unusual colorations, but yeah, usually veil tails.

Thank you for the links and all. I will pass them on to my friend (who lives in Hillsboro).

Liz

 

[FairytailGlennMinis]

oh Jean--that is RIGHT!!! That was back when I was going to the shows and breeding and--aack! That was so funny meeting on the Betta group and realizing we were both on here too! LOL

Bettas are a lot of fun, but a LOT of work and money to raise. I look at pictures and get a bit wistful. I loved studying the genes and dilute/overlay factors. Opaques (mainly what you see as white) are an overlay color and the base of the fish is still green (turq)/royal blue, steel blue, or red. Yellow goes hand in hand with red and at one time (not sure if it is still true) was thought to be a dilute of red. Between the irredesence, opaque, butterfly, marble, double tail, half moon, crown tail--so many different factors to consider in breeding. The "mustard gas" was the original line (bloodline or strain) name (given by a breeder) to describe the blue/yellow butterfly and there are many other line names that are now used to describe the color or a certain color pattern. I still have one male left--he started as a steel blue butterfly, then marbled out, then went to all white, then turned back to all steel blue. Cas is now 3 years old and I am so scared of the day I find him at the bottom. Until then, I will love his wiggles as he greets me in the morning and when I get home each day.

One other hard thing about Bettas is that they are prone to many different infections and diseases. One bad bug can destroy an entire fishroom of hundreds of fish if you aren't careful--and maybe even if you are. It is super hard to keep huge vats of conditioned water for newly separated fry, live foods and then fresh or frozen foods for hundreds of baby fish--each in their own jar or beanie baby box. Trying to keep everything separate and sanatized can be a pain in the tail. I love my bettas, but I could not handle daily water changes for hundreds of fish every day anymore. I think I will enjoy the work of my Betta friends and enjoy their culls.

-Amy

Added: Just a note, but if you really want nice bettas you might be better off looking for local breeders. They are often al too happy to give away non breeding quality fish or sell then at very cheap prices in order to keep from having to cull them. I refuse to even look at the big chain fish since I know how they are mass produced, shipped from Thailand or Singapore, shipped to stores and kept in those tiny cups until they are bought or die. Those places are no better than the puppy mills or mini mills we all hate so much that breed in bad traits and weaknesses and often disease. As long as people say "oh pretty fish" and support those chains, there will be a market for them. It makes me so sad and I bought my share of them to "rescue" early on. Some good pet shops will buy from local breeders. Often they are good but not good enough for the breeder to continue his/her lines with.

 

[JeanH]

Good additional information Amy. I imported a half moon royal blue plakat pair from Thailand. I did the 2 week quaratine, put her in my female community tank. Ending up loosing all but 2 girls. Lost my best white crowntail female.

As Amy said, if you find a local breeder, often times, they will throw in "extras" when you buy from them that are not quite good enough for their breeding programs, but are still beautiful pets.

Jean