New Silver Aros - 3 of them, no less!

I couldn't take it anymore...

After finding out that a pearl costs $38, I decided to go back to silvers again. 

Since my fav shop was selling each at $9, I decided to get 3 of them :)

They are around 3 inches long, so I decided to recommission one of my older small tank and air pump to house one of them just in case the main tank wasn't properly cycled yet. 

Aren't they cute and tiny now?

To scale with a wakin goldfish I bought earlier. 

My second arowana died this morning

Must have been the new filter which wasn't conditioned properly yet...

After reaching 11 inches and moving to a new 2 foot aquarium, its poor life came to an abrupt end. 

Sigh. 

Fishy community tank - bettas with barbs, guppies and one solitary Otis

My New Hobbies - Betta aka Fighting Fish (Part 3)

If I had to use one sentence to describe my keeping of bettas/fighting fish, it'll probably be this:

"Never have I reared so many fish, in so many colours, using so many tanks; though it can be hard work, they give so much satisfaction."

After a brief encounter with bettas when I was very young, it was only recently that I was able to discover the "joy" of rearing fish again after I cleared a section of my cubicle (the part normally used to keep files). Since most of my work was "born digital", I didn't use that section much except to store spare folders, picture frames, stationery etc. As it was also not very well lit, the uses for that area were limited. And that was when I decided that I could set up an aquarium corner there. 

And looking at it now, what a corner it has turned out to be :)

As mentioned in my previous post, I bought a red betta with the intention of teaching my children responsibility but due to the way they were treating it, I thought it was wiser to bring it to office where it could be a companion to my troops instead. 

As I was totally inexperienced in taking care of fish, I started googling and joined several forums to learn more about fish rearing. With some confidence, I tried spawning with another two blue bettas that I bought and am now raising the fry to maturity. 

Spawned in Nov 2013, the fry are approaching 3 months and are showing great progress. I have also given some away to friends, who unfortunately did not have the fortune to see them survive. 

In the spirit of sharing, I will be writing in subsequent posts some of the experiences that I had in preparing the tanks, keeping and breeding adult bettas, feeding and raising fry as well as other stuff that I've picked up over the last few months. 

Stay tuned!

My New Hobbies - Guppies (Part 2)

I didn't realise it then but after I started keeping the triops (and seeing it lonely digging around in its tank), I thought it would be nice if I could have an aquatic community that I could admire in times of stress/distress...

However, considering my wife isn't particularly fond of animals in the home (excluding our two monkeys), having such a tank at home was out of the question. Yet, in the spur of the moment, I bought a tank from Daiso and got a red betta for the home (more details on this in my next post).

 Having scoured the Web for more info, I decided that my little aquatic community would constitute of triops, bettas, guppies and shrimps. As such, I went to locate fish shops close to my office that would sell the stuff I needed.

During this period, I bought 2 males and 5 females to populate my 1-foot tank, yet somehow the guppies did not seem to thrive as all the females died within a week of buying them. Only the 2 males survived past the first week (and they're still alive now).

As my main tank has been allocated for betta breeding, the males have been moved to the secondary shrimp tank to avoid being attacked by the male during breeding.

Below are the pictures of my office main tank (brand new, with the male guppies and after one week) and the secondary tank (guppies and shrimps).

 

My New Hobbies - Triops (Part 1)

Wow, it's been more than 3 months since I last posted. 

This post (and the next few ones) outlines the journey that I took over these few months and the new hobby I indulged in: Raising Triops, Guppies and Bettas.

In August, in the midst of a particularly challenging period due to a project with its tight timeline, I bought a box of Triops from a local store (Pet Lovers Centre). Planning to teach my kid a little about responsibility by letting him take care of some animals. However, being the kiasu parent I am, I thought that I should try hatching them in office first to make sure that I got the steps right to avoid disappointing the little one.

Contrary to what people shared over the Net, it wasn't easy hatching them. I only managed to get less than 5 hatchlings for every batch. Out of 4 batches, I could only get 2 of them to start laying eggs for the next generation.

Here are some photos that I took during the period when I had the triops.
 

 

The triops died sometime in October (most likely of old age), but I've kept the substrate and left it to dry (hopefully with eggs laid by the first gen triops) so that I can try again in January next year. 

In the meantime, I decided to try something new: raising bettas and guppies...