Lost Blue Momma

My blue female betta, the one that bred successfully died on Thursday.

She was poisoned, actually.

By me.

Due to the bacterial infection earlier that swept through my tanks, I wanted to separate the juveniles into two tanks to avoid a repeat of the incident.

But when I separated the juves, they started fighting and flaring like crazy.

So to prevent injury, I bought two stationery holders from Daiso to serve as refuge areas for those who lost fights and needed to recover.

However, I forgot to wash them before putting them in the tank.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I decided to put blue momma in that tank instead as she'd received some injury from a previous fight and I thought it would serve her well to recover alone in the tank without any harassment.

But when I got from my holiday, I was informed that she had died on the day that I left.

*sigh*

At least her genes are being propagated by the offspring that she bore.

Solitary guppy, jumping arowana

One of the guppies that I bought a while back has died.

Not sure if it was due to the infection but seems that the rest are fine. 

Will attribute it to old age / sickness before doing any further treatment of the tank. 

My arowana also did its first jump of out the tank today. It flopped about on my table for a while before I could put it back into the tank. Hopefully there's no major damage to it in the long run. 

A blue-red death

One more died today in front of me.

Couldn't come up to breathe as it was swimming upside down. 

Red CT gone

My red CT died sometime during lunch today as I was at the LFS buying some anti-bacterial medicine for the fish.

Hopefully it'll stop the chain of deaths. 

2 bettas and 1 white cloud lost

This is getting serious. Just found 2 bettas and 1 White Cloud Mountain fish dead this morning again. Saw 2 other bettas biting on the dead WCM.

The red CT is still discharging white stringy poop. Doesn't look too good. 

Testing the water for ammonia but it's still within normal range so I suspect it might be something to do with the tubifex. 

As a precaution, I've separated the betta juveniles (now 7 left) into a previously decommissioned tank and will be getting some meds to see if I can stop this unfortunate series of deaths. 

Lost 4 little fellas

Over the weekend, I lost two whites and a blue betta juvenile. One of the whites had its stomach eaten and had no eyes while the other two were totally intact.

On Tuesday when I got into office, I found another red lying dead as well. 

I suspect it might have to do with the tubifex worms that have been around for more than a week. 

The red CT female doesn't look too good and I hope she doesn't succumb to any illness or bacteria that might be present in the tank. 

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

Betta - Goodbye Red!

When I came into office this morning, I realized that I'd just lost Red.

One of my adult fish, I originally bought him with an intention to start a crown tail line as he has this nice luminescent sheen showing thru his reds. Though he definitely wasn't showroom quality, his defects actually appealed to me when I saw him at the fish shop hanging with the rest of his species. 

I tried to breed him with Blue but he didn't blow any nest and seemed to attack her furiously. So, I sent him to solitary confinement where he got his first round of swim bladder disease.

I thought he had been a goner and though I tried to treat him, I wasn't exactly optimistic of his recovery chances. To my amazement, he actually recovered. 

However, after he recovered, he was never the same as he seemed to develop a slight tilt in his body whenever he swam and he had stopped flaring at other fish. No matter what I did, I could never make him flare again. 

Last week, I saw him swimming rather poorly and tried feeding him some tubifex, which he ate greedily but it didn't seem to plump him up at all. He was also lying frequently at the bottom on his side and only came up on occasion for air. 

Having been through swim bladder disease, I guess it took a toll on his little body and wasn't able to live past his prime (a colleague suspected that he wasn't ready for breeding yet). 

Nevertheless, it was a good time having spent time with this little fella and wish him a fond farewell. 

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!