Speck

Not what he was 25 days ago, perhaps not yet fully what he will become.

Most of the colour change has happened in the last 5 days! Every day he looks a little different. I'm wondering if his head will eventually be predominately black too.

Little Life

If you've ever seen the cramped quarters and unhealthy water conditions of bettas waiting for adoption in some pet stores you'll know why this beautiful poem, "Little Life", by Autumn Rhinesmith, brought tears to my eyes. I wish I could adopt them all!

A More Colourful Bella

You may recall me introducing Bella a month ago. She's coloured up a lot since then!

And she's still such an incredibly active fish that it's difficult to even video her, let along capture a still from the video.

To jog your memory here's what she looked like on June 18th.

Meet Bella

This active little girl is "Bella". I found her today at PetsMart. I went out specifically looking for a light coloured betta (easier to see in my tank) that had shorter fins. Although longer finned male bettas can be stunningly beautiful they are weighed down by all that finnage and eventually become very sedentary spending most of their time stuck to the filter intake to rest. I wanted a fish that would be active and fun to watch so I was looking for either a plackat male or some sort of light or colourful female.

I've heard that the female fish are more active in general anyway. This little girl, with her white/clear colouring with red and black spots, may carry the marble gene. If that's the case she could colour up very nicely. We'll see. Anyway, she is definitely fulfilling the "active" requirement.

Aquatic Bird

One of the plants in Solomon's tank is growing multiple "spiderettes", each one branching out further from the mother plant in a generational sort of way.

It's forming a fence like appearance almost all the way around his tank.

Solomon has taken to resting on the runners in between the spiderettes, just like a bird on a telephone wire.

New Shirt for Ben

I finally found some time today to make a couple of shirts for Ben. Both are blue, but one has short sleeves and the other has long.

Looks like maybe next time I should make the long sleeves a wee bit shorter. Still, not bad for a first try.

At War With Himself

After about 48 hours in his new home Solomon discovered he had a rival next door.

It wasn't long before the war began. He spends well over an hour each morning flaring aggressively at his reflection in the glass, even attacking that annoying mimic at times.

Some flaring is rumoured to be good for a Betta fish, something like flexing one's muscles, but too much time spent flaring and charging back and forth must be stressful for the poor fish. I can just imagine the strain caused by the need to defend your home against an aggressive and threatening neighbour each and every day! 

I tried leaving the lights off in the tank but it didn't completely eliminate the problem, and what's the point in having a fish tank if you can't see the fish?!

Today, after reading about fixes for this kind of Betta behaviour, I went out and bought a bushy fern type plant that will fill the 6" x 10" end of his tank where most of the problem occurs. 

He's a very curious little guy and it wasn't more than a minute before he was over there checking it out.

Was that a nibble I saw? Hopefully now he knows it's fake and not edible.

But now there is another problem!

His curiosity may just get him into trouble!! I'll have to watch him carefully. I was worried about him there for a bit, thinking him stuck, but when I moved my hand closer he scurried out of there with no difficulty. Now he seems to have found a favourite spot, resting way up at the top near the surface of the water. 

I read on a spiritual site recently that if you pay attention to the animals and nature around you they can have a message for you. After watching Solomon fight with himself with such ferocity and persistence, possibly bringing harm to himself in the long term, I can't help but see that there is an important message in that for me.

Bonus picture! 

Solomon's Debut

Meet my beautiful new Betta fish, Solomon, just purchased today. His name means "peace" in Hebrew.

I'm not sure, but I think he'd be classified as a "Half Moon Fancy". 

I chose him for his striking colours, but I'm happy to find that he is also a very peaceful fish, not bothering his tank mates at all. 

Cleaning Crew of Two

Weekly cleanings and water changes were not keeping the algae at bay so I hired a cleaning crew.

Meet Zig and Zag, the two new Zebra Nerite Snails. 

They were chosen for their ability to clean efficiently while NOT reproducing. 

The fuzzy green sphere in the background of both pictures is a Marimo ball, named "Moe" by my granddaughter. She felt that the Panda Tetras, Eenie, Meanie, and Miny really needed a Moe to make a complete quartet. 

A Better Home for Ben

For the past 6 weeks or so I've been caring for my eldest daughter's Betta fish, Ben. That's him hanging out on the leaf near the surface in this 1 gallon vase like tank. Even if the tank's "no-clean" system worked as it was supposed to it still wasn't an ideal home for Ben. It's too small and too cold.

But the no-clean system was clearly not working as it should since even with large daily water changes there was debris building up on the very bottom of the small tank. Even though the water above remained clear looking that build up of waste could not be good for the water quality.  

Initially I only had my daughter's fish so that I could do some much needed tank maintenance for her. But after doing a lot of reading about Betta fish I couldn't shake the feeling that his little tank was too small and too cold for him. I felt bad for the little fish and decided he needed a bigger, warmer, cleaner tank.

Costly decision that!

But after much research and agonizing over various options,

I bought a Fluval Spec 5 gallon tank, a BioOrb 50 watt heater, a few artificial plants, aquarium safe rocks (not as dumb as it sounds apparently), and 10 pounds of gravel. My son will be providing some aquarium treatment and a couple of small hardy fish, possibly ones from his tank, to get the "cycling" started. Once the tank is "stable" Ben will be able to move in.

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