Surely, There Must Have Been Warning Signs I Missed by Sam Peterson

My Journey into aquatics began approximately 2 years ago. It all seemed to be harmless enough. A
simple walk through Meijer is all it took.

I remember the night it happened, I was walking through Meijer with my wife. We innocently strolled into the fish section, and there I saw him, the most beautiful Koi I think I’ve ever seen. Now I have had a sad looking preformed pond that had been stuck in my front yard some time back, and I was sure this was just what was needed for that little pond. Now keep in mind this pond had to a whopping 50 gallons or so. So, after talking my wife into letting me bring home this little beauty, I decided it would be best to grow him up a little in the house before introducing him to the mean world outdoors. Our daughter already had a little 5 gallon tank, so perfect, he went right in. Well… as most of you know, it didn’t take long and that little fish out-grew the tank and had to be transferred into a 10 gallon tank, then again not long down the road, I was looking for something even bigger. Well, we ended up purchasing our first “big” tank and got a 55, what I didn’t realize was now that he had room, he needed friends in the tank also, surely we can’t have him being lonely in there, and so the journey began.

This time out the journey took me to a real fish store in Grandville, and upon entering the door I knew I was in the right place. They had Koi that I had never seen, let alone even head of, so we picked up a
couple more cute little guys. Of course being in a place like that I decided also, why should I limit myself just to having a tank full of Koi, which are eventually just going to end up outside year round, so we left with an assortment of tetras also, and another tank, and since I cannot stand fake looking plants I had to have an assortment of real plants to try to grow.

My First shot at aquascaping was quite a sight, but it soon started to grow into a jungle. Meanwhile, the Koi are now ready to go outside and I discovered that that my pathetic little pond was not near big
enough, so construction began that weekend to dig something much larger and find a way to keep the
water in it. Who hasn’t been here I thought? Two days of digging and laying out liners, netted a nice pond of what I can best calculate to about 1500 gallons. Now the Koi have a nice place to stay.
Of course now that I have moved the Koi outdoors, I have a 55 gallon tank that needs new stocking with something different. A friend of mine mentioned to me that he had seen on Facebook, something about an Aquarium club in Grand Rapids, and that immediately peaked my interest. You mean to tell me there are other people out there in this world who geek out on this stuff like I do? So I had to check it out. That turned out to be my next big mistake. Next thing I knew I was looking forward to attending a fish auction, never even knew there was anything like this. I attended and left with boxes of stuff I had nowhere on earth to put once I got home, so yup, you guessed it, I had to stop by Petco after leaving the auction to pick up more tanks.

Well this could go on and on, so I better find a way to end this for now, and leave something to be said at another time. As of time of this writing, I am up to 16 tanks of various sizes, and have completely taken over my wife’s living room and all of the counter space in our kitchen. So the next step of the journey will be starting on a fish room to give a bit of normalcy back to our home… Stay tuned for more details.

Breeding Betta Splendens by Aaron Turner

I have often admired the simplicity and beauty of Betta splendens, sometimes called The Siamese
Fighting Fish. In fact, it was the first fish that drew me to the hobby at around the age of 10. Although I didn’t even have an aquarium of my own at the time, I was intrigued by a relative’s small tank that
housed one of these ubiquitous Siamese Fighting Fishes.

Fast forward to adulthood, when after years of keeping a single display tank, the desire for more began: the dreaded MTS, or multiple tank syndrome. Along with this came an interest in breeding. Being fascinated by various Anabantiformes for years, it was logical to get my feet wet in the breeding game with the common Betta. After much research and flipping through many photos I began to admire the Combtail Betta, a fin variety in between the standard veiltail and crowntail. Not seeing this variety sold in our local fish stores very often I decided to work on developing my own combtail.

I selected a male Crowntail Betta with brilliant blue coloration, although a little raggety in the fins it was a robust and healthy male. The female selected was a deep red veiltail. Both fish were kept in their own 5 gallon tanks, situated next to each other. I placed a piece of cardboard between the tanks most of the time to reduce the stress on the male from constantly flaring and presenting to the female. Both tanks were kept at a steady 78 degrees, with sponge filters and hornwort floating in the tank.

The couple was given several minutes each day without the cardboard divider, so they could see each
other, and the male was given a floating plastic disc as a surface in which to build a bubble nest (the
bottom cut out of a plastic cup). I would later discover that this wasn’t the best medium for bubble
nesting and eventually switched to a large piece of flat styrofoam, which proved much better at holding the bubbles in place. The styrofoam also has the appearance of bubbles before the nest is built, which in my opinion encourages the male betta to build a nest.

After just a couple days of having the plastic disc, the male built a rather unimpressive nest, but a nest
nonetheless. I decided to introduce the female for a short time and quickly moved it to the male’s tank. After much displaying by the male, and some chasing about the tank, they both ended up under the bubble nest and began several embraces, which to a novice breeder of any species, was a remarkable thing to watch. In the video you will see the male wrap around the female for a few seconds, fertilizing the eggs. This is followed by the female entering into a trance and slowly sinking to the bottom of the tank, motionless, while releasing eggs. This video clip shows the embrace, however this specific attempt didn’t produce any eggs. They did not appreciate me so close to the tank so I moved back and watched from afar, witnessing several other attempts that were successful in producing eggs. As the eggs were released, the male would carefully pick them out of the water column as they sank and spit them into the bubble nest.

After much time had gone by, the female was left cowering in the corner of the tank, while the male
tended to it’s collection of just a couple dozen eggs. This was a good time to carefully move the female back to its own tank to recover. I also noticed that the sponge filter in the male’s tank was disrupting the bubble nest, so using an airline valve I turned the airflow down as slow as I could make it.

I placed a dim nightlight by the male’s tank for the next few days, as I had learned that a small amount of light is needed throughout the night, while the main lights are off, so that the male can see and return any eggs that fall out of the nest. After a couple days the male was tending to a small group of around 20 fry that hung in the nest, tail down. Periodically they would fall a bit and then swim back up into the nest. On occasion one would struggle to return, so the father would bring them back up. A couple days later most of the fry were swimming horizontally and feeding on microworms. At this point I removed the father to another tank as I understood that there was a chance of it predating on the fry.

As the fry grew some were lost but others thrived. I was left with a meager 12 healthy fry. Now, only
time will tell as to how the parent’s genetics would affect their offspring. As the young developed, most held a red colored base with blue fins, and as I had hoped, exhibited great combtails. After 5 months I now had some great individuals, one of my favorite is female, that I’ve included a photo of. Being a female, I am hopeful that it will not show much aggression and can be kept with other species, but the color of this fish is what really stands out. Notice the alternating red and blue caudal fin. What makes it even more spectacular is where the “comb bristles” protrude from the red base but are a contrasting blue. I look forward to seeing how the juveniles continue to develop.