Wednesday 18 June 2008

stopping all breedings

Sadly that we have to stop all breedings/caring activities for all of our bettas. The time required to take care of them exceeds what we can offer them for the time being. We have a family member to take care of 24/7 due to health issue. Maybe we'll keep a few pairs for future breeding, but at this point in time, we have to let them go.

We have juveniles and soon-to-be adult bettas available. If you're interested to acquire them, by all means, please contact us direct.

There are quite a number of varieties available, but most of them carry giant genes (well, they all come from giant parents, about 3 inches long for HMPK and 4 inches for HM). For the sample pictures of what you're getting, check all of our previous posts (particularly in May). They're related to them one way or another...

You get about 20-25 mixed fish, male, female, HMPK, HM. Cost $100. That's about $4 per fish! Their sizes range from 2.5 cm to 5cm, some are larger. Age between 2 months to 3.5 months. Note that they have giant genes, so expect them to grow very nicely.

Sale period...all fish has to go out by end of June, otherwise some pet stores were quite happy to accept them (though hobbyists such as yourselves are preferred candidate for their homing).

Shipping $25 for any number of fish that you order. Shipping is preferred, though meeting for pick up can be arranged but given the timing, it would be very difficult but we can try (contact us on email). This sale is for AU only (sorry to RD and XN. perhaps next time...)

Bare with us if we reply to your emails late. We have been very busy lately.

We would be very appreciative if you update us on the development of these fish in the future. We definitely would like to get a couple of pairs (or any of their offspring) back if it is possible.

email mybettas at gmail.com if interested.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

what gets us up and happy every day

funny how we were always looking forward to every feedings of the fish....it's not because there are lots of them, but rather because there are many unique ones. so cute and looking forward when they grow big.

this morning, we just separate 3 of our 5 weeks old bettas and were very excited to see how they flare and how big their sizes are.....many more will need to be separated, of course, but unfortunately many will just have to share the community tank (and got fin nip here and there) for now. These 3 are long finned giant line, nice size and the spread will make HM in a few days time... Their uncles are full HM giant at age 2 months, so they're not far off...

anyway, there are also some new pairs being separated as they're very AWESOME!! 2 months old, 8 rays branching, full giant size (size of adult HMPK at the moment). We just wonder whether they'll grow to the expected giant 3" size in a couple of months time, fingers crossed.

so, that's a very nice reward of feeding them :)

Saturday 7 June 2008

Breeders' help wanted!!!

We have reserved some pairs for breeding, however there are not sufficient spawning tanks for us to spawn them all. So, we are offering the pairs to you to spawn with the following conditions:
  1. we provide 1 pair to you
  2. you pay bond money to us for the pair
  3. you spawn the pair
  4. you get to keep the pair and its offspring
  5. at all time, you feed the pair and its offspring sufficient (if not abundance) live food (e.g. live worms or equivalent live food for adults and any fry > 1.5 months)
  6. we get the first choice of picking up to 5 pairs free-of-charge from its offsprings at age of 2-3 months old, at which time we will return your money
  7. in the event of any fish died or prolonged unsuccessful spawning (e.g. more than 3 months), we keep the money
  8. if you decided to cancel this contract then we keep the money but you're still obligated to give us chance to keep up to 5 pairs of its offspring if you were successful in spawning them.
  9. you can only use any of the fish to pair it with other fish *after* you've successfully spawn the initial pair (otherwise this contract is considered "canceled" and we keep the bond).
The priority is to get the initial pair given to you to be spawned. Once they're successfully spawned, the original pair is yours to keep (feel free to out cross them to any other pairs you have). Please keep the fry from initial spawn separated and recorded such that at the age of 2-3
months we would be able to choose a couple of pairs from them for us to keep.

If you decide not to use the initial pair anymore (whether the spawning was successful or not), give us the first chance to decide whether we'd like to get the fish back without charge.

You may notice that we require you to feed the pairs live food. As much as we like to give you the freedom in keeping and spawning them, we'd like to ensure that the pair and its offspring to be in top condition at all times. If you cannot satisfy this requirement, sorry, you won't be able to participate on this effort.

Bond amount per pair:
  • $20 per pair for experienced breeder
  • $40 per pair for inexperienced breeder
Experience breeder = if you have successfully spawn at least once with 50+ offspring raised to the age of 3 months old on one single spawn.

Inexperience breeder = if you have successfully spawn at least once with 25-50 offspring survived to the age of 3 months on one single spawn.

There are a number of pairs available, we decide the pairing. Contact us if you're interested and we can let you know some combinations of pairings that may interest you and us. If you can help us out in spawning more pairs, then we're more than happy to supply the fish. Let us know your background in breeding to aid in our decision.

Some info about the fish:
  • mainly coming from cross of giants
  • either HM, HMPK, or the mixture of both (no PK)
  • age of 2-3 months now
  • may have nip/torn on fins
  • colours combination of cambodian red, copper gold, gold, green, intense yellow, and any of their combination/mix

As the fish involved at the moment is very young (2-3 months old), you may need to keep them for another 1 or 2 months before you spawn them. We can't keep them in our tanks simply because we don't have enough tanks to keep them all.

There are a number of goals of spawning these pairs including but not limited to:
  • large size giant (HM and HMPK lines)
  • new/different colour
  • heavy branching giant

Note that the fish involved here are all breeder-quality fish, therefore only consider this opportunity if you are serious in breeding. If you "just want to start on breeding" or experimenting or could not satisfy the definition of "in/experienced breeder" above, then we suggest you to simply buy the pair. They are available for special price of $60 per pair.

This whole description here is the "contract", if you choose to participate.We're not lawyer, so don't bother to argue on interpretations of the description here, our interpretation is the correct one. Please contact us direct on mybettas at gmail dot com, if any of the description here is unclear to you.

Fish handover for Sydney people can be arranged at very limited locations, otherwise we recommend shipping at cost $20.

Tuesday 3 June 2008

complicated importation dealings

Funny how we always think that business dealings, such as buying bettas, would be pretty much straightforward. Well, it's not. The difficulties seem to lie in the fact that there are 3 or more parties involved.

At the very least, there will be seller, buyer, and dont forget transhipper. Then there would also be shippers along the way. For instance, there typically a shipper on the source export country (such as thailand), an intermediate shipper in other countries such as malaysia or singapore, etc. Most of these shippers are working behind scenes without buyer knowing their existence. But there would be times when you aint getting your fish and when you carefully track it down, then all of a sudden they matters.

For example, when the shippers are misinformed, there would be big chances your fish will be stranded on the airport somewhere ;) Or, when your transhipper who kindly manages the wellbeing of your fish during the transit forgets to notify one of the shippers about date changes, whoala, a bunch of your fish will be staying put and you may say hi to them in due course (typically waiting till next shipment).

The dynamicity and complexity of export import relies on a very simple premise. If everyone is well informed ahead of time, then they can prepare to the best of their knowledge, otherwise "accidents" bound to happen. The very unfortunate facts about import export, particularly of live fish, are the uncertainty of the process becomes critical importance since those live fish can't wait around too much. Once they're delayed for 1 day for instance, then chances you'll see half of your shipment drop dead in their nice little plastic wrappers.

However, this doesn't mean that live fish is very difficult to be shipped. No, on the contrary, there are many companies managed to master the skill of export import. These companies do things "in the large", they usually don't deal with you (for shipping 1-10 bettas) :D. Suffice to say that they're very professional. OK, your fish is small potatoes for them, hence you still have to pest them to "can i see it when you get your import in?", but their dealings with you are very simple too. They import your fish, you tell them "oh, by the way, they are bettas, so you can just put them in small container", which then they would easily do, they take care of all paperworks amongst all the big fish they've imported, you'll ask them when you can get your bettas after quarantine, then presto, you've got your bettas. How much they charged? Very miniscule fee, cause bettas are very much small potatoes for them. Most of the time if you know those companies well, they would do the importation for you for free (dude, it's not like they'll charge you per fish, they have 1000s of fish per import!!). So, the less you pest them, the better.

Anyway, that's provided if you're lucky enough to find these importers. Remember, they dont want to deal with you cause you're small potatoes. But many "big" aquarium have licenses to import fish, so it's the matter of your skills to know them and "tag along" their imports. If you're not lucky enough, then there are other kind souls out there that would help you import the fish for you, for a fee of course. Now, this may not sound promising if you import regularly, but that's the service and you're more than welcome to use it !

The very unfortunate fact on dealing with bettas is the price that you scoop for the fish and the price that you pay in total. This reminds you of something isn't it? Yes, the petrol price! Though bettas is even crazier than petrol.

Let's analyze the situation....Cost of a betta is about a few dollars (give or take). This is the "clean price". Some "designer" bettas costs up to 100 times more than that. We'll discuss "designer" very shortly. Anyway, that's just the cost of the fish. Next you need to add the cost of the importation and shipping. In terms of bettas, this usually is even more expensive than your fish!! So, how crazy is that? Let's say you buy $2 Crowntail, add it up with shipping/import fees, you may ended up paying upto $50 in total. While you can combine shipping cost with other folks, importation fee is where you're stuck. If you're lucky to find nice fella doing the importation, then your overall cost isn't a big deal. Otherwise, you may just as well kiss your hobby goodbye, cause it's just too darn expensive to keep it.

Now, this discussion is not against any transhippers/importers! They justify their cost accordingly. Hey, it's predatorial world that we live in ;) Someone has to feed somebody else's tummy, otherwise nothing will get done. There may be people who attached themselves to the goodness of others, but that's very rare. Does this remind you of something? I bet so, remember how the big supermarket giants such as Coles and Woollies charge exorbitant prices for their "fresh foods" when you know the farmers aint getting anything much for it? Well, giant supermarket always say that they only take very small profit from it. Do you ever believe them? So, whenever you heard "advancing Australia bettas' quality" coming out of someone's mouth, you ought to question if that's just bull of crap or coming from their hearts.

I think everyone pretty much understands the dynamic of this delicate relationship between buyer, seller, shippers, and transhippers. Buyer is afraid to insult transhipper, seller is afraid to insult both buyer and transhipper, and transhipper only afraid when there are too much competition around, otherwise they're pretty much the boss around the house. Also, most buyers are typically happy for transhippers to charge them for their service, provided the charges are reasonable. But once the balance of fees getting to the point where one side looses his standing, then you'll see the dying of bettas as a hobby. In fact, bettas never did took off in Australia. It was initiated a number of times, many hobbists start the process, but then it just die off. Why you must ask? Well, one of the factors is cost. The other is remoteness of our location from each other. But we believe, cost is the main driving force. If we ever want to make bettas as an ever-growing hobby, we need to start with all the support infrastructure. This includes:
  • forums (plenty of this)
  • transhippers (if they charge reasonably)
  • reasonable costs of bettas (which relies on transhippers above for imported bettas)
  • sharing ideas/skills (plenty of hobbyists to do this)
  • place to show off what you've got (and sell them to other hobbyists)
Anyway, let's discuss what designer fish really refer to here. There are 2 types of "designer" bettas: one that is sold by eccentric guy, hence you thought he was very much a "designer", and second one is the fish itself has gone through lengthy processes (god knows what) such that it can be labelled as "designer" fish.

The first category is similar to buying branded goods (Dior, Armani, etc). Yes, the quality is reflected on the price you pay for it. But have you bought "cheap-quality-but-expensive-price" clothes such as Guess or any other labelled goods? You are not buying the goods (cause it really is crappy quality) but you buy the "brand" !! So, with bettas you really have to be careful to identify whether you're buying the brand or you're getting the goods (and the brand) that you so rightly deserved that come with the price tag.

The second category is similar to finding treasure in the supermarket. In the supermarket, everyone is pretty much selling "the same quality" stuff, but from time to time, you see the good quality ones that catch your eye. These "better" quality fish typically offerred for higher prices compared to other lower quality ones, and may escalate their status as "designer" fish.

Of course there is a third category that we have not discussed much yet. That is when everyone is selling crappy fish as "designer" fish. This is very much reflected in the market too. Have you ever wonder how on earth a crappy T-Shirt costs $12 at Paddy's when you know that they cost only a tenth of that in their originating country? OK, you may try to fool yourself by saying "there are importation costs etc involve", well, let me tell you, that's just another bull of crap. Put it very simple, importers make tons of money, otherwise they won't be in the business. It boils down to how much demand out there for their goods. Back in the old days when there are not that many importers around, then you see the $10 T-Shirt as high demand (they are the cheapest with "reasonable quality" compared to your usual $20 T-Shirt). Now that there are many importers importing the T-Shirt, the law of demand/supply should dictate that the price is lower. Well, that's where you're wrong again. The importers or the sellers get their act together such that they FIX the price!

Well, you may then ask, how is this applied to bettas? Pretty much the same way....The more demands on the market, the more people import fish, the cheaper it should be for the price of importation -- provided there are heaps of competition, otherwise you see the price not changing much or even rising. We are starting to see the price of bettas going down recently on bidding places. This is when the demands slow down. But unfortunately it rises soon after that, cause when there are demands, there are also more supply, and it's dead easy for anyone to jack up the price. Then you see how everyone selling standard quality for the price that designer fish being charged. Now, of course you can always defend big supermarket giants by saying "well, you need to know what you buy and your limit in buying", but that's just crap. If anyone has decency to other hobbyists, then they ought to consider their pricing very carefully.

For instance, there are a number of very decent sellers who are more than happy to offer you very reasonable prices for their fish. Not because they can't jack you up with higher prices, but because they understand the hobby and try to support it. They understand how much that you as a buyer have been ripped off by the "system", hence they try to supply with very reasonable prices, in the hope that you will come back to them and buy more. These kind of sellers are more than recommended cause they're not in the business of ripping you off. They've been in the business for a number of years and understand the fluid of bettas hobby....

Anyway, this post is getting way too long. Hopefully it's a good food for thought for other hobbyists out there. As usual, feel free to contact us for comment (if you prefer not to comment on the blog itself).

Monday 2 June 2008

rainbow sale

There are a bunch of fish for bulk sale. Their age from 2-3 months old. all from giant lines of HMPK and HM.

this sale is called rainbow sale cause you get mixed of colours on a sale, mix of everything that we have. all fish properly labelled. if you're interested to know the history of your fish, let us know on the order.

condition of sale still the same as our charity ones: you either donate the money to charity and send us shipping cost, or you pay us up for the fish cost + shipping cost.

Lots available:
  • Lot 1 -- 10 fish (5 pairs) for $150
  • Lot 2 -- 10 fish (5 pairs) for $100
  • Lot 3 -- 10 fish (5 pairs) for $75
Detail for each option:
Lot 1: top quality (best of the lines), very little to no torn on tail
Lot 2: medium quality, some torn on tail (usually just one torn on anal fin; without the torn, they would make one of the best ones).
Lot 3: medium quality, some torn

None of the fish has any genetic problems. All damages on tail (torn) are recoverable very fast and easily, however they're very difficult to be recovered on our tanks cause they bound to "fight" with other fish on our grow up tanks.

If you're interested to get the complete colours of all lines, we recommend for you to get 2 lots.
We will give a surprise gift with each purchase.

Shipment $20, pick up can be arranged though shipping is the recommended way. Contact us on mybettas at gmail dot com.

Thanks.