part of our prized possessions of bettas, we have some rather too-large giant HMPK females. these females got to the size that they are so large that we doubt any of our males would be able to spawn them.
the females are on average 2.5-2.8 inches long for hmpk, 3.3-3.6 inches for hm. But the length isn't much of the bigger deal, well it's usually not the main problem. the width that scares the hell of most males. their body width (heigth) is about 1 inch (1+cm for body, 2+cm for total width) with thickness of more than 0.5 inch (1+ cm). the long fin female has total width of 2 inches or so and we are certain that none of our males would be able to court them....
so, the challenge is to find a good suitable males for them. preferably either hmpk or hm of giant traits. if you have such males, contact us and we'll send the females down your way.
requirements for the males: minimum length of 3 inches for hmpk, 4 - 4.5 inches for hm. if you can't satisfy this requirement, there is no point on sending the females to you. your male has to be strong HM or HMPK spread (we don't want to develop SD giants), send us pictures and we will decide whether the male is accepted or not.
what do we want out of this? your promise that you'll send the largest 10 offspring from their spawns (5 pairs) when the offspring are at the age of 2 - 2.5 months. alternatively, when they are at the age of 1.5, you can send 20 of them to us (hey, summer is coming, so no need for heatpack, but still they may die on the trip). we want the largest of the spawn without apparent genetic fault (if there is such genetic fault). we pay for the shipping of these offspring (or pick them up, if you're in Sydney).
what do you get? you get the females sent to you (at your cost, or pick them up if you're in Sydney). the females are free! your priority is to spawn the female with the promised giant male first. once they're spawned, you are free to make use of the female for other pairings. then you contact us in 2 months time or so to arrange shipment of the offspring.
alternatively, if you are not confident on spawning, please send us pictures of your males and we see if there are ways for us to get them spawned at surrogate place (there are other people who are happy to lend a hand for a fee or barter -- offer of offspring?). in this case, the deal is swapped (you send your male, we pay shipping for the male, and you may ask for the male back when they are done -- no point for us to keep the male with us, so you might as well get back the male if you'd like to).
another yet alternative is for us to swap either male or female, if you insist that you'd like to have something of your own to spawn (or for whatever reasons there might be). we're interested in getting large females or males of either hmpk or hm traits. you can swap with our females or males, please do contact us....
note that while the females or males involved are quite expensive monetary-wise, we are more interested in being able to produce the largest giants lines with decent form. hence, we hope that you have the same view as us in appreciating the delicacy of this deal.
contact us on our email mybettas {at} gmail [dot] com. hope you're intrigued with this idea...
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Monday 8 September 2008
spawning service is postponed
one of our buyers asked whether we can help him on spawning his pair. in normal circumstances, we would have been happy to do so. in fact we have spawning service where we spawn your pair and raise them to the age of 1.5-2 months and hand them over to you. minimal 50-100 fry guaranteed. however, these days, we have been very busy and didn't have much of the time available, hence unfortunately we have to say no.
it is sad to hear that those gorgeous pairs that you've bought couldn't be spawned. they typically only need good condition to spawn. perhaps you can read our spawning 101 post. hopefully that helps you.
there are other challenges in spawning giants. this makes this hobby so much fun. while it is true that spawning typical bettas is trivial, giants are a lot more difficult to do. so much more for long fin giants, particularly if their size is gigantic (smaller size seems to be comparable to typical long fin spawning).
perhaps in a couple of months time, we will be offering our spawning service again. until that time, please read our previous posts and consult the various bettas forums. there will be plenty of resources available for you.
it is sad to hear that those gorgeous pairs that you've bought couldn't be spawned. they typically only need good condition to spawn. perhaps you can read our spawning 101 post. hopefully that helps you.
there are other challenges in spawning giants. this makes this hobby so much fun. while it is true that spawning typical bettas is trivial, giants are a lot more difficult to do. so much more for long fin giants, particularly if their size is gigantic (smaller size seems to be comparable to typical long fin spawning).
perhaps in a couple of months time, we will be offering our spawning service again. until that time, please read our previous posts and consult the various bettas forums. there will be plenty of resources available for you.
giant video spawn
we've got the permission to upload this video and picture from the owner. we're pretty happy to see the success of this spawning, cause the pair is just awesome.
we helped in importing the male. he's copper giant long fin, about 4+ inches (4.2 -4.3 inches, or 10+ cm). forget about the typical 3 inches (7.5 cm) that are being sold as giants, these coppers are huge! they have such gorgeous tail, long wavy tail on all finnage. very high and large dorsal, very long caudal, and anal is just dead drop wide.
here's what the male looks like (photo courtesy of seller).
the female is one of our long fin 8 rays giant HM line. she is very young, about 3.5 months, and about 2.8 inches. she comes from copper x plat red.
in this movie (you need flash player), you can see how the male managed to fully wrapped and hide the female.... just awesome!
here's the video
we helped in importing the male. he's copper giant long fin, about 4+ inches (4.2 -4.3 inches, or 10+ cm). forget about the typical 3 inches (7.5 cm) that are being sold as giants, these coppers are huge! they have such gorgeous tail, long wavy tail on all finnage. very high and large dorsal, very long caudal, and anal is just dead drop wide.
here's what the male looks like (photo courtesy of seller).
the female is one of our long fin 8 rays giant HM line. she is very young, about 3.5 months, and about 2.8 inches. she comes from copper x plat red.
in this movie (you need flash player), you can see how the male managed to fully wrapped and hide the female.... just awesome!
here's the video
pecking order
is it always that the largest female be the winner? does a male in the community tank (of females) play any role? how do they establish that pecking order that everyone has been mentioning so much about?
well, most larger female is the leader of the group. this can be seen as when bigger female moves about, you'll see other females won't dare to stay on her path....but what also interesting is that there are times when you see a smaller female is the leader. this is not too uncommon. for instance, we had occasions when smaller female started to chase every other females away, even managed to nip a few tails. she even chased males. in short, she's just bored :)... She wants to be the leader and until such time no other females or males able to challenge her, she'll be the leader.
there are times when pecking order is very much apparent. you can easily notice them when:
males have their order too, but you should only observe this when they are smaller (e.g. when they haven't really doing the full fight). sometimes they chase each other or flare for awhile, sometimes you see fin is nipped a little here and there, but there is no harm on that. it's a good indication that you need to separate them soon though, cause if you're late on doing that, you'll regret it....in our experience, this is approx when the males are about 2 to 2.5 months old. anything older than that would mean they are more than ready to fight for their lives, so if you haven't separate them, you're way too late lol.
getting back to pecking order....sometimes you see females (or males) fight very aggressively just to sort out this pecking order. well, that's the ritual. they need to know who's stronger and who should get the big share of the food (or who gets the chance to mate that gorgeous male, if you have a male in the tank).
if you are weak-hearted, you can ease up their aggression by a number of ways:
we used to have a couple of "show" tanks where we put about 20 or so females and 1 or 2 males. they live very happily there. but one thing that we've learnt is that we need to "rotate" some females from time to time, from one tank to another. This rotation introduces new mixed of fish into the tanks and make the whole thing lively again.
well, most larger female is the leader of the group. this can be seen as when bigger female moves about, you'll see other females won't dare to stay on her path....but what also interesting is that there are times when you see a smaller female is the leader. this is not too uncommon. for instance, we had occasions when smaller female started to chase every other females away, even managed to nip a few tails. she even chased males. in short, she's just bored :)... She wants to be the leader and until such time no other females or males able to challenge her, she'll be the leader.
there are times when pecking order is very much apparent. you can easily notice them when:
- when new fish is added to the tank (doesn't matter whether that's male or female)
- during or after feeding time
males have their order too, but you should only observe this when they are smaller (e.g. when they haven't really doing the full fight). sometimes they chase each other or flare for awhile, sometimes you see fin is nipped a little here and there, but there is no harm on that. it's a good indication that you need to separate them soon though, cause if you're late on doing that, you'll regret it....in our experience, this is approx when the males are about 2 to 2.5 months old. anything older than that would mean they are more than ready to fight for their lives, so if you haven't separate them, you're way too late lol.
getting back to pecking order....sometimes you see females (or males) fight very aggressively just to sort out this pecking order. well, that's the ritual. they need to know who's stronger and who should get the big share of the food (or who gets the chance to mate that gorgeous male, if you have a male in the tank).
if you are weak-hearted, you can ease up their aggression by a number of ways:
- introduce lots of fish on the same time (the more populated the tank, the more confused they are)
- keep disturbing the tank (add pump, filter, lights, anything)
- put other fish in the tank
- feed them on frequent intervals (they'll be distracted on getting the food). the opposite of this is true too...if you feed them on more regular and less-frequent intervals, you'll notice your fish getting aggressive, cause they're hungry and will fight for food
- keep your tank dark (if you can't distract them, make them think it's night, so they can't see each other flaring)
- depending on size of your tank, introduce at least 1 male. the male will be the boss and he'll chase the females away (the male usually doesn't nip females' fin). old male is a good candidate. young male is full of testosterone, so he may ended up chasing the female for courting, LMAO
- give enough hiding places. unfortunately, hiding place also serves as point of contention. whoever claims the spot usually is very aggressive in defending it, so you'll see nipping there
we used to have a couple of "show" tanks where we put about 20 or so females and 1 or 2 males. they live very happily there. but one thing that we've learnt is that we need to "rotate" some females from time to time, from one tank to another. This rotation introduces new mixed of fish into the tanks and make the whole thing lively again.
Friday 5 September 2008
david and goliath
today we saw some interesting stuff. The Thai has managed to develop "micro" HM! The size of those fish are only 4cm, but yet they have full HM or OHM spread etc. Just amazing....
OK...we're not encouraging things, but you must admit that this is amazing. For those out there who have ever spawned anything, you know what we meant. It takes diligent and a lot of generations to be able to develop this micro HMs. Most micro hm you've seen are just deformed fish, but no...this one is FULL normal functional fish. And what's more?? There are a number of them, so it's pretty certain that the gene has settled down.
OK, perhaps this is not really such a big deal, cause you can always try to cross your fish with the smallest bettas found, but having said this, it's still interesting that they've managed to get a full OHM with very nice form and ray splitting!!!
If you see the picture, they're no more different that your typical fancy OHM, colour-wise, they're the same too. The ones we saw were copper variant (copper red, copper gold, etc), so that's "new" colour, not your typical blues or reds.
Now, further to that, try to compare this micro HM to giant HM!! You would then be able to appreciate both of them a lot more ;)
On one side you have a fish that is barely 4cm. Next to it is another with the size of 10+cm. Talking about a full 3x size difference. A single wrap of the giant HM male will completely swallow the tiny micro HM male :)
That's david and goliath for you!! We'll see if we can post pictures later (pending approval), but that's sufficient for you to imagine for now :)
Enjoy.
Here's the snap of the image, with permission from seller...
Not surprising that they've got DT on the gene, otherwise they won't look as good ;)
OK...we're not encouraging things, but you must admit that this is amazing. For those out there who have ever spawned anything, you know what we meant. It takes diligent and a lot of generations to be able to develop this micro HMs. Most micro hm you've seen are just deformed fish, but no...this one is FULL normal functional fish. And what's more?? There are a number of them, so it's pretty certain that the gene has settled down.
OK, perhaps this is not really such a big deal, cause you can always try to cross your fish with the smallest bettas found, but having said this, it's still interesting that they've managed to get a full OHM with very nice form and ray splitting!!!
If you see the picture, they're no more different that your typical fancy OHM, colour-wise, they're the same too. The ones we saw were copper variant (copper red, copper gold, etc), so that's "new" colour, not your typical blues or reds.
Now, further to that, try to compare this micro HM to giant HM!! You would then be able to appreciate both of them a lot more ;)
On one side you have a fish that is barely 4cm. Next to it is another with the size of 10+cm. Talking about a full 3x size difference. A single wrap of the giant HM male will completely swallow the tiny micro HM male :)
That's david and goliath for you!! We'll see if we can post pictures later (pending approval), but that's sufficient for you to imagine for now :)
Enjoy.
Here's the snap of the image, with permission from seller...
Not surprising that they've got DT on the gene, otherwise they won't look as good ;)
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