More giants available!

Doing some cleanings in our backyard and found the broken bathtub still filled with fish! Yes, we used the bathtub to house some of our extra fry, then forgot about them (well, for couple of weeks they had nice foods to eat there, live worms, mozzies -- so we tend to just put them there and forget about them).

We have about 8 or 10 of them survived and surprise surprise...their size is pretty big! They are all "skinny" of course, but even with such skinny fish, you can see how massively bulky their body :) Most females are 2.4 or 2.5 inches in length. Males are larger slightly, but what's relieving is that the males are all wider than the females (except for 1 female, the cambo red girl, which we think can only be spawned by her sibling brother cause he's larger than her)...Also, 1 MG boy in the lot! Thought we lost the MG line, apparently we still have 1 of them LOL

They're available on our site http://mybettas.110mb.com under sale section (or we urge you to pay the amount to charity)

Anyway, they're available for those who'd like to start/continue the lines or would like their hands on giant spawnings. All of them produce hmpk (no long fin variants). Most of their siblings were all giants, so we know you're going to get pure giants from these guys (provided you can spawn them to begin with).

There is also a giant behind that MG boy (just didn't manage to get good picture of him...) Also, we've posted some still-picture-video in youtube on these guys, have fun watching if you've got the bandwidth.

3 giants flaring: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QvuIAPlgOUw&feature=channel

MG and redblack giant: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6VVIBDY4x3o&feature=channel


Here's some pics of them, the lost bettas :)

Xmas and charity

Xmas is coming. Time for us to remind everyone to share things to those who are in need. If there are any of our fish that you like to buy, we encourage you to offer a price and donate it to charity of your choice (if you don't have a preferred charity, we can recommend the doctors without borders http://msf.org.au). This offer is applicable not only during xmas, but throughout the year!

For completeness, let us repeat the procedure:

1. you choose the fish that you like, offer reasonable price for them
2. you donate the money to the charity (or we can do that on your behalf -- this is sometimes simpler if you also need to pay for shipping cost -- read more)
   
3. let us know once done
4. arrange meeting to pick the fish (if you're in sydney), otherwise arrange shipping (this costs you $25 on any number of fish you ordered)

Thanks for helping the needy :)

Give the credit where it's due

How many times had there been incidents when you were not given the credit for your ideas, hard work, or simply intangible things that are yours? Well, this happens surprisingly quite frequently to us :)

What would you do when it really happens to you?

Well, we've learnt to be forgiving. Just simply ignore it...After all, there is no such thing as "original" ideas or things personally bounded to a single person....Take "idea" for instance...for every idea that you have, there bound to be a couple of people thinking of the very same/similar idea. Hence you can't really claim the ideas as yours. However, there are times that when you know they "steal" your ideas (e.g. after listening/reading to your idea), then you should be very grateful that someone "listen" and agrees to you !

While we always give credit where it's due, we encourage you do the same too. This way, there would be lesser and lesser people who'd felt being disadvantaged. This also encourages other people to share their ideas more, and got the very feeling of getting involved in things, hence building an active community.

So, here we are...posts on this blog aim to this very goal: to share ideas and experiences, as such we can learn from each other. feel free to share your ideas in forums, mailist, chat, blogs, etc and even let us know (so we can re-share it)....if there are good ideas out there that everyone ought to know, share it, give credit to the owners, and distribute !!! please don't let "politics" or financial-gain affect it, you know it aint progressing when they got involve

Fry update 3

Just thought want to post their pictures. Growing strong and nice. We managed to kill about 100 of them or so though. On every given day since last 3 or 4 days, there had been at least 20-30 fry died and syphoned from the bottom of the tank. They died cause of choking, eating way-too-long live worms !! We're running out of mozzie larvae too, if anyone out there "harvest" mozzies, do let us know and perhaps we can arrange something :)

Unfortunately, usually the ones died are the bigger ones :( Oh well, you gain some, you loose some. With that kind of rate, we think we still have a good 400 of them there, at least. It's a catch 22. Without the worms, most of them will go starving when we're not around feeding them. With the worms, there are bound to be some "acceptable" deaths. In the old days, we used to have time to chop the worms into smaller pieces. These days, we're just way too busy and not having much of the luxuries to do that anymore. Perhaps it is so true, as the saying said, survival of the fittest :)

Anyway, 'nough saying, here's the pic.

Some amazing pictures of our bettas

Mesmerising pictures of some of our bettas...Many are ready to spawn, of course. Some of the pictures as just awesome, while others are so-so. While some of the finnage of the bettas are not so great -- cause of the torn finnage, collapse finnage, or any of the combinations, these fish are still very much agressive and active. Ever wonder how to keep in excess of 100 containers around? The growout tanks still have lots of torn-tail males :( ...

What's lacking is pictures of the females, but there are just so many of them and the females are a lot more beautiful (at least they don't have torn finnage much yet!). Specially, long fin giant females are just awesome, with very large caudal spread. Perfect for breeders.

The pictures of males here are combination of HMPK and HM lines we're having. Some of them are giants (but it's so hard to show their gigantic size on the pictures). None of the pictures here are touched (either Photoshopped or else!). What you see is what the fish look like, in their full colouration (though sometimes our lighting isn't much of a help, only using 1 lightbulb LMAO :) The only thing done for the pictures are: cropped, then resize to viewable image (640x480 px).

Some fish refuse to be taken pictures. Also it is worth noted that we only use 1 single tank for all pictures, hence all fish are required to be in their best behaviour in the matter of 5 mins, otherwise they're not pictured (hence you see them behaved accordingly :D)

For those who are interested on the fish, feel free to contact us (email us). Their cost:

• HMPK = $20, pair = $30
• HM (or SD) = $25, pair = $40
• giant HMPK = $35, pair = $50
• giant HM = $40, pair = $55
• breeder quality female, buy single $40, buy as a pair add $20 to cost of pairs.

Note that HM term used above refers to HM line (whether the fish is OHM, HM, SD). Some giants achieve SD due to "mistreatment" from us (not having enough containers), however they have very nice gene and if you manage to spawn them (and give good care to the fry), you'll be rewarded with very nice lineage...

For those wondering, breeder-quality females are the ones with very long (for HM lines) and wide caudal with some desirable properties such as 180 degree or 8 rays, (if you prefer rosetail female for HMPK, mention it to us, only very limited numbers avail), etc.

For sydney-siders, meeting can be arranged. Shipping preferred, to east coast $25. You can also take the opportunity to get some of our "rejects" if you're interested. The rejects are the ones that are round-tail, Delta, or simply we think not worth selling (though they are not sick, still very active, and breedable just as other fish that we have!).

Oh, finally, none of the fish shown here have any weird defects whatsoever. Their "weird" shape on the pictures came about when they move so suddenly or agressively during photograph sessions (wish we can ask them to stand still!!). Pay attention to some of our greens ;) Oh, if you have sufficient bandwidth, watch the movies too. There are 2 movies uploaded and they are worth watching! When we said they are agressive, you know what we meant! Most if not all of our fish are just as agressive as shown in the movie (and the pictures).... Notice how wide and big they open their gill during flares (considering we only have 1 tank and they're being swap in/out quickly into the tank, but no, they're ready to fight as soon placed in the tank!)

Enjoy!













































































Finally, enjoy the most beautiful green....


Watch video on our right-side of blog, otherwise check it out on youtube link below (worth your download time!):

1. agressive boy
2. HM boy

Enjoy!!!

OHM in females

It's been awhile since we really see OHM in females. Usually we don't really take much note on it, but recently we are started to see a number of females advertised as "OHM" when they are, sadly, nothing more than HM-line with SD form. Perhaps some of those sellers need a little whack in the head for calling their females OHM when they definitely are not....

Okay, sometimes you've just got carried over....understandable....it's very frequent for us just to call our fish "HM" for instance, despite some of them are very well be SD (not getting 180 degree yet). But at least there are so many of our fish that are full HM and OHM, we simply label them "HM" for simplicity.

It's rare in our occasions to call our fish OHM unless they really are. OHM carries its own "weight" in discussions, as far as we concerned. While HM is considered a generic term for a particular line, just like we call a betta CT, PK, etc. Well, any HM line is the line that *mostly* produced HM fry. Sure, sometimes you have SD in the spawn, but the proportion should be minimal, otherwise the whole line can't be called HM (cause it's proven to be still not stable).

On the same token, rarely you see fish labelled as Delta anymore, cause they're just too darn difficult to produce these days (unless you're miserable in crossing HM to a PK, or your HM line is just still too unstable, still need a LOT of work!).

Anyway, getting back to OHM in females. So far, it has been very difficult for us to get a good OHM females. We've got quite a number of them as OHMPK, thanks to rosetail gene mostly. There are quite a lot of HM females in our spawns, so this is a good indication that OHM females are not far off....Today, for instance, we only have 1 OHM female in stock. She has nice long tail and hopefully will grow much longer. Again, we suspect thanks to rosetail gene...

Note that the goal of getting OHM female is *not* by crossing them to DT. Crossing anything to DT achieves large caudal but not necessary producing stable ST line down the track. You may get good HM or OHM females by crossing to DT, but once you work for a couple of generations outcrossing them to ST, you'll lose the advantages delivered by DT gene, which further requires you to outcross to another DT...It's like addiction :)

So far, we have only known 2 breeders who have good ST lines. Their lines are purely ST and produce large HM/OHM finnage on both males and females. As usual, it is still a secret how they achieve the lines. Perhaps some day they'll share the secrets. We suspect it takes very careful planning and diligent outcrossing to maintain the ST lines (e.g. if you've got minimally 5 or 6 spawnings concurrently, and crossing the best ST to each other, you're deemed to achieve stable nice ST lines that you desired)....

Why would OHM female matter? It's because they contribute greatly to the outcome of your fry. OHM females will give you pretty much guarantee that most of your fry will be HM, with most males would be OHM (provided you've got decent male of course -- but decent males are very easy to find these days). That's why a good OHM female is priceless :)

Update on the fry

Another couple of days of growth and it gets more apparent of their size. All are single tail, as expected, which confirms our goal on achieving OHM without DT gene. Both parents are single tail but have large caudal sizes. Looking forward to see these guys grow with large caudal. Kinda interesting to see what to do with them all though, a single spawn of about 400+ fish, all of which are long fin.....at least we've got 1.5 months or so to find housing for them

Here's the pic, zoomed in to a small portion of the tank, complete with gunks



They've enjoyed bbs and mozzie larvae with ease. Some have started to pick on the worms too, only a matter of days when they start to hassle the worms properly....Need to get some larger mozzie larvae too, otherwise they'll be bored....

Talking about larger mozzie larvae, they're quite cute when chasing that bigger larvae. They know they can't eat them, but they like to pick on them and somehow manage to kill off the larvae, perhaps because of the injuries sustained during the attacks....

Difference between old HM and giant HM

Lots of sellers sell "old" HM as giant HM. This is simply because some old HMs do have tendency to have very large finnage (refer to long tail discussion). So the question is....how would one differentiate old HM from giant? This assumes that sellers lie about the age of the fish (either intentionally or not....it's ridiculous for instance to see an 8 months or even 1 year old fish being advertised as 3.5 months old, cause you can really see that the "boy" is old!)

To start, the body length should be different...but then some old HM also have longer-than-normal body length, therefore this is not a good indicator. Sometimes you can see from the "face" of the fish that they are giant, this is typically true when the fish has much larger body size (volume-wise) and yet the face looks like he's very "young".

Another indicator is the length of the finnage. Giant HM should have very long finnage or looks wavy despite their young age (sample pictures). Guided with this comparison, we would expect that some 1 year old large-size HMs will be equivalent to a 4 or 5 months giant HM, at least on size comparison. You will still notice that the "face" differences.

As for movements...it is quite difficult to differentiate between the two. Both giant HM and old HM should be "quite" active. They move slower than their standard betta counterpart, but still active. However, the biggest differentiator would be how long they can hold off that finnage during flare. Old HM gets tired easily, whereas giants stay active for sometime before they get bored too (they maybe bored, but if given new flaring partner, they'll flare continuously).

Another nicer indicator though sometimes quite difficult to notice on young giant would be the width, volume, and scales. Giant has thicker and bigger scales as well as much heavier volume. While giant HMPK is very much noticeable and differentiable in their volume, giant HMs are typically slimmer than their giant HMPK counterpart. However, even a slimmer giant HM is still bigger and larger (in scales and volume) compare to old large-size HM.

Note that we are not trying to compare giant HM and "standard" HM, cause there is no comparison. Giant HM is much larger than standard HM as shown in comparison. We're trying to compare giant HM and the "fake" giant HM (e.g. old large-size HM). For instance, the fish in long tail discussion is standard HM with an unknown age. It is not a giant despite its sheer caudal size. Notice that it has skinny body too which confirms that it is of standard betta.

Interestingly, female giants are a lot easier to spot, if they are long fin. How many of those old large-size HM females that can reach the length and size of a giant? A 3 month old giant HM female would have beaten the size of an old HM female easily, hence there isn't much point of trying to compare them. Note that all of the above comparisons, including body volume etc, would still be applicable when comparing giant HM females and their counterpart old large-size HM females.

Perhaps the problem with giants these days are comparatively to the discussions that we used to have about 8 years ago, when we tried to identify whether a particular betta is a "good" HM or not....Back then (and still now, but less so), a full 180 degree fish is easily identified as HM but spawning 2 "HM" won't necessarily get you HMs!!! In fact, in the old days, we used to get majority of SDs (which cost considerably cheap compared to HM!!! HM could cost from $100+ while SD only costs $40). That's because the HM gene isn't stabilized yet but also because of a number of other reasons such as:

• seller doesn't tell the truth (e.g. is it stabilized giant gene? is it 50% giant? is it 75%? is it 100%?)
• seller doesn't sell good giants (for the interest of their livelihood and other reasons)
• ever wonder why you never get siblings when you try to purchase giants? (at least you won't get sibling giant HM so far)
• you may only get one-off giant in the spawn of 200, hence what you see aint necessarily the "best" gene out there

Of course there are many other reasons, that's why a good giant gene HM costs so much! In fact, realistically, if you're looking for good giant HM either male or female, you will end up paying about $100+ per fish. Many people don't really get this as yet....the cost is expensive, but that's the price someone ought to pay for such a hard work on the "line".

For those not quite clear yet, giant HM carries the following difficulties in "producing" them:

• it's HM (it is difficult to stabilize HM gene)
• it's giant (no one can stabilize this gene yet -- crossing 2 giants will only get you small percentage of giants, the others are just "carrier"; same analogy from 8 years ago...crossing 2 HMs will get you lots of SD and only 1 or 2 HMs!! crossing 2 SDs won't get you HMs unless you're lucky, but that's rarely happen!)
• it's HM (didn't we mention this already?)....HM has lots of problems associated with them which requires regular water changes, consistent care, etc
  

Now, some of you may say..."so what?"....well, did you know that HM is purely "hand-crafted"? There is no such betta in the wild that can be called HM (there are PK, VT, etc, but not HM). The HM fish that we've got today is totally the diligent work of their creators, over 100s or 1000s generations, to produce a very nice consistent form what we know as HM today. This is exactly the same process that many of us giant breeders are going through at the moment.....hand-crafting the ultimate giant HM. That's why some people including us love to breed "quality" bettas...we like to be "god" or at least feeling like it...

So, for similar interest enthusiasts out there....go breed "better" bettas, not just any crappy bettas (though this is very much up to the debate; perhaps for another discussion). Make sure you also help the mother earth and try to preserve wild bettas too. Don't cross your wilds with any designer bettas!

Hope this discussion helps you appreciate giant HM more. Don't be surprised if a seller asks for an arm and a leg for their giant HM, if it is good gene, it worth all the money! (provided you know how to make use of it too!)