We must be crazy.. 4 new bettas.

we just rescued 4 bettas from petco.. 1 female with stress lines, a badly torn up fin and color loss (although her color comes out in the photo we took much better than she looks now). We're going to nurse her back to health and find her a good home.

We also found the rare occasion of 11 dalmation bettas at petco. only seen 2 until now. nobody seems to be buying them although the shipment came in a couple weeks ago and I remember seeing Sora for a few weeks before giving in even though we had no home for him at the time. people here don't seem to want dalamation bettas. we couldn't stand them all being left to die, so took 3 of them to find homes for (we hope) at the betta show tommorrow. if we were sure of homes, we would've bought all 11.

Here are there pics.

 

Is there no way you can keep them? They all look really nice.

 

Yeah the two of you are crazy fools. I wish I could get my fiance into bettas but she's more of a Dog and Newt girl... lol.

Those are some fine looking bettas, wish I had room for more, cause I'd gladly take them off your hands Good luck finding homes for them, and nursing the little lady back to health.

 

They are all very beautiful Dave. I hope you can find good homes for them. Make sure you interview the people that want to take them off you, so you know they are going into good healthy environments. Natalie

 

you guys are crazy! Hope they find good homes. Brianna

 

We wish we could keep them all too.. the boys are funny and energetic - they had a great time with a pea dinner tonight, got clean water and vitachem. we just don't have the money for 3 new tanks and all the stuff for them.. even if we got small 2.5g minibow kits, that'd be $90 for tanks, hoods & filters and still 3 heaters to buy along with some decor, thermometers, air stones, etc and a bag of biospira. they're already growing on us, really exceptional bettas in addition to being beautiful dalmations. it's just the money we'd need to house them even with minimum homes -- maybe we should just take a carboard sign saying "please help 3 homeless bettas" and stand outside the show doors going to be hard to part with the little guy.

we'll definitely do our best to make sure they go to owners who will spoil them with good homes.

 

Steve! You must tell us how the betta show went!! Did these guys all get homes??

 

Steve! You must tell us how the betta show went!! Did these guys all get homes??

Who's Steve? The betta show went great, we entered the 3 boys in the show in the pets division and 2 of them won 2nd & 3rd so we put them in the auction and hope they'll get good homes today. The judges were very taken with their coloring, especially the red spots. Apparently they're a unusual and interesting color combination.

 

Holy...! I meant Dave!!! .. I dunno who Steve is!! (So sorry!)

That's great that the bettas did well! Hopefully they will go to good homes. Will they let youknow if they were bought? (I'm sure they will be) I'm just a curious little cat. Well.. not really. Wow, that's really great though. Did you enter Micky?

 

OMG....I am away for a few days ( we have company from England)..........I steal a few minutes to catch up, and there you two are...........you have changed your name to Steve..who is Stacy now?.. and you have changed your picture so I can't recognize you two......You have adopted 4 new bettas, gone to a fish show, won placing at a fish show, and posted no pictures?????  Man...........get some photos posted.  Are your bettas mad at you now for bringing some on board??? 

You auctioned them off?  To good homes?  Did you interview people??  Catch us up, kay???

why can't things ever stay the same??? LOL   Val

 

Calculate Fish Tank Volume in Gallons Based on Tank Size
Fish Tank Length in Inches: 14.5
Fish Tank Width in Inches: 9.5
Fish Tank Height in Inches: 9.5

Aquarium Size is US Gallons 5.66504
Aquarium Size is UK Gallons 4.71898

I found a tank that is the above size for less than $10.00 and is lovely and brand new. I have had them and really like them. With the very small Elite heaters they would be reasonable and give you a lot of room. ;D ;D ;D ;D



There is a bigger size but I thought the increased cost would be prohibitive $19.00. They also have lights for them on another site but I prefer to allow them to have natural day and night cycles in these. I have used them as q and hospital tanks and given them as gifts for new aquarists and love them for extras when they are needed in emergencies.

Rose
(the devil...so you can say the devil made me do it )

 

I have the exact same tank for Niles and it's quite spacious. He seems to like it! I have a very inexpensive Whisper 3I filter in it (about $10) that uses an air pump (included) to push water up the intake tube. For such a simple filter it does a great job! I light his tank with just a small table lamp next to the tank and it's fine. Really, the only expense is the heater. If you need to bring the boys back home, this is the route I'd go. The aquarium kits with lights and hood and filter are expensive, especially if buying several.

 

kat - well Stacy has changed her name to GooglyWoogly and I'm now no longer Steve but Oompa Loompa #26. We thought we should give each Betta some 'face time' so Mickey is up now. The 3 Dalmations all were sold to breeders that we talked with yesterday and will have good homes. We've been so busy buying supplies and getting our new Bettas settled in that I've not gotten to the photos yet, but I will be posting soon (hopefully tommorrow after cleaning all the tanks.) about the betta show and the 5 bettas that we brought home with us.

diamonds - I shall now call you Shirley!

thanks Rose, we had that for our q/h tank before the potential fish tb rescue betta but that is less than what we paid at Petco. Yesterday, we found this filter - . what do you think of it for that tank (or other containers of similiar size & dimension)?

 

I am using that right now in Nate's hospital tank at Butterfly's suggestion as she had used one previously with good results. We both found them great little filters and very effective. They also do not make a lot of surface movement as long as the water level does not go all the way to the lip of the filter. Nate loves his and can do a good job of swimming and enjoying the tank with that filter running. I heartily approve. It is also very easy to change and remove carbon from them when you medicate which is not so easy with some of the others.

I buy cheap filter material rather than the filter cartridges though as you can make hundreds of the filter replacements and can change out half a pad any time it gets dirty and leave the other half to seed the new one for 10 days of so. I change half of the pad every 10 days or so I constantly have half of it being seeded by the cycled one that I started out from a piece of the stuff from Alex's tank. I use this in my bigger tanks too so I can save some money. (cheapskate, I know but I can keep stuff cleaner this way and it lasts as long if you rinse it)



With all my tanks and some of them being big I buy the Blue Bonded Pad 6 pack as I go through one in a year or so but you may not need as many ... Each pad is 312 square inches and will make 9 pads for each 12 gallon tank and 7.5 for the 25 gallon tank and umpteen for my little filter as they are about a square inch at a time for half a one. (they also make great algae scrub pads and do not scratch acrylic).

Rose

 

Haha Alright, my new name is Shirley! I'm glad to hear that the bettas did well. Wow! You got four new ones?? That's super awesome! I can't wait to see pictures! I'll bet it's sad to see the others go though, at least you got to talk with the people who bought them! That's really great, man I wish I could go to a betta show. My mother actually came in my room today, and laid down on my bed and watched my bettas for like half an hour. She thinks i'm nuts... But she decided that Paris is her favorite. She thinks that Neil is beautiful, and she loves the finnage that Helios has. She wants me to redo Helios' tan though. hah! She loves Neil's tank. But she made me promise no more tanks.

 

thanks Rose. we're probably going to get more of them then along with more submersible heaters, etc.. for the next time we go nuts and bring home a bunch of Bettas that we have no tanks for - like the next Betta show.

SD - yea, I was sad to see the dalmations go, but they got good homes and didn't die in petco cups so that helped. lol, of course we went and got 3 more at the same auction plus the mahachaI pair we went for, so more bettas now than we had then. :

those bettas are going to win your mom over.. never underestimate the power of the Betta!!!

 

... we just don't have the money for 3 new tanks and all the stuff for them.. even if we got small 2.5g minibow kits, that'd be $90 for tanks, hoods & filters and still 3 heaters to buy along with some decor, thermometers, air stones, etc and a bag of biospira. they're already growing on us, really exceptional bettas in addition to being beautiful dalmations. it's just the money we'd need to house them even with minimum homes -- maybe we should just take a carboard sign saying "please help 3 homeless bettas" and stand outside the show doors going to be hard to part with the little guy.

LOL!! I read this post AFTER I read the one about the new bettas you got at the show! hehe

You know, I went back and found Jett (black/red crowntail) after being in Petco for a week. I was thinking there was no way that he could possibly still be there. About half the other bettas were gone, but he was still there and he is so gorgeous. But I think people expect bettas to be a solid red or blue and that is what they choose over the unusually colored ones. I picked Cujo because he was a pretty blue, and before I did any research about bettas at all. Just some random thoughts about how it is possible to find these gorgeous unusual bettas at walmart or petco or where-ever.

 

LOL!! I read this post AFTER I read the one about the new bettas you got at the show! hehe

You know, I went back and found Jett (black/red crowntail) after being in Petco for a week. I was thinking there was no way that he could possibly still be there. About half the other bettas were gone, but he was still there and he is so gorgeous. But I think people expect bettas to be a solid red or blue and that is what they choose over the unusually colored ones. I picked Cujo because he was a pretty blue, and before I did any research about bettas at all. Just some random thoughts about how it is possible to find these gorgeous unusual bettas at walmart or petco or where-ever.

Yea, I think that's why Sora was there for a few weeks before we bought him and none of those dalmations were being sold. I knew Betta breeders would appreciate them and give them new homes. It's hard to believe it when a Betta like Jett or Sora sit there unsold for so long.

 

Don't breeders just keep them in unheated jars except for the short time the fish is needed to spawn and take care of the babies?  They don't usually treat them as pets like we do and when they are too old to breed they just get rid of them. It's just a business to them. Amateur breeders are even worse. They usually end up killing the fish because they don't know what they are doing.  I would have only given Bettas to people who absolutely would not breed them and would keep them in a tank of at least 5 gallons heated and filtered. That's just me though. 

 

A number of the breeders that we talked to did actually have between 8 and 20 bettas that they had just had as pets and not for breeding or anything like that. But our dalmations were bought as pets by other non-breeders like us who we'd talked with.

 

Don't breeders just keep them in unheated jars except for the short time the fish is needed to spawn and take care of the babies? They don't usually treat them as pets like we do and when they are too old to breed they just get rid of them. It's just a business to them. Amateur breeders are even worse. They usually end up killing the fish because they don't know what they are doing. I would have only given Bettas to people who absolutely would not breed them and would keep them in a tank of at least 5 gallons heated and filtered. That's just me though.

Many breeders live in areas were its warm and there is no need to heaters. (Baby fry have them to keep the temp very consistent I even know one who puts his bettas out side in kiddy pools and they love it. Many breeders are very attached to there betas and are very sad when something happens to them. We name then just as you guys do. I am an Amateur breeder and none of my bettas have died. I know many other amateur betta breeders that also have had nothing happen. Shur there fins do get shredded but done we all fall down at one time and scrape our knee? We get better and so do the bettas. I love my bettas to death and they are very spoiled. This is why I decided to breed them because they are such great fish.

 

leafgirl - have you done any breeding with wilds?

 

omg! I would love to go get more bettas and find them homes but I really don t think I can. I want to though. Miley

 

No I have not. I would love to one day but I am not ready for that.

 

omg! I would love to go get more bettas and find them homes but I really don t think I can. I want to though. Miley

well, just keep your good heart for bettas and I can see you rescuing bettas to find good homes for.

No I have not. I would love to one day but I am not ready for that.

We didn't have room or money for a splendens breeding, but were interested when we heard how the mahachaI live and their plight in the wild. Should we do well with the mahachai, there are some other wilds that we saw that i'd like to get into. something about these wild bettas just appeals to me.. but I still love our splendens like always. Do you have any breeding advice for when our mahachaI spawn?

 

The breeders I spoke to in Thailand had a wonderful set up with heated and filtered set-ups for all the males that looked like condos. They were not big (maybe 9" cubes) and all the water flowed through all the cubes into a central filter and heater and they were on racks with small fluorescent lights on each layer but it looked fantastic. All the employees wore lab coats and it looked like a nursery in a hospital more than anything. He only breeds show quality bettas though and says that 85% of his go to the show quality market at either show auctions worldwide or aquabid or eBay. I have seen some on eBay and I own one of his (Nate). They are lovely but PRICEY and I do not think with all the transporting that they are quite as healthy and happy as the ones from Miami Aquariums.

Rose

 

The breeders I spoke to in Thailand had a wonderful set up with heated and filtered set-ups for all the males that looked like condos. They were not big (maybe 9" cubes) and all the water flowed through all the cubes into a central filter and heater and they were on racks with small fluorescent lights on each layer but it looked fantastic. All the employees wore lab coats and it looked like a nursery in a hospital more than anything. He only breeds show quality bettas though and says that 85% of his go to the show quality market at either show auctions worldwide or aquabid or eBay. I have seen some on eBay and I own one of his (Nate). They are lovely but PRICEY and I do not think with all the transporting that they are quite as healthy and happy as the ones from Miami Aquariums.

Rose

I'd love to get the instructions on how to build a setup like that.. maybe timg would have ideas on that.

 

2 words. Very Expensive.

betta Beraks(sp?) are great. It saves you a lot of time since you don't have huge water changes but it expencive and complicated to make.

 

Yes they would be very expensive with the set-up that I saw but it was really big. It could have held over 200 little betta boys. The place was absolutely spotless inside and out and the people working around there were wearing white lab coats. It was very impressive. It made me realize that there are breeders who care and that the problems may develop with the chain stores or the vendors. They do not go into the cups until they hit the store after all. The bags they are shipped in may be small but it is hygenic and they are not in there for long and for the ones who are sent to a transhipper like through eBay, they are removed from their bags at the transhipper and put in a tank and fed and cared for and then repacked and shipped out overnight to their new owners.

Rose

 

I have rescued my first betta from petsmart today. Goiing in a 10 gallon all by himself. I cleaned all the gravel and decorations and I am headed out to get a new filter pad that is about worn out. I will post pics once I get him in my tank. I did not want to get rid of my 10 gallon tank so I was going to make it a hospital or qt tank but I changed my mind I will prob end up buying a small tank for my qt tank any suggestions?

 

I have rescued my first betta from petsmart today. Goiing in a 10 gallon all by himself. I cleaned all the gravel and decorations and I am headed out to get a new filter pad that is about worn out. I will post pics once I get him in my tank. I did not want to get rid of my 10 gallon tank so I was going to make it a hospital or qt tank but I changed my mind I will prob end up buying a small tank for my qt tank any suggestions?

Congrats on the rescue! a good tank for a qt tank could be a 2.5g minibow, a big rectangular rubbermaid container or a critter keeper.. you can find small heaters like: and small filters like: .

 

I will eventually get a qt tank once a get a little more money. But here is a pick of my male betta.

Looks like a beautiful red.. is he a double tail or does he have a tail split?

 

Very nice. He looks very happy in his new home.

 

Welcome to the new little guy! Does he have a name yet?

 

Think he has a tail split I am going to call him joe joe