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Hi from Tasmania


TasV

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Hi,

I'm getting back into Betta (splendens atm) after a longish break. I use to breed them back in the 90's but stopped for a variety of reasons. My daughter has shown an interest in Betta so I've decided to feed the fire and get a few pairs to get her well-and-truly hooked. So she now has two crown tail boys; one chocolate or pineapple (not sure which it would be referred to... will post a photo once she gets it back into good condition after being in poort LFS conditions... it's got a chocolate brown body (no iridescence) and caramelly/yellow fins... a beautiful combo that I've never seen before... he'd been over-looked at the lfs for weeks and weeks and was in a poor state... I grabbed him straight away and am hoping he is a real diamond in the rough), one solid red, and one lfs veiltail boy and a handful of various veiltail females. All in separate quarters at the moment to get them paired and conditioned. I'd really like to get in touch with other breeders here in Tas as I figure if she's going to do it she might as well do it properly and get nice CT females to go with her CT males. Planning to make some custom divided tanks for her with removeable partitions over the coming months and set up a fry pond for new fry.

Personally, I have a long background in the aquarium field. I use to write for the Australian Aquarium Magazine (which has apparently stopped publications... thought there was a logical reason as to why they stopped asking me for articles) mainly on labyrinth fish (chocolate gourami, honey gourami, and croaking gourami) and aquarium plants. I keep mainly cichlids but have done most things from planted tanks, marine tanks, other labyrinth species (croaking gourami and honeys esp) etc etc etc. I teach marine science and have my own aquaculture setup at the school I teach at. I'm looking forward to getting back into Betta as much as my daughter and can't wait to see what we can breed. Unfortunately breeding fish down here is a bit problematic as it is actually illegal to sell fish down here without first buying a breeders license AND registering your property as a fish farm (very stupid but I'm not joking). Any Betta we raise will therefore have to be for personal pets... it's a pain as I have baby jewel cichlids, kribensis, and baby marbled bristlenose coming out of my ears and DPI tell me I either euthenase them or feed them to my polleni (picture a BIG black and silver/gold spotted fish with a big mouth and a big appetite)... coming from NSW initially where things are not so restrictive we bred fish all the time for local lfs and the annual Sydney Cichlid Auctions and this is a big part of teh attraction of keeping aquarium fish. Anyway... I'm hoping to try and meet the DPI requirements and apply for everything I need to apply for over time because I think breeding nice fish for feeders is ethically corrupt. I think even having a club down here and taking fish to shows is illegal :(

I look forward to getting to know people here and introduce my 13yr old daughter and get her to show off her fish. :)

Edited by TasV
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Welcome to the forum TasV. Didn't realise the Tasmanian restrictions were quite so bad. Hope you can get everything in order without too much pain. Beautiful as Tassie is, I think I'd be tempted to move. *lol* Great to have someone with your experience here. So again, welcome.

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Hi TasV!

We have similar taste in Gouramis. :) I know someone who used to take photos for that magazine, they ran out of funding I believe.

And there goes any desire I had to move to Tasmania, lol. :blush: Good luck getting licensed and registered as a fish farm... That is actually pretty ridiculous. Guess the people who wrote those laws aren't fish fans.

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Thanks for the welcomes :)

I hadn't written an article for about a year for them... Yan.. are you talking about Budi? His photography is awesome. I have the same gear and setup and use to take my own photographs for the articles. It was good fun but a lot of work and a lot of time went into it and that's something I don't have a lot of :( I still haven't been paid for my last article :confused:

Bewarebrunette... I'm here to learn just like everyone else. If I can help along the way that's great :) My Betta knowledge is not extensive... I kept and bred them (generic LFS fish) a few years back but never with a huge amount of success... so if I can help I will but mostly here to learn. I'm a genetics junky (I breed roses and am into it in a BIG way: here's my website: http://www.rosetalkaustralia.com ... it's an Australian rose forum) so I'm primarily here to learn about genetics of Betta and to make contact with other enthusiasts in Tasmania and to breed nice fish with the help of people here to point me in the right directions.

The laws here aren't THAT bad I guess. I would like to be able to sell my fish but I've been breeding fish for near 30 years now and I got so sick of the fly-by-nighters in it to make a quick buck that I actually got rid of everything for a good while. Dave Midgley and I were the first two people to start internet forums for aquarists in Australia some 15 years ago. He started the Sydney Cichlid Forum (now A.C.E.) and I started the Australian Dwarf Cichlid Discussion Forum. I closed it down after 8 years of running and sold all my tanks and stock and was fishless for years (until I realised that I was only 'cutting my nose off to spite my face' because the fish-wranglers didn't care one-bit that I wasn't around... I was the only idiot missing out)... I just hate the way the fish were/are being bandied about like trading chips and the emphasis was on driving up their value etc and not on learning about the fish and how to appreciate their beauty on every level... the bread-and-butter fish like kribensis were badly affected by this because they were/are seen as common and were/are brede in massive numbers and the quality went down hill fast. People were chasing rare fish only to brag about them on forums but they had never cut their teeth on other species first to learn how to do it properly yadda, yadda, yadda. For me it's all about the fish, their husbandry, behaviour and their breeding. Down here, with such strict rules, at least it deters the shonky backyarders who, IMO, gave/give the cichlid scene in NSW such a bad image. I'd like to be able to sell the babies I breed, but only because I don't believe in culling perfectly good fish for the sake of supposedly protecting the [feral] trout fishery down here. I'm in consultations with a friend at the moment to draw up an official petition to have this aspect of the law changed. I would love to be able to buy fish from someone but can't unless I organise quarantine inspections etc and have permits to import. That is silly really but I don't have all the facts yet. There may be other, more legitimate reasons, that I am not aware of yet. So for now I just have a few tanks and breed fish and then house them as they grow, give them to my students (which is illegal too but what ev huh)... I have about 300 baby forest jewels, about 50 baby kribensis with another lot on their way, and my marbled bristlenose are breeding now so there is only so many places I can house them but if you look after a fish properly they are going to breed and keeping them as bachelors/spinsters, to me, is like only reading half a novel...

Anywho... I'm glad to be here and hope you can help feed my obsession(s)... I'm looking forward to it a lot.

Cheers,

Simon

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Meh... Dave, the editor, is a friend of mine and I don't want to bug him about it :)

I kept and bred them (generic LFS fish) a few years back

Wow... am feeling old atm... few years = about 17-18 now that I think about it... was back in the early 90's :blink:

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Very long time no see Simon!

I use to write for the Australian Aquarium Magazine mainly on labyrinth fish (chocolate gourami, honey gourami, and croaking gourami) and aquarium plants.

How did your choc gourami Biotope tank go?

MJ.

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G'Day MJ... Indeed... been a very long time :)

It was going beautifully. I had four chocs in it... the water had gone nicely tea coloured from the dead chestnut tree leaves in it... the lily and the cryptos were doing nicely... then my youngest Son struck!!! He somehow managed to tip a full container of his play-dough into the tank and I came home to find all the fish floating belly up and the water looking like iced-coffee flavoured milk... serves me right for leaving it an open topped tank... I noticed my lfs had more chocs in... only trouble is this tank now has Betta in it lol

Edited by TasV
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Hi TasV! Good to see you here. It's been a while since i've been over to the garden express forums. I've just started breeding bettas as well after a 15 year break. I have learnt a lot in my short time here. I never had phenomenal success back then either. At 3 weeks old, I have more fry still living that I ever did before! Sorry to hear about the near impossible restrictions you have down there. Does that including trading fish interstate as well?

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  • 1 month later...

Simon,

Personally I blaim you!!!!

For those who don't know Simon used to run a little web site on dwarf cichlids that got me initially interested. I would hate to think how much money this has cost me - of course no sign of stopping yet. Actually I am amost getting it right thanks to a store opening up and supplying good quality fish, and having the space and room to do it right.

The web site also ran the Krib project targeted to improve the quality of Kribensis in the country (Still a damn fine idea).

Seriously Simon - thank for that little web site all those years ago and the journey it started me on.

As for Tasmanian rules - surely as fish when kept well tend to breed - it is unavoidable to have fry. And once you have fry the love for fish makes it very hard to cull even fry that need culling for some, let alone good specimens. Surely this love of there fish will lead to more people seeking other places for there fish to live and more releases. These rules seem very silly to me.

Of course, Tasmania isso cold that the bags ice up as soon as you walk out the door, I suspect, so the prospect of releases surviving seems low. :D

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