Photos from the garage, er fishroom today.

[briztoon]

Man I suck at photography. But that's never stopped me from posting up photos.

This is the boy from Fishchicks' youtube listing, White Water. I lost his female, but have spoken to someone and hopefully will have a replacement female early next month. I can wait as I'll be spawning my Black Orchids and Wild Splendens and Mahachai first.

Video

Edited September 11, 2012 by briztoon

[melbournebetta]

Hey Briz - That looks like a fish to me! (photography = win!)

HM females are notoriously difficult to import and keep alive - ask any LFS.... the reason there's often more males than females is not that they're brown!

(: good luck with the ladyfish

[briztoon]

Next door to White Water, is Cobalt Lights. He's very hard to photograph as he likes swimming in and out of his Anubias log. He's definitely an ambush Betta.

I accidentally left the two uncarded all day Saturday, and they scratched themselves up a fair bit. White Water just scratched up both flanks as you can see in the video, but Cobalt Lights looks like he got caught up on the filter out flow tube and has a nice semicircular scar on his left flank.

Next door to Cobalt Lights is my new Back Orchid cross ray. Unfortunately he is in love with his own reflection and spends almost most of his day flaring at his own reflection at the back of the tank and is hard to photograph. Even when uncarded to the Betta next door to him, he still prefers to flare at his own faint reflection.

[briztoon]

After water changes today, I released my female Mahachai in with the male. Wasn't long before he had a bubble nest going under a IAL. Unfortunately the female wasn't too interested and hid in the Java moss and Subwassertang branch.

Grrrr, crappy photo. The reflection is the tub with my wild juvies growing out in.

Arrrhh, the glare hurts my eyes. The female is actually on the left side right where the glare is.

She got frightened by the camera and swam out. She's right above the suction cap that holds the branch in place.

[briztoon]

My wild fry are growing out in a couple of tubs, kept warm in a larger heated tub. One of the larger juvies jumped out of his tub and now swims around between the two tubs. Only problem is I don't know which tub he jumped out of. I think he's a Mahachai, which is the tub on the right.

You can see the little rogue between the two smaller tubs.

Tried to photograph the juvies, but they all darted for cover under the IAL leaves in their tubs.

It's official, I've gone over the edge. I now have more fish than tank space. So what to do. Crack out some breeder nets and put the new Bettas in them.

My other purchase from the Caboolture show was the pair of wild Betta splendens that won the Small Bubble Nesters class. They are now renting space in the wild Betta smaragdina tank. Makes for some nice flaring displays between the wild males.

Video

Edited September 11, 2012 by briztoon

[Bettarazzi]

I like how you've got the süßwassertang to grow on the driftwood. Or is it just floating?

[Wild Nut]

Not sure if this is going to post twice as my computer suddenly died, but I will post it again.

Your tanks look so nice and clean! Your fish must love living there.

That white water male is stunning. So had to resist the urge to purchase him. Such a pity about the female. Speaking of females, have you got any photos of that nice marble HM female I am going to come up and steal one of these days

I gave up on trying to get decent shots of my wilds. They are such ferals when it comes to posing for the camera I usually have to bribe them with food to sit still.

[briztoon]

I like how you've got the süßwassertang to grow on the driftwood. Or is it just floating?

I bought some small branchy driftwood from Fishchicks. A couple of pieces, like the one in the photos, branch out from the glass, others branch up and out like a fan. I just tangled some Java moss and Subwassertang in the small branches and left them. The Subwassertang has grown in really well on the two pieces I placed it on. The Java moss doesn't grow any where near as well (it does grow real well when left in a ball on the floor of the tank).

[briztoon]

Not sure if this is going to post twice as my computer suddenly died, but I will post it again.

Your tanks look so nice and clean! Your fish must love living there.

Thanks Wild Nut. I'll tell you a secret. I take most of my photographs after I do water changes and tank vacuum. But I do keep my tanks pretty clean.

[Xsilver368]

You have some lovely fish there! What is the leafy plant in Cobalt Lights tank? Your plants look so green! How do you attach them to the driftwood?

[Wild Nut]

I'll tell you a secret, my tanks don't even look that clean after a water change *lol*

[briztoon]

You have some lovely fish there! What is the leafy plant in Cobalt Lights tank? Your plants look so green! How do you attach them to the driftwood?

The plant is Anubias barteri 'Nana'. I zip tie or use cotton to tie them to driftwood. Plants can take anywhere from 3 months to 6 months for the roots to take a good hold of the wood. I dose a small amount of Seachem Flourish and Excel once a week after water changes. I also have Red Ramshorn snails in my tanks, and they are very good at cleaning the leaves of the plants, with out eating the plants.