Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Betta - Two Months


Before this blog becomes totally consumed with knitting I will insert a quick piece about the progress of my baby bettas. On the first of April they will be two months old! This is an exciting milestone for them, and many of the original batch have survived to reach it.
They are as frisky as ever and have finally reached the long-awaited fighting stage. A few weeks ago I began noticing a few torn fins and knew that they had started to spar. Actually it’s closer to bullying than sparring, as the bigger fish simply pick on the smaller ones. Even though I have doubled the tank from 10 to 20 gallons, there is never enough room for two bettas to co-exist. As long as they know there is another betta in the tank they will seek a knock-down-drag-out fight. Imagine this multiplied by the approximately 100-125 bettas I have in a single tank. Luckily they are still young and really treat each other fine for the most part. However, in a few weeks I will have to begin separating them.

They remain active and eating is still the high point of their day. In the picture you can see them feeding on live brine shrimp. There is significant coloring on some, but not all.
Mostly it tends to be red, black and yellow. Since the parents were yellow and black this is little surprise, although the red was unexpected.
As a side-note, I had another pair spawn a few weeks ago and have a second batch of little bettas. I almost did not notice them in the spawning tank because they were so tiny and because I didn’t think the pair had spawned. There are only about 20-24 but I'm thankful for any successful spawn. Life’s little surprises!

2 comments:

  1. My sister saw the picture of the Hawkeye fish, and she is interested in buying one, too. It's so exciting to see them grow!

    I may have to pick out one of the ones with red, since my future husband was a little offended by the prospect of a Hawkeye fish. It'll be a blended fish, just like us!

    Do they tend to change colors as they grow, or do they stay the same basic mix?

    ReplyDelete
  2. haha not everyone is lucky enough to be a Hawkeye I guess :D

    To be honest we'll just have to see how this batch turns out in terms of coloration. It being my first spawn to live past a month I don't know exactly what to expect, but I do think I will see some color changes as they mature. I will be sure to keep an eye out and pass along the info!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for reading and commenting! I love to hear what's on your mind!