Taking a Leap!

So here we are, a new adventure.

First, I'd like to talk about my experience so far in owning Bettas. I bought my first Betta, a Royal Blue Veiltail named Venom, back in early June 2011. I joined a Betta forum like I always do with my pets to seek out informative people who could point me in the right directions with proper Betta care. See, I know there is usual care and then exceptional care with all pets. Usual comes from family and pestores. Although both mean well, usually its not the proper advice. Then there is exceptional care which is when you seek out advice from people who have kept such pet long term and see daily what works and what does not. I always seek the exceptional care, I mean wouldn't you want to give your pet the best? Usually it costs no more than the usual care. So I came across bettafish.com (no I didn't Google it, I actually typed it in and prayed) and fell upon the best Betta forum out there. Upon finding this forum, I also found Aquabid.com, a very addictive site that captures your mind, imagination and pocket book with a vengeance. I was sucked into buying Carnage, a Red Copper Butterfly Halfmoon. He was perfect, I instantly got a hold of my local breeder (crazy4bettas.can) and asked for a female to match. I was all set. Then one night about a week after Carnage arrived, horrible things started. It took 3 hours for Venom to go from perfectly healthy to black with no fins. He died the next morning. Then Carnage started acting off and developed Ich, a common fish parasite that shows itself as white speckles on a fishes fins. Carnage died a few days later. I was torn. I swore to never own Bettas again. The good people of the forum told me not to give up, keep trying. I decided to trust them and purchased Ben, a Purple Marble Veiltail. I came home with everything new and swore I would do my best to keep him alive. I felt ready to take on another boy that was suffering from severe Swim Bladder Disease. This occurs when the organ fish use to assist them in swimming to the top or diving to the bottom of a tank becomes blocked. Usually a 10day treatment of 1tsp of Epsom salt in 1gal of water does the trick. I cured Hughie, a Steel Blue Veiltail, and felt good about my fish keeping. I then took on Twitch, a Apricot Veiltail with ammonia poisoning, Freddy a Blue Mustard Gas Veiltail with moderate Swim Bladder Disease and adopted Nixon from a forum member, a Red Butterfly Crowntail. I had a housefull but was happy.

Recently I brought home a few more sweethearts, a male and 3 females from a local breeder and 3 females from the local Pets Unlimited. Sadly, one female, Yuki (a Red Cambodian Veiltail) is suffering from internal issues and has developed dropsey. We pray she pulls through. The male whom is Spidey, a Red/Blue Dragon Halfmoon and his two sister Kaida and Tatsu are doing great. Yoshe, the Black Lace Crowntail is the boss. The female veiltails Teeko (Chocolate) and Suki (Lavender) are doing great as well. Suki and Yuki are housed in 1g tanks for now while the other girls share a larger tank.

Now back to breeding. I decided when I took home Carnage, I wanted to learn and spawn him with a Orange Dragon Halfmoon from Crazy4Bettas. Sadly he passed. I planned on taking Spidey home for a few.months and finally decided he would be my first male to spawn. I asked for two sisters, in case he fancies one over the other. Now we are all set up to spawn. I planned to spawn in January, giving the fish time to reach a safe age for shipping and better weather come spring and fall. I have decided to spawn now instead. I figure it will be better since it will be done before the holidays, not after.

So that's my Betta life in a nutshell. I won't bore you with my 18h days reading all information I can find, or the many forum tiffs I have been into with others! So, here we go!