Fish Breeding: Bettas

Since I was a teenager, perhaps a little younger, I have been interested in fish. I have been keen at observing their behaviour, the differences among the males and the females and the different ways of breeding. It has held my interest all the years and today with even more time to enjoy myself, I have gone more deeply into the hobby.

Although I have bred fish as a teenager, caught my first wild betta splendens in a paddy field at my uncle's house in Bukit Besar near the little town of Kota Serang Semut approximately ten kilometres from Alor Setar in Kedah, and saw and bought  my first pair of crown tail betta in the 1990s , I found it difficult to breed the fish then.

Looking back I must have thrown away minute fry so many times. Each time I saw the two fish, male and female, embrace, pick up their eggs to have them placed into the bubbles that comprise their nest, remove the female when it was driven away from the nest by the male to protect the eggs from being eaten by it.Then there was the waiting period which ended a few days later with the bubbles more or less gone but my eyes saw not the fry in the water. No fry means failure and so the water was removed, the tank cleaned and another attempt was made.

Failure did not deter me from going on. I was not a total failure at breeding, as I was already a very successful discus breeder, selling my young discus from home. (Today, I am still breeding discus although there is hardly any demand. I now have more than a hundred 3cm line-bred blue discus.) However, the guppy seems to have such great demand that I soon had red flamingos, metallic dragonhead, red glass and blue glass guppies. Since they are live-breeders, they were, of course, so easy to breed.

In fact, the number of guppies increased at such a tremendous rate, I had to buy three large fibre-glass tanks to breed just the flamingos. The joy of successfully achieving better colours through line-breeding was so great that I went on to the metallic dragonheads, hoping to create bigger and better coloured fish. Eventually, another three even bigger, seven feet length, fibre-glass tanks had to be bought.

Of course, my breeding of the bettas continued, breeding plakats, halfmoons, crown-tails and the latest, the dumbos (big-ears). Well, that's all for now. I will gradually introduce them to you. 

It's interests in life.

I have been away from this blog for some time as I have gone deeper into my hobby of breeding fish and chickens.Besides those, I was also contacted by someone who knew I could write to do rewriting of articles.All these have taken up all my waking hours with nothing much to spare.

Yes, it has been a busy time but I have no complaints as there was so much to learn and accomplish. When I was first contacted for rewriting I did not even ask the people how much I was going to be paid as it offered me a new experience. At first, I thought it was a summary or a totally new article that I had to produce based on the points they wish to have inside. Well, that was not what the people wanted. It has to be a rewriting of an article with most of the words replaced and the sentences restructured a times with everything grammatically correct. I saw it as a challenge to my capability. So, although I had not much time to allot to it, I agreed to the task and has so far rewritten more than ten articles.


 Furthermore, I hope to progress from rewriting to something even more challenging. With the experience and improved writing, I may be in the position to do more. Whatever the 'more' is, I do not worry about. In my life, I have found that all knowledge and experience will one day come in useful when you least expect it. . Just like this rewriting. It all started with a lady friend who went to Taiwan to study sexology. Although it was Taiwan, she had to write on sex topics in English and I was the one who helped her. Then, one day, she was asked by a friend if she knew of anyone who could rewrite. Of course, my name came up and the guy contacted me. That started me on this rewriting. Now, if I had not helped her out now and then, my name might not have any connection with writing and English; and this opportunity to experience rewriting would not come my way.

 Well, time does not permit me to tell you about my fish breeding although it is one of those wonderful experiences and joys in my life. I have to end here and get back to you as soon as time permits. Bye.