Tropical Aquarium Fish

Normally betta fish live to be 2-5 years old, but some betta fishes live to be nearly 8 years old. Male bettas living in laboratories with large individual tanks and daily exercise have lived 10 years or longer.

Carnivorous, betta feeds on zooplankton and mosquito and other insect larvae. Domesticated bettas will feed on bloodworms, daphnia, and brine shrimp. Betta pellets are typically a combination of mashed shrimp meal, bloodworms, and various vitamins to enhance color and longevity. For variety and fiber, bettas may also be fed finely chopped vegetables high in protein such as soybeans, green beans, broccoli, corn, or carrots.

Bettas fare better with a large variety of foods and will often show brighter, richer, and deeper colors if they are fed a wide range of foods. They will also heal much more quickly from fin damage if their diets are high in protein and fiber.

Here are some golden rules for feeding your betta:

First, select the proper foods. Bettas are selective eaters. A betta specific pellet is OK, but live or frozen foods are preferable. The recommended diet includes frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms.

The next rule is to not overfeed your bettas. Carefully dose the meals; because even if the fish eats all you give him, he will produce much more waste when overfed, and the pollution level of the jar he is in will go beyond safe range This problem is smaller if you keep your betta in a larger aquarium. Remember not to leave uneaten food in the aquarium! Once your betta and the rest of the fish are finished eating, you must remove all uneaten left over food. If you do not remove it, it will soon rot and cause havoc in the tank.

Bettas prefer to eat from the upper parts of the water column. They don’t really enjoy eating from the bottom of the tank. So before dropping the food in your betta’s tank, make sure you have his attention. Let him see the food, get it close to his face from the outside of the aquarium, let him check out what it is, and then there you go! Drop food in front of his nose. The best way is to drop a tiny bit of food - about 6 frozen brine shrimp, watch the betta eat it all and then look at his belly, if it looks the same as it did before you fed, it’s ok to give him more, but always watch and make sure to make the second portion smaller than the first.

Your betta should go for the food right away, but if not, watch where the food sinks, and what the betta does. If after 15 minutes he has not eaten the food, remove the food. Never let the water go cloudy. If it is already cloudy then change it, as cloudy water will threaten your betta’s health. Normally, small bowls or containers should have water changes at least twice a week. Larger tanks can be changed once a week. And notice if the ammonia and nitrite levels are at high levels, because both are very bad for your betta. Also be wary of harmful bacteria - they can ruin your fish’s life, but don’t kill off all bacteria in the aquarium since bacteria is essential for a well functioning aquarium.

During the pre-spawning period you can feed a wide variety of foods, including blackworms, grindal worms, fruit flies, brine shrimp, mosquito larvae and frozen bloodworms (all are live except the frozen bloodworms). During this period the adult fish may be fed 4 times per day or more depending on how close the fish are to being placed into the spawning tank.

You can start feeding your betta fry 5 days after the hatching. Feed the fry several times per day, using a variety of foods (infusoria, boiled egg yolk, baby brine shrimp) made up of small particles.

Trichogaster has a more prolonged than high body. It has a small mouth in the superior part of the body. The male has more marked lips. It can reach 15 cm in aquariums, but in nature it is much bigger. Trichogasters have 2 varieties of body coloration:
- carroty-violet
- shining blue
The male has a longer and sharper dorsal fin, while the female`s is short and round. Another difference of the female is that after she becomes mature, her abdominal area is very turgid. The blue shining variety received the name: Trichogaster trichopterus sumatranus. They are spread all over India.

For reproduction Trichogaster trichopterus needs a temperature of 25-27° C, and for normal care they only need 22-24° C. The chemistry of water doesn`t have much importance. The reproduction aquarium must be about 30-40 liters and the water level can be 20-25 cm. On the surface of the aquarium water you`ll add some floating plants like: Riccia fluitans or Ceratopteris species. These plants serve as a hiding place for the female and they are also a good support for the bubble nest, which is constructed by the male using a mouth secretion. The female should be introduced in the evening, and the male next morning. After a few minutes of accommodations the male will alternate the female chase with the bubble nest construction. The bubble nest made by the male can sometimes be very big, about half of the aquarium, or it can be small, it can even be absent. The eggs are very oleos so they don`t fall down from the bubble nest; they are under the strict supervision of the male. Immediately after they spawn, the female must be taken out of the reproduction aquarium because the male will hurt her in order to send her away from the nest. In order to take out the female, from an aquarium where hundreds or even thousands of fry swim, you`ll need nylon netting. You need a netting like that not to catch the eggs (when you remove the female) or the fry (when you remove the male). The fry hatches after about 24-30 hours and for the next 3-4 days it remains in the nest. After the offspring swims free, you`ll remove the male and start feeding the baby fish. We can administrate them infusors or yolk of an egg. If we feed them with yolk, this has to be administrated 3-4- times a day and in small quantities. At this point we`ll add a filter with few bubbles because the fry is very sensitive to water movement. In the first days, there are a lot of fish and we`ll have to feed them well, the quantity of food should be correlated with the number of fish. If we don`t feed them well, tome of them will grow and eat the little ones, the number of fish can increase dramatically after a week or two. If we feed them well, they`ll grow nicely and after 3-4 days we can administrate Artemia (baby brine shrimp). For 1-2 days we`ll keep feeding them with infusors or yolk of egg in order to help the fry which remain small.

The aquarium must be covered with a glass plaque, especially between the 3rd and 5th weeks when they develop their labyrinth, any difference between the air temperature and aquarium water temperature will induce their death. If we feed the fry with Artemia or micro worms, we`ll have less trouble because these `animals` don`t multiply much and they don`t dirty the water as the yolk does. Starting with the 5th feeding day, we`ll add fresh water, at the same temperature, in order to full the aquarium. After 3-4 weeks the fry will start looking like their parents. If they developed differently, we`ll have to permanently select them. The reproduction way is similar to the species of Colisa and Trichogaster leeri.

The genus is spread all over the south-east Asia, it belongs to Belontiidae. They are burly, slender, strong and flank oblate fish. They have a short mouth with marked lips. The dorsal fin is equal or bigger than the anal fin. The first ray of the pectorals fin is very prolonged, sometimes it`s even forked. The middle, superior or inferior rays of the caudal fin can also be very prolonged. The lateral line is incomplete or it is absent completely. They are very resistant fish but only the youngsters are friendly. In general, the can hardly endure the presence of other species in the same aquarium. They eat both alive food, which they prefer, and dehydrated flakes. They prefer sunny aquariums or an aquarium with lot of light. It`s better to avoid introducing them in new aquariums or in much planted aquariums.
Macropodus opercularis are long body fish, with very oblate flanks especially in the back part of the body. The males can reach 8 cm, females are a little smaller but with a big abdominal are (especially after sexual grow). The colors of the body can change because the fish are restless, especially males when they feel the presence of another male from the same specie. When they are excited, the color of the body looks like this: a blue-shining green background with transversal red lines. When they spawn, the males have the head and abdominal area colored in velvety black, the fins are from blue to red with another nuance blue lines. The male is more colored than the female and its lips are more marked.
Macropodus opercularis are spread from Korea to China, Vietnam and Taiwan where they live in stagnant or slow flowing waters. They were first introduced in European aquariums in 1869 and their first reproduction in captivity has been realized by Carbonnier. First Alfred Gunter and Boulanger thought they are artificial created fish, but Kreienberg proved they are not. He observed that the Chinese don`t keep them in aquariums and don`t even sell them like other species (selected goldfish).
A variant of Macropodus opercularis is Macropodus opercularis concolor. They are easy to breed fish; the temperatures can vary from 15 to 30° C and the minimum temperature can be 10° C.

Macropodus opercularis concolor doesn`t have the transversal lines, the only difference is that Macropodus opercularis concolor becomes almost black in the reproduction period and its fins are very prolonged. Their reproduction involves the building of a bubble nest, a particularity of the family. The water level in the reproduction aquarium doesn`t matter because the eggs are very oleos and they remain in the nest under the supervision of the male. Their reproduction is very similar to Tricogaster trichopterus and you can find more information there.

Betta splendens as an aquarium fish can be different than the wild Betta splendens. As specie, it is part of the Anabantidae family, with the particularity of having an auxiliary breathing system called labyrinth. It lives in south-east Asia worm waters, with lack of oxygen. It is an easy to breed fish; it can survive in small non aerated tanks. If you want to have beautiful bettas for expositions you`ll have to keep your betta in a small aquarium, tank or pot in order to develop its beauty. For this thing it only needs minimum care, with an equilibrated feeding just not to dirty the water. You have the oportunity now to buy good betta tanks as the ones from next images (click to view details): If you keep your betta in a small space, you`ll have to replace the water from time to time with fresh one. Betta splendens doesn`t need any special water conditions (chemistry, pH, etc…) but it requests a temperature of 28-30° C, and for reproduction with 1-2° C higher. If you keep betas in 1 liter tanks you`ll gave to change the water every 2 days. When you do the water change you`ll be careful to the new temperature, it has to be the same as the old one. Even to a strong fish like Betta splendens, the big differences of water chemistry can induce severe accidents. If we see a betta sitting on the bottom of the tank, or being inactive, that`s a sign of the water change need. After changing the water, you`ll immediately see your betta more active. It`s recommended to add a spoon of salt at every gallon of water.

From the food point of view, Betta splendens doesn`t request much, if you feed at regular intervals and with enough food, everything will be fine. You can feed your betta with: daphnia (alive or frozen), mosquito larva, cow meat, tubifex, Artemia salina (alive or frozen). Indifferently of the food you give, it`s better to administrate it more times a day than once and much. That way you`ll also be able to give diversified food, as any freshwater fish needs. If you want to read more info about your betta fish in order to help you better take care of it, you can buy this manual with many colored pictures. An over feed with an aliment can induce water chemistry change and the apparition of diseases. Usually Betta splendens lives about 1.5-2 years, but there are cases when it lives more than 3 years. An excess of food shorts the life of the fish. From the water conditions point of view, the temperature is very important. Bettas can live at a temperature of minimum 21° C and maximum 29° C. A temperature higher than 30° C affects the living duration of the betta. There is some information about betta which lived 9 years in laboratory conditions. Every fish was kept in a different tank with a volume of few gallons.

Reproduction of Betta splendens

Having in mind water`s quality, Betta is a pretentious fish. The tanks used for spawning can have different forms and volumes. Thus, in Orient are utilized ceramic tanks. As a supplementary information, it would be neither too little, nor too big (to help fishes to stay one with another). Talking about the temperature, there are information about the fact that Betta spawned at 18 degrees C, but a successful result can be obtained at a temperature between 24 and 29 degrees. This temperatures reflect the natural biotope`s ones. We can observe the fact that the success of reproduction doesn`t consist only in having special aquarium`s condition but in providing the biological material… Coming back to the temperature, we can see that the ones after 30 C degrees disturb the fish and the little ones resulted (the roe have to grow faster) are powerless and die before they became able to swim.

A first criterion which helps us to choose the spawn match is the color. At first it is important to have fries but than at a second or third reproduction we will become exigent. We will choose a red match (a blue, white or green one) to have the reproduction. So let`s see how we can do this because it is not sufficient to put the together in the same aquarium. After the color criterion, we have to know if they are mature from the sexual point of view. We already have the aquarium, the water`s temperature. What do we need more for a successful reproduction? As a know fact for all oviparous, we have to introduce the female in the reproduction bowl with 12-24 hours before. In Betta`s case, in the aquarium we have to put a group of floating plans: Riccia fluitans, Ceratopteris, and another group like Cryptocarine. Their roots are caught with a lead clasp and are put in 2 or 3 of the aquarium corners. It helps to the making the nest spume by the male (support for the future roe), and the plants from the corners will served as places where the female can hide itself in time and after spawning. We consider these because the female get used harder with new conditions. We consider it`s better to introduce the female in the tank with 12-24 hours before the male because she accommodates slowly with the new conditions. The male get used easier and if the female is not ready it can run after it and kill it. The reproduction starts with the male building a nest on water`s surface. For this thing, some people put a paper or a plastic cup on the surface because the males can build the nest under it. It is preferable to put only some Ceratopteris plants or Echinodorus osiris` or E. orizontalis` leafs. What we need and what we have to do to prepare the aquarium:
- a 40 l aquarium;
- we put water which has more than 48 hours;
- we put the floating plants and the groups in the corner. In addition, we have to create places for fishes and fries;
- the water column will have not more than 10 cm because Betta`s eggs are harder than water and after fecundation they fall down. Than it are taken by the male and fixed in the nest. If the column is higher, after 4-5 turns the male gets tired and it doesn`t care anymore about the reproduction, letting down the eggs. This fact is helpful for the fry too because its can go alone to the nest;
- a constant temperature: 26-28° C ;
- on the aquarium we have to put a glass, because it will maintain the temperature which has to be provide even after 30 days of lift ( the fry needs to develop the breathing auxiliary organs, labyrinth) and the necessary humidity from the natural biotope.

Now a very important tip: most of the betta breeders don’t know that you can increase your spawning success by adding some wild almond leaves in the reproduction tank. This will create a more natural environment for the Betta fish. The leaves contain humic acids and tannins and are known to have antibacterial properties. But here’s the trick: good almond leaves can be hardly found BUT you can buy this sollution which contains exactract of almond leaves and much more… check the image for more details.

Anabantoids family is part of the Anabantoidaea class. This class is divided into Anabas, Ctenopoma, Malpulutta and Sendelia genus.

This fish class is represented by freshwater fish; their origin is in tropical zones. They have an auxiliary breathing organ called labyrinth. Most of times the bronchi are not enough to breathe in oozy waters, oxygen less, so these fish developed the labyrinth as an auxiliary organ. Anabantoids fish go to the surface of the water and breathe atmospheric air. The labyrinth is more or less developed depending on the specie and age of the fish. So these tropical fish accommodate fast to the oxygen less waters. From the body shape point of view, Anabantidae fish can have prolonged to stumpy body, lateral oblate, with short and small mouth, thick and marked lips, breech scalds medium developed. The dorsal and anal fins divide into two parts, a longer one with firm rays, and a shorter one with soft rays. The abdominal fins are very close to pectoral area; to some species these fins are very prolonged being considered antennas. On these fins there are a lot of taste cells. The lateral line can be continuous or incomplete. In this case it is formed by spots, points, but this line can also be completely absent. The abdominal cavity is very big; it reaches the bottom of the tail. The anus is situated in the front part of the body, and the swimming vesicle is prolonged and placed in the back part of the body, being divided into two parts.
Anabantidae family fish are spread in south-east Asia, Indonesia and Africa. They are only fresh water fish and because of economical reasons they have spread over Sunda isles too. They are unpretentious fish but they need lot of heat. The tanks with Anabantidae family fish must be covered because of the atmospherically air breathing they are sensitive to temperature differences between water and the upper air. The tank should also be covered because these fish may be terrified and they can jump out of the aquarium (especially Trishogaster ones). From this point of view, this fact is obvious in the nest care period. Even if they are friendly with other species, Anabantidae family fish are very aggressive with the opposite sex (especially with females) in the reproduction period.