Report on Saturday, 18.06.11

We planned our time well. Today is the last day of the holiday which we will be able to return to school to feed and take care of our fish. Tomorrow, Jo and I will be flying off to Perth for our competition/training trip with our academy. Our flight is at 9.05 but we have to be at the airport by 6.45am, no time to squeeze in a visit to our dear fish.
Northern Dancer is ready to be taken out from his tank. His fry are all beginning to swim horizontally. He has done a commendable job and his fry are maturing fast.
The rest of the news is the same for MuchoMachoMan and Big Red's fry, they are all in good shape.
We both want them to survive but one thing that calls for our concern is that since we couldn't find anyone to look after our fish, we asked Mrs Lu to help us. But her kids are really boisterous and we are praying fervently that our fish will not be too distressed by them. They keep on plunging their hands into the water, I hope the fish will be alright.

How Long? How Long?

I was wondering how long it would take for our Betta fry to fully mature and here's what I found. Check the link out:
http://www.bettatalk.com/fry_growth.htm

Report for Friday,17.06.11

Here's the report for today:

Big Red: Not much to say, he's eaten abit after I removed him from the tank. The brine shrimp eggs that I poured into the tank yesterday still haven't hatched yet. Most of his fry are hiding amongst the roots of the Water Hyacinth. I read somewhere that they would feed off microscopic bits of the plant. So its a good thing even if the brine shrimp eggs don't hatch.

MuchoMachoMan: He decided to repair his nest today. Abit late eh? Remember I said that most of his fry were at the bottom of the tank and I was unsure whether they were dead or alive? Here's the good news: They're ALIVE!!! There are only a handful of them still down there, but majority of MuchoMachoMan's fry are beginning to swim horizontally already!!! Yeah! I decided to continue on leaving him inside to take care of his fry for one more day, though I still reckon that he didn't do a good job on that. Taking him out tomorrow.

Northern Dancer: Listen here!! Turns out that our dear Northern Dancer is quite a resourceful guy(: When I first observed his tank today, I couldn't see any sign of eggs or fry. Just a tiny little bubble nest at the far end of the tank. After taking a closer look, I saw tiny new born fry clinging on to the leaves of the Cabomba Plant! It was a very interesting and surprising sight. The very plant that the female used to hid in is now a sanctuary and haven for her offspring(: I even managed to catch Northern Dancer blowing a tiny fry which had 'fell of its perch' on the Cabomba Plant back up onto it. Once again, I wish that I could have recorded it down but my camera isn't that advanced, I tried but the picture was too blurry. Anyway, I reckon that Northern Dancer is the best! Do you realize that his fry hatched the earliest? Good ole' Northern Dancer!

Report on Thursday, 16.06.11

Here's the Report for Today:(there's some good news in it:)

Big Red: Took him out from his tank today. All his fry are already swimming horizontally(: I poured 1.2g of brine shrimp eggs into the 'fry tank', hopefully, they will hatch in 24 hours and our fry will all have something to eat by the time they have finished using up all the 'food' in their yolk sacs. Big Red ate a little today after I took him out. Haha, I think he's slimmed down quite alot.

MuchoMachoMan: I decided to continue on leaving him the tank, just in case he decided to be a good father and start building his nest for his kids. Anyway, I was also using Big Red's fry as a gauge-it took 3 days for them to all start swimming horizontally and tomorrow will be the 3rd day for MuchoMachoMan's fry.

Northern Dancer: Surprise, surprise! He spawned with Northern Lights today!!! I am really glad:) However, I was unable to catch a video of them spawning because this happened during training.(I checked the tank before training and after). When I went back to check after training, I was greeted by the sight of Northern Lights hiding in the Cabomba Plant. She was so still, I thought she was dead. I knocked the tank a little and she moved...whew! I then saw that there were many eggs floating on the surface of the water(Northern Dancer having not built his nest properly)

I took Northern Lights out because Northern Dancer kept chasing her into hiding.

After Northern Lights had been removed from the tank, Northern Dancer began to store the eggs in his mouth and blow them up to the surface in bubbles, he is, from what I've seen, definitely more experienced than MuchoMachoMan.

Our experiment is a SUCCESS! (Although our hypothesis is wrong, but it worked!!!)

Cool but unrelated stuff

Hihi, I know this is random but check this blog out!!!

http://blog.fish-school.com/?expref=next-blog

Report on Wednesday, 15.06.11

Big Red-Majority of his fry are already swimming horizontally, but a small handful still require his help to hang on to the bubble nest. I'm estimating and I think that it'll take at most 2 days for all of them to fully mature into free-swimming fry. Then we can remove Big Red from the tank and let him have his well deserved rest(:

MuchoMachoMan-Poor fish, he has the look of a man who has totally given up on trying to keep his kids under control. He has not repaired his bubble nest and only a handful of his fry, those hardy ones, are surviving by clinging on to the sides of the tank:(......Guess its the 'SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST'. Really hope that some of the fry at the bottom of the tank are alive.
Northern Dancer-Northern Lights keeps on hiding from Northern Dancer by swimming into the cabomba plant. Whenever I see her there, she is totally still and the only parts of her that are moving are her gills and fins. Perhaps she's been traumatized by Northern Dancer or perhaps he's been too pushy with her. However, one good thing is that though his bubble nest isn't very big, it is apparent that Northern Dancer has been working on it and it's now around 2-3 bubbles thick.

Sorry, my phone couldn't capture ND properly so I went to search the net for a Betta that looked like him and yeah, here's a Northern Dancer look-alike

Report on Tuesday 14.06.11

Headed to school today to feed the fish. Here's a report on how they're doing.

Big Red-Some of his fry are already beginning to start swimming horizontally instead of bobbing up and down in the water. It's really fun to watch these tiny little beings darting around. However, Big Red still remains ever vigilant for those tiny fry that aren't quite capable of swimming yet. Will not remove him till all the fry are able to swim horizontally through the water.

MuchoMachoMan-His eggs have all hatched into tiny little fry. However, he has not repaired his bubble nest. Many of his fry are trying desperately to cling on to something in the water. Most of them have sunk to the bottom of the tank and I have no idea whether they are dead or alive. Probably mostly dead:( Really wish the nature of our experiment didn't have to be this way.

Northern Dancer-Just released Northern Lights again today although the bubble nest Northern Dancer built still is not big enough (Big enough being around the size of a 50-cent coin and 1-2 bubbles thick) Hope that there wouldn't be too much fighting this time and Northern Lights will be okay.

Report on experiment, Monday 13.6.11

Bid Red spawned with Fires of Revival last Friday. His fry hatched today (: They are really tiny and hang onto the bubble nest that Big Red has built for them. Whenever one of these little fry sinks to the bottom of the tank, Big Red is sure to gingerly pick them up in his mouth and place them back into the bubble nest. Big Red's bubble nest seems to have grown. Probably to accommodate the 'influx of fry' after spawning. Haha.
We managed to observe Big Red spawning with Fires of Revival and it was a cool thing to watch!(: Jo has the video which she'll upload. I couldn't take any cos my phone's lousy and old (:

MuchoMachoMan spawned with Tarnished Pride yesterday. His bubble nest wasn't built on as firm as a foundation as Big Red and hence, all his eggs are floating around the tank. Hope he manages to repair it soon though.

Northern Dancer has yet to repair his bubble nest, so we have not released Northern Lights yet.

Report for Sunday 12.6.11

We released all the females from their tanks last Wednesday- 08.06.11. We left them for 2 days like this so that the males would be 'motivated/instigated/encouraged' to build a larger bubble nest with physical contact with the females.

After the 2 days (erm...we did return to school to feed them) we realized that there was alot of chasing in Northern Dancer's tank. He was quite aggressive to his female, so we took her out as her tail was torn by Northern Dancer. We put 2 drops of anti-fungus liquid and put her back into her cup and into ND's tank again. I hated to do that but, the experiment has to be fair, though you would have to agree that you can't make it totally fair:( Big Red has built a very stable and big bubble nest under that water hydrilla. Good ole' Big Red!!

Northern Dancer and MuchoMachoMan have built their bubble nests at the sides of the tank and that isn't a very good place for it (bubble nest) to be as their bubbles keep popping. So every time we have our hopes up that the 2 of them have built big bubble nests, those hopes pop. "POP" "POP" "POP"

一，二，三，开始！！！

Yesterday, Jo and I went to set up tanks for our experiment. This is what the respective tanks contain:

Green: Male Betta-Big Red
Female Betta-Fires of Revival
Water Hyacinth (SORRY I SAID WATER HYDRILLA IN THE VIDEO)
Pump Filter

BLUE: Male Betta-Northern Dancer
Female Betta-Nothern Lights
Cabomba Plant
Pump Filter

RED: Male Betta-MuchMachoMan
Female Betta-Tarnished Pride
No Plant
Pump Filter

Plants involved in our experiment

I searched the net and found out that the aquatic plants that we got are:

the CABOMBA PLANT (the submerged one)

and

WATER HYACINTH

I realized that we forgot to ask the uncle@the fish shop what plant we got...... Hahas