Freshwater Fishes, Astonishing Aquatic World

Continue from Last Part-Horses…Love, Power, and Respect

With losing fire & Ashwa, the love for horses didn’t end, but this episode is over. Then in Feb. 2013 (I don’t remember the date), to cheer me up my girlfriend (Now my wife. I had only one girlfriend) presented to the A pair of Malk Siamese fighting fishes commonly known as ‘Betta’.

                                                   And guess what, my madness for fishes started from here. Before elaborating my experience whit fishes let me tell you that I had maintained 12 aquarium with many different species ranging from 1-inch guppies to 2 feet long iridescent sharks and meat eating alligator gars to goldfishes. But all this started with pink and blue Bettas.

                               She had also presented a small display aquarium with them, having a partition. When I used to show my fishes to my friend that I use to get them out from 3-liter aquariums and place them in that small display unit. Facing each other they flaunted their fins and displayed their magnificent colors. Oh my !!! they were beautiful . For a person who had never been in touch of fishes, this was a new fascinating. Soon I was in love with this species and bought 8 of them. On order an aquarium  3 feet long one feet deep & 8 inches wide. With internal moveable separation at every 4.5 inches. This gave each Betta male to move and swim properly. I place white marble pebbles a the  base and decorated the aquarium  with glass marbles and small sea shells and small artificial plants. That aquarium become a centre of attraction of our living room. With 8 beautiful betas  flaunting their fins and color it was a sight to behold. Though they look beautiful, but 4-5 months later nature took its toll and one by one they started dying. By the 6^th month any 2 were remaining. I went to my wife’s place (Ajmer), from where she had purchased the fishes for me. After talking and understanding about many species I was ready to take on a new fish. I purchased 6 Bettas and a grey-red flowerhorn juvenile. I was impressed to look at the head growth & colors of the adult fish. To house it I also purchased a 3 feet aquarium, all accessories on. Though the head growth on my fish was not a prominent as in the samples you would see on internet, but it look good.

                    I used to enjoy feeding it. I usually fed it with Humpty head ad chili redfish good occasionally I was giving bloodworms. The urgency with which it gulped the food amused me and I used to watch it for 10-15 minutes while feeding. The flower horn passion was ignited by this small grey and redfish. I also named it “Bulma”, I don’t know the meaning of the word but I heard it in dragon ball Z.

  After a couple of months, I bought another flower horn. This one was yellow on the major part of the body and pinkish red on face and upper fin areas. I named her ‘chi-chi’, the name I took from the same program. I built a new set up for both of them. I purchased 2 new, 2 feet long, 1 feet wide and 1.5 feet high aquariums and 4 feet stand. I placed both of them adjacent to each other & decorated their aquarium with natural reddish-brown gravel and each aquarium I placed a large seashell, both white color. I was told by Mr. Amit Mishra (The aquarium shop owner) that they will be more active and display aggression when they will see each other. This would also promote the head growth, he said. Later I learned the abnormal head growth in flower horn fish depends on many factors like genetics, feed, water, quality etc. But at the time as for my 1^st experience, I was enjoying watching them grow. I earlier thought that there is not much adventure in raising fishes in the household small aquarium. But, Bulma & Chi – Chi changed my perception.

                  Being an artificial breed from the chilled group, they tend to consume food in greater quantities compared to the fishes of other groups of the same size. Also, they tend to produce west larger quantity. This makes aquarium extremely dirty in just a week also with ample food and room to swim, they grow very fast. To keep healthy conditions inside the aquarium I have to change 60-70% of water in every 4-6 six day. The procedure is also time-consuming or might I felt that. I’ll have to shut the filter first, then remove the gravel, then remove Bulma & Chi-Chi, then vacuum out scattered pieces & mud, then wipe the walls of the aquarium to get rid of algae. Then fill it with fresh water. Before filling the gravel used to wash it in hot water. Remember to do this every time you change the water because this will kill microorganisms causing white spots, fin rot and other similar diseases in freshwater fishes. But to see them happily moving in newly replaced water, going all crazy and swimming up and down makes the pain worth.

                                                                     As I have mentioned earlier, Flower horns can grow fast, Bulma (grey one) & Chi- Chi (the yellow one) have reached about 8-9 inch in length in just one year. Their colors also became prominent, more bright with clear boundaries. Chi –Chi (The yellow flower horn ) has changed its color from yellow to orange and the pinkish red portion of its upper body had turned to crimson. This fish has certainly grown into a beautiful specimen. But I was more fond of Bulma (The grey flower horn). It had grown into an excellent specimen. Clear separated boundaries of grey & red, with red running right from under the chin to its head and up to the tail with one third body coverage. Shiny ends of scales & shiny spots on the scales combined with beautiful coloration made Bulma special. Bulma (The grey flower horn) is having one more specialty. At least I think that this was a specialty. The dots and the edges of its scales tend to shine with a dim sparkle in the dark when only the lamps of aquarium were glowing. I use to sit sometime for hours in the night and watch Bulma glow in the dusky light.

                                Six months later, that is, at around one and a half years of age they were both have grown into the fine specimen. At this time some color change has been evident in  Chi- Chi (the yellow one, remember). It has turned somewhat dark peach in the two third of lower body part and crimson in the upper portion. Also, light dots & darkening of the edges of scales were also visible on it. By this time I was feeding them three different specialized food. The chili red, humpy head & starry to enhance their coloration and sparkle. These foods have shown me good results. I repeated every food in 3 days cycle. Along with these occasionally I fed them bloodworms, but this is limited to once or twice for in every fortnight.

                  By this time I started to realize that their existing aquarium is not adequate for their size now. So I ordered 2 more aquariums with 250 liters capacity.

                                    Now in the house of a fish fanatic, can an aquarium could be left empty? No way ! with 2 empty aquaria I tried my hands on angle fish and goldfishes.

  There were many options available to choose from. I choose red cap, black moor, pearl scale, Shubunkin gold one pair of each breed. For angle fish, I choose 4 pairs of plain white, 4 pairs of shining white angle and 2 pairs of black angle.

                                   With 2 more aquariums, my efforts to maintain them also increased. Now I am having 4 Betta fish in one tank, 2 flower horns in 2 different 250 liters tank and a colony of gold & angle in 2 separate tanks. Sorry, I forgot to tell you the set up for gold & angle tanks. After studying and consulting with aquarium shop owner, I used mild internal filter pumps for both gold and angle. But as goldfish is more prompt to get water dirty in very less time the sponge that I used for goldfish tank was the about double size of sponge I used in angle fish tank. In the gold tank, I provided with one large seashell on which fishes used to rub their body and one toy of the old castle with a few hiding spots. I used artificial colorful gravel of one cm size with smooth edges and flowing shape with no corners. Therewith pink, purple, red, blue, white & green pebbles and it looked very attractive.

                                             For angle fish, I used artificial plants of about 6 inches of height & formed an array of these plants with 2.5 – 3-inch separation between one another. Then I filled the base of the aquarium with smooth, rounded, white marble pebbles up to 2 inches of height. Angle seemed to enjoy this setup and regularly played hide and seek kind of routine in that artificial plant bed.

                                                              Earlier I have mentioned that only 4 Bettas were remaining. With 4 dead Bettas, one aquarium is vacant! I filled it up with Mollys and swords tails because they also don’t need filter & air pump. I kept white, black and Dalmatian Molly and orange swordtail fish.

        By the time I purchased them, 2 or 3 Molly was pregnant and within 3 – 4 days my aquarium was full of  2 mm small Molly babies hiding under the foliage of natural aquatic plants I have placed in that aquarium. There were around  25 – 30 babies. Unfortunately, most of them died during the first water change. I was not aware at that time, that Mollys are very sensitive to temperature fluctuations. So if you have Mollys with you remember to change their water not more than 10% – 15% volume on daily basis. But 6 babies were saved and 2 of them reached their adulthood. It was a delight to see them grow.

          Oh! We have been distracted from our discussion of golds & angles. About their food, now, I used to feed Taiyo pellet food to goldfish and Taiyo flake food to angles. If you want a low maintenance fish, get your self-angles. They will keep water clean and in a large aquarium, there won’t be any need to change water for as long as 15 -21 days. You can easily make up a cycle of 3 weeks to change the water . that too just replace 70% of the tanks volume and vacuum out the dust & waste settled at the base after taking out the gravels. But this is not the case with the goldfish tank…….