philosophy || basic care || water chemistry || foods || diseases || spawning || feeding fry || raising young || home || genetics
BETTAS by Jim Sonnier
Young first generation Marble male
Probably the greatest challenge for any Betta breeder is maintaining a couple hundred or more Bettas each in its own jar or mini-tank. Water temperature must be controlled and waste products must be removed daily. Each fish needs to be individually fed at least twice every day, and have a complete water change once a week (twice is better!). The jars themselves should be thoroughly cleaned weekly. It is easy to do if you have a few Bettas, but if you have hundreds the job can be overwhelming. Discussed below are some of the materials and methods that have been and are being employed by Betta breeders.
JARS: The usual jar sizes are quart, half gallon, and gallon. The jars are either glass or plastic, and can be round or rectangular. In all the time that people have been raising Bettas I would guess that millions have been raised in Mayonaise jars.
Round glass jars are probably the best, but they do have some drawbacks. They are breakable and relatively heavy. It is difficult to get your hand into the quart size for cleaning, and the larger sizes can be tricky to handle when wet.
Plastic jars do solve the problems of glass jars, but they are not perfect either. Plastics are not imprevious to osmotic transfers of gases and liquids. Many kinds of plastic can be penetrated by harmful gases or liquids, and beneficial gasses or dissolved compounds can exit the water through the sides of the jars as a result of osmotic pressures. However, the normal fish room environment would rarely contain hazardous gases or liquids so that problem can be dismissed as highly improbable. Plastic jars are also much easier to modify than glass jars. They can be drilled for overflow and drain holes, and they can be cut off to meet space requirements.
Rectangular jars are more difficult to clean because of the corners. Some sort of swab or brush must be used to insure adequate cleaning in the corners. This can be a real headache if you have lots of jars to clean. While on the subject of cleaning jars it is best to wear rubber gloves and use a mild disinfectant. If you use a rag, it sould be rinsed and squeezed in the disinfectant solution often -- after every third or fourth jar, perhaps.
My recommendation: half gallon round plastic jars.
COMPARTMENTAL (Shared Water) SYSTEMS: There are many Compartmental Systems in use now. They are usually constructed of Acrylic plastic with rectangular compartments that hold about one gallon of water. A system may be as small as 6 to 8 units or as large as 50 to 100 units. Smaller systems can be arranged in a straight line. Larger units can be arranged in interconnected rows that cover a large table top or they can be built in layers on shelving.
Often one of the compartments is used to house filtration media. The filter can also be in a separate location receiving discharged water and sending filtered water by means of tubing. Holes are drilled in certain sides of the compartments to allow for a linear movement of water through the whole system. An external water pump or filter system pump powers the flow of water. With this type system each Betta can live in many gallons of fresh water every hour of every day. Also the strong water flow benefits the fish by providing exercise to build musculature and burn off fat.
Contageous diseases should be the primary concern when dealing with any shared water system. The filtering media can deal with parasites and chemical toxins such as Ammonia, but will not eleminate micro contaminants like bacterial and fungal spores. If one Betta gets sick with a contageous disease then all other Bettas in the system will get sick. Therefore an Ultra-Violet sterilization light is an absolute necessity for any shared water system. After the water is filtered it must pass through a UV unit before being sent back to the fish compartments. Also the UV unit must run continuously as micro contaminants will be introduced regularly from the air and on food.
My recommendation: not recommended.
more to come...
DRIP SYSTEMS: Here are some nice photos and diagrams of what looks to be a good system http://www.bcbetta.com/fishroom.html.
INDIVIDUAL FILTRATION
philosophy || basic care || water chemistry || foods || diseases || spawning || feeding fry || raising young || home || genetics
This page was last updated on 02/05/13
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