Bottled Bettas? Or maybe, Fish in a Bottle . . .

[Ulu]

This is Heidi hiding from Beta Boy. She's in an inverted Pom bottle, stuck thru a hole in the aquarium lid.

I have never seen this done before, with an inverted bottle, and so far only bettas have gone inside. Once they do, they seem to love it. My bettas hang out in the bottles a lot, except for feedings.



This was a breeding experiment where I had two habitats in one tank with seperate bottles.


Betta Boy:






Heidi:





This inverted bottle rig is not popular with my other fish. Mollies, guppies, tetras, cichlids and cories have all shown zero interest. I guess bettas are special in this regard. If you just lay a bottle in the tank, any fish would swim in it, but Bettas will swim up to look around. They don't hide.

I was hoping for big things when the bettas finally got together.



It looked promising, after a couple weeks of close conditioning, but it was not to be.
In the end they tried to eat each other, and you can see the ragged fins in some shots.

 

[Ulu]

Zed is the only betta I have bred successfully. He was the offspring of Betta Boy and Carmen.

Carmen is the red fish in the 30g betta sorority. She was the only one to breed successfully,
but I blame that mostly on weak male fish.


Juvenile Zed




Zed had a little white birthmark on his head, the only remainder of his colors as a fry.


He's in there, busily eating his 300 siblings.

Not so many left now . . .


And then there was only one.

 

[islandguy11]

That's really interesting the Betta like to hang out there -- maybe it brings them back to their fish shop days lol? Maybe they like the view or just feel safer there? Another wish fish could talk scenario but cool experimental set up you're running there, good luck with the breeding efforts.

 

[Ulu]

Here's a better shot of Carmen, Zed's mother. She was absolutely red while his father was absolutely blue.


Zed has much longer fins than either of his parents. The bottle magnifies this fact enormously.




This is Spike who had his own bottle.


Zed now lives in the high-rise multi bottle complex overlooking the Molly fry Nursery, and adjacent to the brackish Aquarium.


This little LED lamp helps the algae to grow.


For a while Heidi lived in a 30 tall which is way too far for a Betta to swim and get air.

I made her this little clear plastic Skybox near the surface and extended the snorkel of her bottle so she would have a more convenient entrance.

She lived there until the end of her days, high above the corydoras cats and nippy little tetras.


She had unexpected problems in her romances With Betta Boy and also Spike. They both suffered a lot during the honeymoon, so I never tried to breed her a third time.

 

[Ulu]

That's really interesting the Betta like to hang out there -- maybe it brings them back to their fish shop days lol? Maybe they like the view or just feel safer there? Another wish fish could talk scenario but cool experimental set up you're running there, good luck with the breeding efforts.

I think they do like to just Lounge in the bubbles with the algae and little bit of live plant for company.

I have quit trying to breed bettas.

I have owned maybe 30 and I only have one alive after all these years, which is Zed who is the only one I have ever bred to adulthood.

The picture of Spike shows him in an orange juice bottle, which has a different sort of shape and doesn't magnify as well, but he swam into it just as readily as the other bottles.

 

[Ulu]

The reason that I have quit breeding bettas is that the mollies and guppies and cichlids are all breeding and that is keeping me busy. If the Monos start breeding I'm going to start cooking them, because they're getting huge and edible looking.

Here are some random shots.

Betta boy


Zed


Spike in his bottle

Spike had a skybox too, and he could escape there from Photon the Peacock, who lived below.

 

[Ulu]

Saphire


Spike


Juvie Zed



Heidi, disappointed. . .


???


Spike


BB and Heidi in the betta jungle.



Separate beds, after their unfriendly third date. Both have been chewing the other, and it's over for good.

 

[Ulu]

Trying to get Spike and Heidi together. It never worked.


Zed


Spike





Venus


Spike visiting his plastic skybox. Green algae, and tiny snails for dinner, wait inside. The 16g bowfront is too tall. They get tired of swimming to the surface for air. A 5g is tall enough for a betta.


Spike can see high into the betta sorority from his bottle.


After near consumption by Heidi, Betta Boy's face turned from blue to black. This is weeks later and you can see his fins growing back white.



It eventually returned to blue, and his fins grew back a lot, but some parts of them came in red. He was originally 100% blue.

 

[pops]

interesting thread.

 

[Ulu]

Thank you Pops.

I bought my first betta about 1974 but I was never a photographer until the smartphone.

I've bought maybe 24 bettas in 45 years. I had a betta harem for a while. I turned it into a betta sorority which was worse.

Heidi eventually killed her 6 sisters so she was my strongest female physically. But perhaps not genetically, because she was never successfully bred.

Yet she tried. She allowed the males to take her, but there was never a delivery. I don't think the males were strong enough.