Posts tagged betta
Mr. Spatula, REVEALED!!
Feb 22nd
Ok, this is the best picture I could manage of my new Betta, Mr. Spatula. His colors are REALLY hard to photograph properly, so I had to take the best shot I got and tweak the colors. This isn’t totally accurate, but it’s as good as I could get.
Mr. Spatula
Feb 16th
I got myself a new Betta over the weekend. I was going to post about it sooner but I wanted to try to get some pictures of him first. Unfortunately, he’s being VERY uncooperative, so I’ll have to snap some pictures later. His name is Mr. Spatula, after the iconic evil goldfish in the Sam & Max series of computer games.
I really didn’t intend on getting a new betta this weekend. I was going out to price how much a new aquarium decor setup would probably be running me when I spotted the perfect fish in Petsmart. Well, I had to rescue the poor guy so I got him right there, rushed home and re-set up my fish tank (which now has a greek ruins sort of theme to it.
Mr. Spatula is a mostly blue veil tail betta with a black head, and red streaks in his fins. He’s also as dumb as a box of rocks. He spent the first two hours in the tank freaking out over his reflection in the back wall. I figured he’d stop eventually, but I ended up having to remove the background until I can figure out a suitable replacement that won’t reflect nearly so much. I also have to feed him by practically dropping the food on top of him. Otherwise he won’t notice it.
It’s interesting how two different fish can have such different personalities. Fish was mellow (He rarely flared, and never freaked at his own reflection) and raced right out when the food came in. Mr. Spatula is a bit more aggressive.
I’ll try to get a good picture at some point soon, and when I do I’ll post em up. He just wouldn’t cooperate. Probably not used to me being around yet.
Fish, the Betta: A Memorial
Feb 9th
Last night I discovered that Fish, my betta had died sometime during the day.
He’d been pretty lethargic for a while now. After doing some research, I decided it was just old age. Their natural lifespan is about 3 years. I got him in March 2008 and they’re usually 6 months to a year old once they hit the fish stores, so it seems that he lived out his natural lifespan.
And he got to do it in a palace of a tank (just over 5 gallons, all to himself) as opposed to being stuck in a little tiny bowl for his entire life. He was one lucky little fish. Especially since I almost didn’t see the cache of bettas where he was stored. I remember agonizing over a selection, picking one and then rounding a corner and finding another cache of bettas sitting there to go through.
My current plans now are to clean out and redecorate the tank (I want to do more of a theme, as opposed to natural plants and such this time out) and get a new betta. I’ll probably start poking around this week to see what my options are and figure out how much the redecoration is going to run me.
Bad News Day
Aug 18th
Bunch of ungood stuff happened last night.
First of all, my Betta, Fish has been looking a little lethargic lately. He’s been hanging out at the bottom of the tank and not moving at all except for eating.
I shined a flashlight on him and I think I see the beginnings of an infection of Velvet. I changed his water last night and I’m planning to see how he reacts to that before I decide to do anything to him more drastic than that.
Which leads me to bad thing number 2. I was finishing up changing his water when I missed the last step on the stairs in our apartment and ended up falling. My right foot was pointed down towards the ground and I landed on it with pretty much my entire body weight, bending my toes backwards in directions which toes should never bend.
It hurts a lot and I can’t really put much weight on it. I can still move my toes so I don’t believe anything is broken, but I’m going to try to get in to see my doctor about it today in case I did something serious to it.
Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere!
Aug 21st
Just a quick post to share a new Betta development! I was hanging out watching the Olympics with Wassy (standard mid week get together) and I looked over at Fish to find that he had constructed his own little bubble nest.
Betta's create bubble nests to hold the eggs after they've been fertilized by the male during breeding. The male takes charge of protecting the eggs in the bubble nest that he creates by taking air from the surface and blowing bubbles to create a collection of bubbles at the surface of the water. Here's what it looks like from the top:
All of those are bubbles of air in the water.
I didn't think Fish would ever make one because the current is a little off. But, I'm glad he did because it means he's a pretty happy little fish and feels comfortable in creating a nest for himself. Unfortunately for him…there aren't going to be any Betta females wandering by that he can ask out.
QotD: Built to Last
Aug 8th
What was the last thing you built with your own hands?
Submitted by Nick.
Ok, so technically this isn't something I built. And I guess it isn't with my own hands…but, it's the best I've got. For the longest time now I've been unhappy with how my Betta's tank has been set up. It's kinda generic, the plants suck and the sponge filter I had going in there was ugly as heck and took up a crapton of room. So I decided that I would switch back to a power filter.
Betta's have a particular issue in that they don't like strong currents. And while my tank (an Eclipse System 6) came with a filter, it didn't have any flow control on it so it ended up being much too powerful and Fish didn't like it very much at all. So I switched to the sponge filter, but it didn't do as good a job as I wanted it to do on the actual filtering bit. So I would have to buy a new filter for the tank with some kind of flow control. But the problem then became that the hood of the tank was set up in such a way that it wouldn't allow for a filter that hangs off the back of the tank without modification.
I talked to my parents (who are much handier than I am with these sorts of things) and we came to the conclusion that we could cut a hole in the plastic hood such that it would allow a filter to fit through. So I brought it over last night (after being tricked into carrying a very heavy elliptical machine into their house that they had just bought) and we proceeded to begin the cutting process. After quite a bit of work, we ended up with a nicely sized hole.
I set up the new filter last night and everything seems to be working fine. Fish doesn't mind the current so much since it's less, I have more room to work with tank decoration and it doesn't look as horrible in there. Now I just need to figure out how I want to decorate it, as well as getting a couple of ghost shrimp to complete the tank (and provide some possible little snacks for my betta)
Fish And…Other Stuff
Mar 12th
Fish (my betta) is swimming around quite nicely now, exploring everything. He just discovered that there's a middle bit to his tank with plants and stuff in it and has been examining them up close and personal. He's getting blown around a bit by the filter though so I'm going to be changing it out to a much calmer sponge filter as soon as I get some parts I need via mail order.
And now I'm going to go from fish to the Eliot Spitzer thing, which has to be one of the strangest transitions I've ever done on here. I try to avoid commenting on political news events because I'm sure nobody really wants to read it, but this is kinda big and I've got some stuff to say. First of all, I've seen a lot of people asking why this is such a big deal and how it's any different from what Bill Clinton did (for example). Normally I'd agree. I think somebody's personal life is their own business and if Spitzer simply had an affair I would probably not vote for him again, but I wouldn't call for him to resign either. That situation would be between him and his wife.
This however, is different. Spitzer ran on a platform of stamping out corruption in government, using his record as Attorney General as proof of what he's done over the years. And he's done some really good stuff as AG which is why I voted for him in the first place. And then, as it turns out, he's involved in this prostitution ring which violates several state and federal laws. Once he starts breaking laws, that's the point where a personal matter becomes an issue for the public.
I just read he's going to resign, effective Monday which is good for everyone involved. Hopefully people can put this behind them and keep working on the important business of running the state. And I hope that with the passing of Spitzer, Upstate New York isn't forgotten becaus he really started to focus on upstate which is typically ignored by the state government.
Fish, The Betta
Mar 10th
So, as you may have noticed if you checked yesterday or looked downward first, I have my betta now. Fish the betta (yes, I named my betta Fish) is, as of this morning, alive and well but we had a bit of an adventure getting him. We being myself and Wassy because she likes to come along on my fish getting excursions. The basic plan was that I was going to go over and pick her up sunday afternoon and we'd get the fish, go back to my place and then we'd head back over to her's and we'd hang out.
The first thing that should be mentioned is the weather. It was very windy and we were having some lake effect snow. Well, when I say "we" I mean "me" because as soon as I got about halfway to my friends apartment the snow stopped immediately. Sigh. I hate lake effect snow.
I picked her up and we went off searching, checking out a few different shops to see what they had. We also made a unscheduled stay at Wild Things (local pet store for those reading from outside the area) so that my friend could visit with possibly the coolest looking ferret around. After that we ended up going to petsmart to look at their bettas.
I was looking for a blue crown tail type because I think they look pretty cool and petsmart happens to have those so we tried to browse through all of their little cups to find a good one, Wassy was looking through the selection and picking out ones that would work, and we had a little lineup going on the shelf above where the bettas were kept. It was an agonizing process but eventually I settled on one betta, so we moved to the next stage which was the actual purchase. I turned to go down an asile heading to the cashier but then discovered that there was another cache of bettas that we hadn't seen the first time. So that started the process all over again.
In the end, I ended up with that guy right there. Not the blue I was looking for, but suitably interesting. He's actually a little more black than that now. I think the body color was mostly because he was stressed out.
We got him back to my place and I started to get him used to my tank water. I had a little problem though, because he was in a cup with a bunch of chemicals and other crap and I didn't want that in my tank, so I had to pour him out of his cup into a net over a bucket (in case I missed him with the net) and then plop him in my tank, which was quite the production. Everything went well though and there he sits.
I think, however, that the filter that came with the tank is a little too much for him, so I'm going to scout around tonight a bit to see if I can find him a sponge filter and get things going that way instead. I tried doing some more modifications to my power filter but without flow control it's hard to regulate it.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing over at Jay and Wassy's place, which was much needed. We watched Stardust, had a wonderful turkey dinner along with some wine and just hung out. Some much needed relaxation.
My New Betta!
Mar 9th
Just a couple quick pictures because I don't have time to do a writeup but…here they are!
Standard Life Status Update
Mar 6th
First up, and update on my Betta tank. I got the temperature stabilized and now I'm working on getting the filter and such ready. I'll probably be getting my betta this weekend since I have another filter with which to seed my new tank. All is proceeding according to plan. I also purchased some new/better (hopefully) plants for it over the internet as I'm having trouble finding the decor I'm looking for locally.
Wassy came over last night for mid week activities and that went pretty well too I thought. We watched Silence of the Lambs which she loved and I had never seen before. And by the end of the movie I was ranking it up there as one of my favorite movies of all time. VERY well done, and makes me want to read the books now, which I will do at some point in the near future.
We also listened to some music (Pain of Salvation – Remedy Lane to be specific) and hung out and talked. While we were hanging out she mentioned that I really needed to get a fish in my new tank because it draws your eye but it's all empty now. So since on my origami calander for today was a goldfish, I figured I'd try to fold one up. But, uh…lets just say it didn't go well. It didn't look much like a goldfish, or even the picture on the calander when I was finished.
All and all, the evening was a good de-stresser which was something I really needed this week due to stuff happening at work.
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