Hello!

I've been scoping out the internets for info, and this forum seems to have people that actually keep b. mahachai, so maybe you can help me.

2 months ago I ordered a pair from a breeder on Aquabid. They arrived safely and lived happily for about a month. They're kept in a very heavily planted tank, with driftwood, crypts, and rocks.

The water is kept ~78 degrees F. They eat a variety of dried foods; bloodworms, daphnia, tubifex worms. They will not touch pellets, and only eat the other stuff sparingly. I tried frozen bloodworms (ick!) and they didn't really care for that much either.

But, after about a month, the male started hiding. At first I thought this was because the female had staked out the front of the tank as her territory, and he got the back. But then she started to hide too. They stay at the very back of the tank, under the filter intake / behind some plants, and only really come up for food and to breathe.

There doesn't seem to be anything really physically wrong with them. They get a 40% water change once a week, with water that was soaked in Indian Almond Leaves. The tank has dark spots and light spots and many hiding places.

Can anybody help? :( My pretty fishes are making me sad.

Your better off getting them adjusted to frozen foods over the freeze dried stuff, it's more natural for them. Frozen also retains more vitamins also. You should also consider maybe trying to hatch your own brine shrimp or getting a culture of things like white worms, grindles or vinegar eels.

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Glad to see another wild keeper here,welcome!

First off I need a little info on the tank.Size,filtration and if its cycled.Also salinity will help too,as they are brackish fish.

Many wilds are timid for awhile,and my mahachais are still more timid than my splendens,and even my macrostomas and albis are less fearful than them.

Try to raise the temperature up some for them,I keep mine at about 84.82 will be just fine though.

Also,post pics of them and the setup if you can please.

Forgot on the feeding.What type of pellets do you offer?and freeze dried will constipate them and lead to health issues.Try to get them onto pellets and feed a treat of frozen once a week,and if you dont mind the extra work,hatch out some BBS for them too.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Hi! Thanks for replying!

Tank:

It is cycled, has been set up for over a year. During the last water change, I added about a 1/2 tsp of salt.

6 Gallon Fluval Edge... I know it is not the ideal 10G, but it has many many hiding places and lines of sight are broken up all over the place.





The plants are bigger now, though.

Fish:

I feel like.. I dunno. If they were simply shy, wouldn't they come out when the lights were off? When I first got them, they weren't shy at all. They'd swim around exploring things, chasing their reflection... take turns following eachother like mopey puppies.

I can try and get some recent pics, when they come out for food, but these are from July.







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Food:

For pellets I have tried feeding them HBH Betta Bites and Attison's Betta Pellets.

There is one thing they like though... they ate all six of my red cherry shrimp, and the eye from one of my big amanos. Though they apparently missed a baby RCS, because I've spotted a teeny tiny one happily still surviving.

I have a pack of frozen bloodworm cubes... And I got the little floating cone w/ holes in it to feed them with... but hardly any of the little defrosted worm bits will go through the holes! Any tips?

Temp:
Really? The info on the web seems to say ~78 or 70-80, depending on the page. But I'll try more heat! More heat and more leaves, maybe? My filter keeps taking out the tannins, even though its just sponge now.

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Thanks much.

My guess is they are wild caught.They seem more interested in live foods which means you have your work cut out for you.First off instead of feeding the frozen with the cone,try to thaw the bloodworms in a small cup,and use tweezers to fed them that way.Almost every fish will eat frozen bloodworms.Try to move the the worms around with the tweezers to get a predatory response..Once they get accustomed to eating them that way,get them used to eating in one spot in the tank.Feed the same time every day.Then every few days,offer some pellets in that spot.They should go for them after some time.you can always try to soak the pellets in some garlic juice too.

Read this too:Wild betta profile:Sp.Mahachai

Have you noticed any nest?How much of a ripple is there in the water?When adding the laves do you float them or just boil them and use the tea?

The tank looks great,but one thing I learned,is they love floating plants.In the wild they will build their nest in between bamboo stalks that are so close together you wouldnt think a fish would want to be in that spot.But the slenderness of the fish makes it a perfect spot.How high is the water?Can they surface breathe from the entire top?(looks a little high in the pic)I would give them an inch across the entirety,and add some floating plants,like duckweed.

Take a look at this(it will also tell you how fast the species is dwindling,sadly)http://www.siamensis.org/exsiam/s007.html to get an idea of how they live in the wild.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Forgot to add.While many of the wild bettas do like cooler waters these are found in more of a warm environment.They will do fine in cooler waters,but they are more alert and breed better in warmer.Its worth a try to jack them up to 82 and see if they are out more.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Hey! Thanks.

I did try the tweezers first, actually. And my hand got super cramped waiting for them to become interested, haha. I only tried bloodworms twice though.. I can try again.

One of the stem plants reaches the surface now, and the petite nana on the driftwood does as well. There is... a lot of surface agitation from the pump, in the middle of the tank.

I fill the water almost to the top, so there is still room for them to surface. It's usually about 1cm.

I float the leaves in a big bucket that I set out for water changes, and then I tuck the leaves into the back of the tank after I add the water.

One thing worth sorta noting, I guess... a few days after I got them, I noticed the male had a bit of fin rot from the transit. And he was chasing his lady around. So I netted him and put him in a small container, which I floated in the tank so it would keep temp. I put about 3 leaves in it and some salt... the water turned a really DARK tea color, and when I came home from work, the little dude had built a bubble nest in his solitary confinement!

More leaves, more heat... blood worms, and garlic pellets. Check!

Yeah and kinda baffle the water.They are still bubblenesters so the water agitation could be bothering them a good bit.That may explain why they are hiding all the time too.And float one of the leaves on the top.Dont boil it,just place it right in,see what he does with it.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Temp is now ~81. I'm not sure I want to go higher, since amano shrimp apparently explode at 82+. Water has a bunch of leaves floating in it. Baffle infront of filter. Still don't see the fish very often, but the female spent a bit of time hiding behind a leaf instead of on the bottom of the tank.

New Foods:

Yesterday:
Frozen Daphnia - completely ignored it. I'll try again tomorrow maybe, at feeding time.

Today:
Frozen Bloodworms- inspected, bitten, spit out. They ate more dried tubifex.

I bought a shrimpery thing to hatch some brine shrimp. We'll see how that one goes.

Pictures:

Ladyfish from a few days ago. Best I could get. If you view the full size you can see it a tiny bit better.



I know that bettas naturally tend to get a bit of color change, especially around their faces. My splendens always developed a bit of marbling around the gills. These guys have a bit of a light brownish color on top of their heads, right behind their eyes. So I'm wondering. Normal, or... could it be velvet? If it was velvet, wouldn't they be in much bigger trouble, rather than simply hiding for a month? I read that it's a quick moving disease.

Velvets easy to look for especially since these are a greenish blue fish and velvet is gold.When the lights are off,shine a flashlight on the fishes scales.If you see a goldish dusting,then they need to be treated with coppersafe.Of course the shrimp will need to be moved.

Definitely try the live foods with them.The whole top of my tank is covered in plants,Ill get a pic for you.I have had them for several months and they are just now starting to come out more.


This is the top of my maha tank.As you can see,its not very deep and almost all the plants reach the top and is littered with floaters like some of the wisteria and duckweed.


This is my female.She is a brownish color when she is not in breeding garbs.When they are ready to spawn she will be almost the same color as the male,with the vertical breeding bars typical of females.


And this is why shes drab,theres fry in the far back corner.The male stays back there and she up front.(click the pic you can see them a little better.)

You may want to look and see if he has a nest or study the behavior and see if he flares for her,or for her vertical bars showing she is ready,or if he is in one particular spot for a good bit of time focusing,look for fry in the tank.They breed quite readily.

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Your tank is so pretty!

I guess general update:
I added duckweed and some more stem plants to the tank. I slowed down the filter so there'd be minimal splash (also tried a baffle for awhile). They WILL eat live baby brine shrimp. Once I started giving it to them they refused everything else pretty much flat out.

They still hide all the time. The female hides, vertically, with her nose pointed down... behind the suction cup for the heater. Super sad.

But.

Yesterday I took them out of the tank, and put them in a 4L icecream pail, with a bunch of almond leaves and a small heater.

I had thought maybe I'd treat them for velvet after all, but the brown splotchiness that my female has on top of her forehead looks kind of similar to the picture you have of yours... and though it looks pronounced under light, it doesnt shimmer under the flashlight. So I decided to leave it for a day.

Today, the male has built a bubble nest among the floating leaves, and is happily swimming about, showing ladyfish his moves. He shows curiousity when I come over to the bucket. Why are they so happy in a BUCKET. :(

LOL,thanks!Since that the plants have grown in more and now i cant find any fry except glimpses every now and then.

They like to be in tight spots to breed so maybe they just felt like they were too out.IDK,but if they spawn raise them like regular bettas,with the feedings and waterchanges.

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Haha.

Right now she doesn't seem very interested. I can't keep them in the bucket forever, though...!

I do have another 6G tank that I had wanted to get rid of... it has the filter on one side instead of in the center, so maybe way less current would make them happy...? Dunno.

Try it.They seem to enjoy the tannins too.

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Oh, I guess I haven't replied in awhile. Update!

I put them in the other 6gallon, with the side filter. At first it had some plants, a rock cave, and a bunch of IAL. They would hide in the darkness of the cave, or under the leaves. I've been them live brine shrimp every day... what a chore!

A few weeks ago I put in an old piece of driftwood I had lying around in the basement, and a too-big anubias plant. I broke up the rock cave. Overall there's less ground cover but more vertical cover, and they like it better. Not even close to "heavily planted" but what a difference! They still hide most of the day, but they come out bravely enough to eat, and have been gradually sticking around after they fill their tummies, to flare at eachother. If I turn the filter off completely, they don't even hide.

Also, a few days ago, the male started to actually eat pellets. This has been making ladyfish jealeous, and she has been trying to eat them. Yesterday she mashed a pellet to a pulp by spitting it out over and over again, but didnt eat it. Today she ate FIVE and I barely got to let her mate have any. (they're Attison's so theyre really small)

Eating pellets is amazing. Joy of joys. Dancing. You don't know how tired I am of filling / rinsing the brineshrimp container. Haha.

So I guess the last issue is current. They come out and swim everywhere if there's no current flow. Today I stuffed a sponge pad into the filter outflow, so see how much I can reduce the current. I'll watch and see if it helps. I don't really know what other options I have, since I don't want to run without one entirely. If I upgraded to a 10g do you think it would make a difference?

Also here's a pic of the happy bucket:

Yay!Its so good to hear they are eating and coming out more!Attisons pellets are wonderful things,all my bettas love them.

Onto the filter.I dont have one on my maha tank.I was using an internal filter,one of the small ones.I didnt get alot of flow,and they seemed ok with it.I removed it when they started to have tons of fry everywhere,and just never put it back.However,my tank is planted well,so its a difference.

I think it will make a bit of difference in the ten though,but if they are happy where they are,then I would leave them,let them spawn and then try to raise up a pair in the show tank to show off for people.

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I think full tummies and less current are helping already. The male dashes away when he sees any movement or little noise, but ladyfish is becoming curious about the large shape that sits by the tank and feeds them. She came up to the glass to look at me today.

If I sit still very quietly, he comes back out though.

Yep full tummies will have that effect!

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Great looking tank, Lumi.

Thanks! It looks better now, but the bettas aren't in it currently.

Ladyfish has definitely figured out where food comes from. She wiggles up to the glass when she sees me go by. They are both officially now the opposite of picky eaters.... I feed them first, and then try to drop in fragments of algae wafers for the khuli loach... and they steal it from him. Sigh!