My Plants

Thanks to my uncle, I was able to get some orchids to start my orchid hobby. I am lucky that my roof is made of mesh and welded wire. I can easily hang my orchids. My new idea for my place is some sort of hanging garden. Fish on the ground, orchids in the air.

Here are the plants close up. They give a more natural look especially with the vines of my millionaire's vine. Quite forest-y feel to it. I am not sure about what the species exactly are but I remember my uncle telling me that they are cattleyas and vantas. I will do more research to find out.

What a Dorsal!

check this out: http://www.qldaf.com/forums/bettas-79/3-week-old-betta-fry-80851/index2.html

this guy's got full sailfins on his bettas!
I wish I can produce fish like those!

I am inspired!

One thing is for sure though, I have several fish that do show very broad dorsal (but not as broad as the ones in the link) but the genes have not yet been fixed. These fish just pop out from spawn to spawn. It is inconsistent so far.

Here is what I look at for my bettas' dorsals:
1. base: the base is where the dorsal fin is attached to the body. The broader the dorsal base, the better. I always look at it in relation to the base of the anal fin. I always look for at least 50% ratio (dorsal base length / anal base length).
2. first rays: the next thing I look at is the first rays of the dorsal. The longer, the better. If they are longer, they give the dorsal more volume and better spread.
3. branching: the more extensive the branching, the wider spread and bigger volume. I saw these links in bettysplendens.com: Dorsals part 1 and Dorsal part 2. I am aiming for this, too but it is the last thing on my list.

Example:One of my first self-bred "sailfin" coppers

1. Base: The ratio is 2/3 or around 67%. That means the dorsal base is 2/3 the length of the anal base
2. First rays: The first rays of this fish is very short. They appear as mere protrusions from the body. Generally, the pattern is that the rays are getting longer as they get nearer the caudal. The idea for me is they are of equal length to each other.
3. branching: while the two other traits give the dorsal a broad look already, I will look into the branching. They are basically two-ray branching. Fair enough. But if they could go to 4-rays that would be better as the dorsal will spread more and would possibly flush forward. If it flushes forward, this would give the dorsal a better appearance.

Family Line:

May 15, 2013: I have bred this male to a spawn sister. The offspring (F3) produced a good number of DTs but the singletails do not exhibit the sailfin dorsal like the male. I crossed the F3: a Marble HMPK male and a Copper HMPK female. I transferred the small fry today. Some of the bigger ones are showing broad dorsal bases. I hope all of the singletails will be sailfins and I hope doubletails will also pop up. I want to do an F5 spawn in the future.

Terraphyte tank

Recently, I have been looking on terraphyte tanks. I found this simple one here on the Planted Tank Forum. Simply as they are, terraphyte tanks are simply tanks with plant roots for filtration. I have noticed that my tanks are "naturally" terraphyte tanks.

The plant

This is a millionaire's vine. It fits my set up perfectly. Being outdoor, I can have the vines growing with natural sunlight. The tendrils cling on to the wire, mesh and metal frame of my fish place. It takes root in my tanks and also the soil where I drain my tanks to. The waste water is poisonous to the plants but still nutritious to the plant's roots.

Obviously, it is a vine and it takes roots in water. I just took advantage of it and just let it be. Simplicity is best. Then, I'm planning to slowly convert all my tanks to terraphyte ones by directing the roots of the vine to my tanks.