Ive spawned splendens/imbellis crosses very recently, as in last week. Apparently the Dragon Scale betta splendens comes from the imbellis crossing. I've actually got a dragon scale x imbellis spawn at the moment.
Nicely done man.. Would be very interested in seeing the spawn of those guys once they're 4 months old or so. So what are your thoughts, can all the subspecies of the splendens complex (bubblenesters) be interbred?
After moving those 2 aggressors from the pics into their own tank, things are starting to colour up in the main tank. Thinking these are mostly females, seeing some vertical dark bars on some of them.
Imbellis, splendens and mahachai can all be interbred. So there is a theory going around that they are all the same species. Just different locality types. They're very similar, no doubt. Apparently the imbellis and mahachai have irids on their faces, which splendens don't. The crossing of those species has resulted in fully masked splendens. So there is definitely a possibility that they are the same species. But there are subtle differences, which could just be evolutionary changes based on slightly different habitats.
This is what's for dinner tonight. Started these around 24hrs ago, should be nice 'n nutritious Lured them to one side of the container for the shot, using the torch thingy on my cell. Will use the same method to catch dinner, minimal effort and leaving the remaining and old cysts in place as best I can
Those look like Imbellis Hybrids to me. Pay special attention to the body shape and lack of the red crescent typical of wild Imbellis. Stunning fish though , I would not mind some myself.
Hey @scubabravo, thanks for the ID! Just hoping some of them are females. What do you reckon? And thanks @Viashen. These aren't the typical B. splendens we usually see, but like scuba says, very likely some sort of hybrid of B. imbellis and another of the bubble-nesting bettas. One of the common names for imbellis is apparently The Peaceful Betta. That said, there's definitely been some aggression, especially in the first week of becoming tankmates. But other than the first pics on this thread, nothing too crazy. In the last few weeks they've settled down really nicely, at this stage they're amazingly tolerant of eachother. Really great little fish so far.They come across as hardy and very active, and always interesting to watch
So I gave betta breeding a go this past weekend. Fail of NOTE~~ Some pics to show the nature of the fail } This male seemed intent on making a bubblenest at a million places in the tank, and no one place in particular. At times everything looked so promising, the lady was even allowed under the bubble nest at one point. The consensus is that I suck the big one when it comes to betta matchmaking Nevertheless, after many hours of observing the situation I reckon I've gleaned a few things about betta breeding behaviour. Time will tell
Just a question, in case I missed it somewhere, but how many Betta's do you have per tank currently?? There are always exceptions, but I'm pretty surprised you haven't seen major aggression yet....
@BadgerBadger, I have 8 in total, only one of which was sent into solitary confinement because of aggression. That is the male I tried breeding with. The rest share a 70L tank and no problems other than some slight fin nipping at times, but they have settled down nicely in the few months I've had them. As per scubabravo and SeanJ's posts, these seem to be imbellis/splendens hybrids. They're actually very small, around 2-3cm max. So maybe that's part of the reason that aggression isn't a problem, their imbellis blood? Thanks @Pierré Schoonraad !
beautiful pics!! Is this done with a "pro" camera? or did u manage to get this level of quality with a cell phone?
Thanks! I'm using a Canon 700D, which is a kind of mid-level dslr (crop sensor, not full frame). But the real power in the setup is the 100mm macro lens which is superb. It costs more than the camera itself. For the close-up shots, the front of the lens is about 15cm away from the fish / subject. I use an off-camera flash (with a 30cm softbox diffuser to tone down the harshness of the flash), which helps in capturing the finer details. This is attached to the camera by a flexible cable, about 0,5m long. I hold the flash off at a kind of 45degree angle from the subject, while holding the camera in the other hand. The angle of the lighting can be varied by hand-holding it like this. You can see the angle used in each shot by looking for the angle of the shadows it creates. The use of flash also allows you to use fast shutter speeds to freeze the movement of the fish, again helping to get sharp images with no blur. All in all, it's a very addictive little hobby. I lose myself for hours
