Chapter 12: Some Fishes Called Betta

We had just finished our lunch and were walking past an aquarium shop when Nicky decided to walk in to buy some aquarium plants for his fish tank. Nicky had a three feet fish tank in the “wealth sector” in his house with an auspicious quantity of eight goldfishes. Every few weeks, he had to replace those dying potted aquarium plants in his tank with fresh new ones. I had advised him to lay a layer of gravel on his tank and grow the plants directly in the aquarium instead to save cost, but he said that those hyper active and super curious goldfishes of his would dig the plants out within a few days’ time. Furthermore, he resisted the thought of using gravel because he preferred to use citrine crystal stones which made his fish tank even more auspicious.

While Nicky was choosing his aquarium plants, the rest of us wondered around the shop. This shop at Clementi was a very popular shop among fish hobbyists in Singapore. It looked old and overcrowded, in fact so overcrowded that some of the tanks and equipments had to be stacked outside the shop, however they sold a good variety of fresh water fishes. Whenever I accompanied Nicky to the shop, be it on a weekday afternoon or a weekend evening, it was always crowded with young and old men.

Yes, most of the fish hobbyists in Singapore are men. Maybe it has got something to do with the look and feel of the aquarium shops around here. A typical local aquarium shop is usually small with tanks of fishes stacked on the shelves all around the shop. The names of the fishes with their respective prices are roughly scribbled with marker on the fish tanks. In the left over space of the shop, you can always find aquarium plants, confusing fish medications, fish foods and aquarium equipments like filters and pumps. And on the last piece of space where you thought you can walk on, an empty fish tank with a “Sale: $128” label on it may block your way. Our local aquarium shops are just too “insensitive” for our local ladies.

Perhaps somebody should start an aquarium shop catering to our female population. First of all, it should be air-conditioned. Instead of cement or tiles, the shop should have carpet flooring. Proper labels should be hung from these fish tanks, like the ones used in IKEA. These labels should tell the names of the fishes with their prices, where are they from, what should they be fed with and which are the other species that do not get along with them. The labels should also be color coded to indicate the level of difficulty in handling these fishes. For example, “fishes for beginners” like guppies and goldfishes should be labeled sweet pink; and “fishes for experts” like parrot fishes and discus should be labeled bright red.

The shop should also be staffed with friendly and neatly dressed staffs with their name tags. They will be stationing themselves around the shop to answer any doubts that the customers might have like “will this fish food gives my fish a better color” and “do you think this aquarium plant goes well with my red guppies, or should I take that red plant instead?”. Piped-in music like jazz should be used to cover the monotonous humming of the pumps, and as much as possible, this music should also complement with the bubbling sound from the fish tanks to give a soothing effect. Lastly and most importantly, the shop should offer free delivery with a minimum purchase so that some strong male staffs could help the ladies to delivery their fish tanks to their houses.

I walked around the shop and found Sally staring at some Bettas, a.k.a. fighting fishes.

“Don’t you think they’re beautiful?” she asked, still staring at the miniature tanks of Bettas on the shelves.
“Yeh, I’d always find their bright colors pretty fascinating.”
“Look at the way he spreads his fins! So beautiful!” she was pointing at a blue Betta which was agitated by her finger resting on the tank.
“Don’t tell me…”
“Beng, do you think fighting fishes are easy to rear?”

Okay, she was really thinking of rearing these Bettas. So can I classify this as a case of “love at first sight”?

“They should be right? I heard that you can just use a jam bottle to rear one, and you don’t even need to put in a filter!” Sally insisted.
“Well, yes, it’s true that you don’t need a filter because they could breathe through the air at the top of the water level, but no, you can’t use a jam bottle because it’ll be too small for the fish to maneuver.”
“But these tanks are as small as jam bottles right? And if you look over there, they even have some fighting fishes packed in small plastic bags!”
“Dear Sally, the boss expected you to get a proper tank for these fishes after you’ve bought them, and throw away the jam bottle or plastic bag.”
“Oh…” Sally pondered upon it and then said: “Why don’t you help me to choose a tank then?”

With that, Sally looked around and pulled me to the section where some small tanks were displayed.

“What do you think of this? Cute right? There’s even a mini tank inside this small tank!” she exclaimed avidly.
“Sally, this seems to be a breeding tank for pregnant guppies and that mini tank is used to separate the mother from her young.”
“Why must they be separated?!!” Sally hollered.
“Because if you don’t do so, the female guppy will eat up all her babies!”
“Eee! So cruel!”
“That’s nature’s way of doing things, Sally. Welcome to this cruel world.”

After some more searching, we found a six inches plastic tank that could be used as a new home for her new Betta. Okay, found the house, time to get the owner.

“How many fighting fishes do you think we can fit in this tank?”
“One.”
“One? I think the tank is big enough for at least three!”
“Do you happen to know that fighting fishes actually fight?” I realized that I forgot to tell her this important bit of information.
“Yes I know! That’s why they’re called fighting fishes right?” Sally held her waist and stared at me. “But only two males will fight right? Which means that I can put a male and some females together in the tank right?”
“That’s only if you intend to breed them.”
Sally paused a while, then said: “Hey, breeding fighting fishes could be fun!”

In order to do the Bettas a favor and save some lives, I decided to tell Sally my friend’s experience in breeding Bettas.

“Okay, listen. Breeding Bettas is not as easy as you think it is. First of all, you should only put a male and a female in the tank. Having more than two females will excite your male to death.”
“Well, he can always schedule his females for 1-3-5 and 2-4-6 right? Then he can rest on Sundays,” Sally giggled.
“Uh-ehm…” I ignored her and continued. “You have to feed them regularly so that you don’t starve them, because once they get hungry, they'll start to bite each other. Place some plants in the tank so that your female could seek refuge whenever necessary. If everything goes well, a bubble nest will soon be created by the male. If mating is successful, you’ll see the female releasing some cream-colored eggs. At this time, you’ll need to move the female to another tank otherwise the male will bite her. The male will then dive down and pick up all the eggs with his mouth and spit it into the nest. A couple of days later, the eggs will hatch and you’ll need to remove the male as well. And all these are only the breeding part.”
“And then?”
“Then you’ll need to prepare some baby foods like Liquidfry to feed the fries.”
“And then?”
“Then you’ll just have to pray and wait for the fries to grow up safely.”
“Wow…” Sally mused. “That sounds cool!”

Happily, Sally selected one male Veil Tail Betta and another female Single Tail Betta. Though cheap, the male Veil Tail Betta looked rather pretty with its pinkish body and purple tail and fins. Together with the small plastic tank, she bought a potted sword plant and a bottle of Anti-chlorine solution as well.

Upon reaching the office, I helped the joyous Sally to set up the aquarium. I cleaned the tank, filled it up with tap water, poured in a small amount of Anti-chlorine solution and put the potted sword plant in. Then we got a problem.

“Sally, didn’t you compare the height of the plant to that of the tank before buying the plant?”
“Eh… no. I just chose the one that looks nicest and freshest. Erm… can we place the plant horizontally instead?”

Sally tilted the plant to make it lay horizontally on the floor of the tank.

“Okay what! It still looks nice right? The plant can still grow right?” Sally asked.
“Yeh, I suppose so.”

Sally then took over to perform the most important task – releasing the fishes into the tank. She released the packet of female Betta into the tank followed by the male Betta. For a while, the two fishes swam around to get themselves used to the new environment. Like in a Hindu movie, they swam around the horizontally lying sword plant and played hide-and-seek with each other. When the male Betta finally managed to swam to the front of the female Betta, it pecked the female Betta, who then swam away hastily in shock. The whole process repeated for a couple of times and Sally sat in front of her tank and witnessed every single shocking meeting those two fishes had. Suddenly, she gasped.

“Oh my god!”
“What?” I rushed to her and looked at the tank. The fishes looked fine to me.

“I forgot to buy fish food!”