Return Imbellis to its habitat.

The offspring of home bred betta imbellis is a gang of healthy looking 350 plus juveniles, 3 months old.  With Razib, we both headed to five secret sites around here releasing them to their natural habitat on 5th of December 2020. We took less than 20 a few months ago but we are returning back more than 350 to their habitat. Time to say goodbye.  I am just their foster Dad for over 3 months. 

Soon they will learn to live in their natural world. No more hand feeding, they have to search and hunt. Some will succumb to predators, the rest will soon pair up, and produce babies for the next generation.

All in all wild betta imbellis breeding experience really was an eye opener. Breeding can be very detailed if we wish to explore, about water parameters, about the timing of nesting, about hatching, about little fry falling straight down and Dad quickly intercept and put back to nest, and about the shift from vertical movement to horizontal swimming. Wild betta imbellis fries show intricacy within 7 to 8 days. Then their life take a different turn after 7-14 days feeding on infusoria  with intermittent doses of artemia and moina macrocopa. Once they are 2 weeks old, they feed on bigger live food.  Dry food in pellet form comes in a bit later, about a month old.  They have gone through life in 3 different tanks: breeding tank, first grow out tank, and a much bigger second grow out tank.

Return them to their habitat will be a weekly affair now. I still have close to a thousand imbellis juveniles to care. Another 3 weeks from now, adventure in wild betta imbellis will cease, since I am concentrating on betta livida, betta tussyae, betta brownorum and betta channoides. These will produce smaller number of offspring, thus space and amount of food will not be a constraint.

Betta Imbellis F1

Parents: wild caught in seri iskandar

Offspring: 350

Return to habitat: 5/12/2020

bangchik

releasing betta imbellis to their habitat, seri iskandar

Describing betta livida seri iskandar

I have every intention to describe our 29/8/2020 wild caught betta livida for lasting footprint on my part and as reference for others.   We caught four fish that day.  As usual they were put into bottles when we got home. Soon after we realised, that these couldn't be betta imbellis. The colour, the shape of the body and the flare were different. Google helped. We zeroed in into betta livida.  To have it confirmed we checked with experts in Malaysia Wild Betta Society Facebook group.  Yes, our guess was right.

      

Pic1: Betta Livida with striking two gold stripes on its cheek

Pic 2: Betta Livida has whitish green tip of pelvic fin

Pic 3: Betta Livida taking an aggressive stance

pic 4: betta livida, lines and dots along at tail and fins

The habitat of betta livida seri iskandar

It is a slightly undulating land that meets a plain separated by a ditch. The whole landmass is basically laterite soil, and the ditch is full of fallen mahang (macaranga) and simpuh air  (dillenia suffruticosa) leaves. The two types of trees form the canopy shadowing the ditch. Water isn't too dark coloured, just slightly tinted clayey water. That ditch is noticeably man made, most probably during the establishment of massive felcra plantation.  Senduduk (melastoma) and other typical wetland small shrubs grow at the outskirt of ditch. The ditch itself runs to about 200 meters.

Pic 4: The habitat of wild caught betta livida Seri Iskandar

The history goes back to the setting up of Felcra Nasaruddin and development of the surrounding areas in late 90's for residential, and commercial areas. Further up, a town Tronoh is a very much disturbed land, heavily mined for tin in late 1800 to early 1900. The long Sungai Perak which cuts across the region divide the much hilly part on its right and the lowland where paddy will grow on its left. Seri Iskandar is on hillier side. 

Size of wild caught betta livida seri iskandar

male     :    LM1si is about 5 cm
male     :    LM2si is almost 4 cm
female  :    LF1si is about 4 cm

Colour Dark purplish brown when caught. I didn't place them in exactly similar biotope, therefore the colour faded a bit.  

With the three wild betta livida seri iskandar in my keeping, I wonder if my interest in captive reproduction will help to ensure its survival in seri iskandar.  The first attempt was quite successful, now a community of almost thirty 3 week old livida fries.  

Bangchik
Seri Iskandar