(no subject)

[damselfish]

Friday, I spoke with mom and she asked when I'd buy another betta. I had no idea. When I find one as pretty as Angryfish, which isn't likely to happen any time soon because he was a rarity among fish. Even at the fish farm with its specialty bettas-- black/whites and dragonscales included-- didn't have anything quite so stellar. Most bettas are kept in little cups and are lackluster in personality and I am killing everything in my apartment, you think the solution is more living creatures under my care?

"They have pretty ones at the Petco down here, remember?"

The Petco down in Homestead (almost Florida City? Not sure where the borders are) is a wonder to behold, and they have several big displays of bettas. "I guess," I shrugged. "I'll go down to the farm tomorrow and we can take a look."

Away we went to Petco!

I quickly pick out a couple likely looking candidates, much to my surprise. More than I expected because... it's freaking Petco, why are they supposed to have nice fish? A few of them have what appears to be serious fin-rot, and since they're priced based on tails, you'd wonder why a halfmoon with a stumpy, missing tail is still worth $14. You expect that with fish with cups, even if these are bigger than the usual ones.

But what surprises me is how... angry they all are.

In short: I walk out of there with two fish.

An aqua delta male and a blue crowntail female that wowed me with her stripe-y pattern. I later found out that horizontal stripes like that are a sign of stress/dominance and by the time I get her home, she's blue. Haha, oops.

They're both fiesty, which you rarely see in bettas in tiny cups. I don't know who's supplying this particular Petco, because I've never been to another store with such healthy or pretty stock (they have little walls between them, so they're not being agitated by their neighbors, all that fish-rage is directed right at me). They sold baby bettas for $2, which tempted me just because they're so tiny and cute, but I really had nowhere to keep one and they're so small I don't think they can eat tiny betta pellets. But... seriously, baby bettas. I've never seen those before.


Here's the girl! She's going into Angryfish's old aquarium. She's... extremely fat. I hope she's fat and not sick. I didn't realize how pudgy she was until I got her, but she's fierce, so I think she should be okay.


Here's the boy! I think he might be a dragonscale? He's the same color as Angryfish except the iridescent scales cover almost all of his body-- which isn't why I picked him, but rather for the white bits on his tail and his desperation to cut me. Even in the tiny cup on my shelf he's trying to... I don't know, escape the cup and wage war on my living room. He's now in the 3.5 that killed Angryfish, furiously constructing a bubble nest. I'd post a picture but getting pictures through acrylic is hard, especially when my camera keeps using the flash. Shame, because he's got great movement in his fins as he zooms around.

The black edging might be the beginning of fin rot. I didn't even notice until I looked at the picture just now. It looks mild so putting him into the new tank should do the trick.

He's just a delta-- picked partially because deltas were cheaper than half-moons-- but his fins look fuller than Angryfish's because he's always RAAAAWWWR.


The girl again! As soon as I put her in the 1.5, she got all stripe-y so here's some stripes because I have never seen a fish do that before. Pretty sure it's a dominance response since she does it a few times when she sees the fish in the 75 moving around and she's trying to phase through the aquarium wall and start something.


While at the farm, I kept the fish in the glass cabinet for... obvious reasons.