A Blish by any other name is still a Blish

Hello - I am the newest in a long long long
line of Blishes - Old Blish who you met some weeks back is still happy in his retirement tank.

Now for those that do not know I am a Betta Splenda of the CrownTail variety. In days of old I use to be called a Siamese Fighting Fish as Siam (which is now called Thailand) is where my species originated from. Can you believe our kind lived in rice paddies - of coarse those far distant relatives are no where as fancy as me or as colorful - they are mostly a reddish brown.

I am also what is called a labyrinth fish - which means I have lungs - teeny tiny ones - but yes lungs - and I breath air which means I prefer shallow tanks and lots of plants to rest on as it is tiring always popping up to the surface for a gulp of air.

Another amazing fact about my kind - is when we breed - we males build very special bubble nests that float on the surface. We secrete a sticky substance that holds the bubbles together.   Our kind lay eggs and when our lady friend is ready - we will wrap ourselves around her and squeeze out one egg at a time. As she drops the egg we catch it in our mouth and then blow it into the bubble nest. We do that over and over again - 50 times or more. (Most good breeders do not allow more then twenty eggs at a time though as it is very exhausting for the females).

Of coarse there is also a reason we are called fighting fish - we don't like other males. Do you know in some places they fight us on purpose and make bets on the us - THE HAND says it is a terrible practice akin to rooster and dog fighting .....as we fight to the death. THE HAND says it should be banned! We do not even like to see ourselves reflected in our tank glass or a mirror (a game many children like to play with us - but it is a stressful thing to do to us) Our fighting instinct is so strong it kicks in when we are only a week old  and all the babies have to be separated into individual containers so as not to kill each other!!!! At that age we are about the size of a mosquito larvae and already willing to take on the world!

If you are wondering why I don't have any gravel in my tank - there is a reason for that. You see one lone little fish like me eats very very little and food would fall into the gravel and basically rot there making my tank water all yucky - so THE HAND prefers to keep my tank and water nice and clean for me. I do have a filter in my tank but it is very gentle as our kind do not like moving water very much.   We can actually do okay in a community tank but often find other fish like to nibble on our fins - so a solitary life is just fine for us.


By the way  - my tank has been reverberating with the thud thud of those fuzzy waterless things that I keep seeing swishing by my tank. They even make my water shimmy when they make that evil barking noise. I hope THE HAND does something about them or I may have to pick a fight with them!

Here I am in all my glory - and yes that is my real color - you can ewww and ahhhh now !