UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMORS AND HINTS A list of claims related to bettas and experiments to verify them.
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We've all read something somewhere that suggests something that makes sense, but isn't substantiated by controlled testing. Or at least the source of the rumor or hint isn't able to provide a good reference for it. I myself have received emails from people who've said, "I've heard that this is the cause of such and such." Sound familiar? Just because these rumors and hints are unsubstantiated doesn't mean they aren't valuable. They may be true. Even if not, they start people thinking about cause and effect and in so doing may lead to the discovery of a real solution to some problem. This page is dedicated to such rumors and hints. The goal is to archive all of them I can find so that they can be examined by visitors who might be able to supply scientific substantiation or refutation of them.
NEW!!! See below for Brine Shrimp rumor control!
Please remember, these are suggestions, rumors and hints that may or may not be true.
Kordon responds to a query about NovAqua and/or AmQuel neutralizing Aquari-Sol.
I'd heard a rumor that NovAqua and/or AmQuel neutralized the fungus preventative Aquari-Sol so I emailed the Kordon company who makes NovAqua. Here was the response:
Wayne:
The product about which you asked (Aquari-Sol) is highly ineffective as a disease preventative even without the concurrent use of NovAqua. In fact, given the relative ineffectiveness as a disease treatt and/or preventative, the NovAqua would work as well, if not better.
You may find it interesting that the product was originally a silver-based solution. That is, the ingredient "ZYCOSIN" used to be described as "a water soluble silver" compound. After the Hunt brothes' debacle in the 1980s which caused a rapid rise in the price of silver, there was a subtle change made on the label where the word "silver" was changed to "copper". Interestingly, the color remained unchanged.
If you desire to use a copper-based medication as a disease preventative (which, BTW, is not recommended) then use one that clearly states what concentration of copper is produced in the water when the product is used as directed. In addition, you must use a copper test kit to track the copper levels in the water.
==JFK==
Interesting, don't you think?
If
you have a female that isn't responding to the male, placing a
second female in the background of the spawning tank will get her
interested in the male.
I suppose the idea here is that competition makes the female more
agreeable to spawning.
If a male isn't tending a bubble nest, placing a second male in the background (isolated, of course) will induce him to be more attentive to tending the nest.
It's not dirty water that limits how large bettas grow. Rather, they release a hormone which limits their size if the concentration is too great.
Bettas that grow slowly live longer. If so, how much longer?
Bettas that grow slowly will develop better-shaped fins. Does this mean that a single-tailed delta might become a halfmoon if grown slowly but only a super delta if grown fast?
Bettas fed only brine shrimp develop swim bladder problems. I'm adding this one because Claude, my orange with the deformed mouth, will only eat live brine shrimp. That's all he's eaten for many months and so far he hasn't had any problems. Of course that's only one fish and as an anecdote, means nothing. Still, it raises the question.
NEW!!! Related to this rumor is that fry raised on only baby brine shrimp develop swim bladder problems. I tested this by raising three fry on only baby brine shrimp for the first five weeks of their lives. None of them developed bladder problems. However, I was very careful to make sure that no unhatched eggs got into the fry tank. I've observed that fry will egg these eggs and that they remain in the fry for up to two weeks. It seems reasonable that any swim bladder problems resulting in a BBS-only diet are more likely the fault of the fry eating unhatched eggs than eating too many BBS. By the way, even though I provided many more BBS than the fry could eat, none of them ate themselves to death.
A Britta water filter will remove all the harmful chemicals and wastes from a betta jar.
Baby brine shrimp need to be hatched in salt water. I tested this and can state that this rumor isn't true. I regulary hatch thousands of brine shrimp in water that has no salt added to it.
In addition to physically conditioning bettas for a spawn, it helps to mentally condition them as well. Surround the male with other males and the female with other females during the conditioning period. This way the excitement of a suddenly seeing the opposite sex when you put them in the spawning tank puts them into a more amorous mood.
Brine shrimp eggs need bright light to hatch. This is another theory that didn't hold up against testing. I hatched a large batch of baby brine shrimp with no light other than what was ambient in a shuttered room. The light level was low enough at the brightest that reading a book would cause eye strain. Additionally, the hatchery was tucked away under a shelf and in a corner where the light was even dimmer. At night, there was no light at all. The shrimp still hatched in large numbers.
In spawning white opaques, the color of the female is more important than the color of the male.
Bettas that spawn in acidic water produce mostly male fry.
