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OT. bettas
Hi All,
This is an interesting thread. I love bettas. Always have. I think
the few fish that go for the crazy prices are nice but I would never pay
those prices. I am sure it will pass too, but I seem to have the impression
that strains produce only a very few perfect half moons and crowns. Sorry to
say, I think crowns are ugly. Half moons are beautiful and the old fashioned
veil tail betta is lovely, but the crowns are to me genetics gone wild --
like balloon mollies and fat ghost body x-ray tetras. People are buying a
fad, a show trophy, bragging rights, breeding stock or beauty. Killies will
never go for those prices between hobbyists because we do not have truely
"show" fish. We could do that. We could build a series of sanctioned shows
and then focus on the winning and the awards and the numbers and then market
our fish that way -- as "show" fish. Do we need to? Nope. Killies are
gorgeous as they come. Bettas are too, but wild type species of bettas would
produce a killifish-like hobby and not a guppy-like hobby. Actually, what is
fascinating to me in the betta hobby is the current rise in the popularity of
all the species and I see great old killie *farts* getting involved. I am
tempted. The species are fascinating. If you have not bought Bob Goldstein's
new book BETTAS, put out by Barron's -- DO!!!! -- it is a great book, worth
the price alone for the disease and live food sections! I bet the betta hobby
in a few years will resemble the killie hobby in the intense, almost
scientific love of the natural species. Its coming and they are the NEW fish
in the hobby -- like rainbows in the 80's, east african cichlids in the 70's,
killies in the 50's, delta tail guppies in the 60's, discus in the 90's and
doubletail bettas in the 60's. I paid $25 a pair for double tails and blacks
in the late 60's from paper route money. I wonder what $25 would be today? I
paid $6 for a pair of blue gularis in 1966. I wonder what that would be
today? Stores today sell killies for $10, $15, even $25 a pair. Do they sell
bettas for that? Nope.
I raise fancy swordtails (and plain colored but beautifully finned and
graceful wild species no one ever sees). Selecting, feeding!!!!!!!!, rearing
and culling hi fin swords for long wide full dorsals and big bodied males
makes breeding half moons, veil tail mollies and delta tail guppies a breeze.
The cost of big tanks and bbs alone for feeding baby swords is alot. The
fancy livebearers have left the hobby because of the cost and time it takes
to raise them. When I sell culls they sell for $10 a male easily. Why do I
like the man made beauty of Mrs. Simpson's swords as much as the killifish's
natural beauty? Easy. I like Art and Nature. Our society has a way of
belittling Art. Science does too. The best always love both. Both are magical
in the mind.
Now capitalism. I find it sad that we live under the Enron world view. We
praise ourselves, but do we know what kind of fish hobbyists and fish were
behind the iron curtain? East Germans had F. arnoldi when the West lost it.
They kept the old Aphy. seymouri (kywaensis? spelling!) going when we lost
it. The Bulgarians and Ruusians raised cardinals (never easy) by the
thousands -- as well as kuhlii loaches. They gave us gold gouramis, long fin
black tetras, long fin zebra danios and long fin rosey barbs. They traded
their fish in open air flea markets. The hobby survived just fine under
communism and probably escaped such fads as poor bettas in a bowl with plant
roots to eat. I guess oppression takes the *fool* out of must buyers when
there are no resources to foolishly waste. Just like mighty Enron, bettas
prices will collapse. Be sure to save that betta money for next year's rent.
The landlord might discover some new fad and a new group of *fools.* Ah, the
beauty of the market, as man made as any crowntail. heheheheh.
Robert E.
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