Tropical Fish Hobbyist3, and three papers published only in German, nothing appears to have been published on this fish to date. With one exception, none of the general (or even the anabantoid specific) books in my library even mentioned Betta albimarginata. The one book exception was the reference work: Aqualog All Labyrinths4. However, in various respects this book contradicted information in the TFH article, and/or my own limited experience with these fish. For example, the Aqualog book indicated these fish required room temperature, would eat dry food, occupied the lower regions of the tank, and were difficult to keep. None of these I have found to be the case. With little written on this fish, and conflicting information when there was something written, I was pretty much on my own as to how to care for them. From the TFH article31 learned these fish are native to an area where the water was 81째F., slightly acidic (pH between 5.5 and 6.0), and soft ( <3째dGH). (The Aqualog book at least agreed with TFH on the need for soft, acid water.) The TFH article mentioned that these fish were collected among masses of leaves. I learned the breeder piii:||lllil;ill;;ll|||| from whom I obtained these fish had water similar to the soft, neutral pH of my New York City water. So, that seemed to mean that I would only need to worry about food, warmth, and leaves. I "borrowed" plants from several other tanks (Joe Ferdenzi brought me some more), until over half the tank was a jungle of large leaves. I soon discovered that these fish love to hide among the leaves and peek out. But, instead of occupying only the lower region of the tank (as per the Aqualog book), these fish can be found at all levels (although they are actually more often found in the upper half of the tank). Water temperature was taken care of by means of a heater set at 80째F. For filtration, I chose a large box filter. Using a power filter or canister filter would, I reasoned, create too much water circulation, even in a heavily planted tank. While B. albimarginata are not bubblenest builders, they are Labyrinth fish, whose labyrinth organ developed to adapt these fish to relatively oxygen-poor, stagnant, or nearly-stagnant, water.
A box filter seemed to be the best compromise for filtration with minimal water movement. The next thing I had to concern myself with was food. The breeder from whom I got these fish fed them almost exclusively a diet of tubifex worms. In years past, I have had poor experience with live worms (although, to tell the truth, I had better experience with tubifex than with blood worms), and I was a bit reluctant to use them. So, I started these fish on a diet of adult brine shrimp, followed (after I gave them time to eat their fill) by tubifex worms every other day. This schedule was in the hope that I could eventually wean them off tubifex worms. The live adult brine shrimp were soon accepted; but all attempts at giving flake, pelleted, freeze dried, or frozen foods were rejected totally. Now, I am not normally fixated on spawning fish. In spite of the fact that I have bred a number of fish (or, to tell it more truthfully, I have had a number of fish spawn in my tanks), I never submitted any of these spawns for BAP points, However, I am very interested in spawning these particular fish. In an effort to encourage spawning, I performed 20% water changes every three days (a highly unusual schedule for me, I must admit), and was rewarded within a ^^ i|ill|ip month with seeing one of my males putting :!!ii&^^ relatively large, white, eggs into his mouth (with a resulting very swollen throat). When I mentioned this to another fishkeeper, he asked me a question I admit never occurred to me, namely "how, if this is an anabantoid, can this fish take in air with a mouth full of eggs?" I still don't know the answer to that question, even though right now I am raising three different species of mouthbrooding anabantoids. I was not lucky enough to witness the actual spawning in my tank, although I did note some playful behavior, with a male and female pair circling each other, a few days previous. I do not know whether this behavior was a prelude to the spawning or not. The TFH article also indicated that the spawning behavior of these fish is similar in some ways to that of B. splendens, with the male first embracing the female, then picking up the eggs in his mouth while the female lays immobile after each embrace. The difference, of course, is that the male
February 2000
Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)