A Typical Day @ 'Work'...

At the moment, everything I'm involved with at work is being delayed for one reason or another. It's annoying as at some point, someone will want it all done in a very short period of time and I'll suddenly have to be flat out. Nothing worse than waiting on the incompetency's of others...

Until then, I have plenty of time to do research on Betta-related topics!

Today I did research on the following topics:

• Green genetics
• Betta Diseases
• Reverse Osmosis (RO)
• Fish Transport (particularly through Aus Post)

Why?

Green - Grass Green should be highly possible with the introduction of yellow into the Windsor line. As William is a dragon, his scaling and iridescence should, when mixed with the nr1 gene, remove all trace of red, and improve the quality of the green displayed. What I want though, once I've got this Grass Green (with no red or blue influence), is to deepen the green. This may require the finding or creation of a Super Green-type gene. There is a Super Red, and a Super Blue. Super Blue apparently breed true Super Blues. Normal Blues, when bred with other normal Blues, produce Steel, Turquoise and Blue. So, if I can get to Grass Green, and make it reproducible, then I should be able to move forward from there towards a better green.

Sidebar to this is the commencement of a yellow line of Crown-Tails (CTs) to begin the search for a yellow Half-Sun :D

Betta Diseases - Herman  the Half-Moon (HM) currently has a couple of issues. Firstly, his fins after being mauled by Lilly during an attempted spawn to start the Munster line.

Next would be his left ventral fin. It's been slowly changing since I got him. It doesn't seem to be bothering him in anyway but it is definitely a defect. Research, and the wonderful people at AusAqua have been great to reassure me it's not a big issue for breeding stock, but I'm hoping the defect isn't what caused Lilly to beat down on him...

RO - Two of the types of Betta most affected badly by hard water are the HM and the CT. Hmmm...no real surprises then that research into RO would come about sooner rather than later. So much sooner, that I may actually go purchase a unit this weekend.

Lastly, Fish Transport - All of the fish I have purchased from interstate came through Parcel Express. All of them were extremely well packed. None leaked or had any form of 'incident'. All fish arrived in good condition.

All may have been shipped illegally!

There has been some anecdotal evidence that live fish through Parcel Express is okay. There has been just as much (if not slightly more) evidence to say it's not okay.

So I emailed Australia Post for a definitive answer:

Dear Sir/Madam

I breed Siamese Fighting Fish in Adelaide, South Australia. It has been suggested to me I would sell more stock if I accommodated for sending fish interstate.

I've read through varied sites, that it may be illegal to send live fish through Australia Post.

Can you please confirm or deny this, and if it is illegal, could you suggest correct methods for the sending and receiving of fish in a timely manner across states?

Thank you in advance.

Brenton

The journey continues...