I caught my B. burdigala spawning, but unfortunately they were at an odd angle and the glass isn't very clean (whoops!). I've been doing a lot of water changes to compensate for the sheer amount of fry in there...it's only a 4 gallon tank, and I'm worried about stunting their growth. I hope to be able to transfer the fry to the 20 gallon (although I'm not sure how yet!) once the B. smaragdina move on to new homes.

Right now, I am thinking of dropping the B. smaragdina permanently and instead focusing on the B. burdigala. I am just in love with this species and hope to have a thriving, self-sustaining colony that I can occasionally share with other hobbyists. There has been a lot of demand for this species recently, which gives me hope that it can survive in captivity even if their natural habitat is lost.

I haven't had a failed spawn in a while (thank goodness) but I decided to put this one here to show that sometimes, even the oddest things can happen that can prevent you from getting that cross you've always wanted. In this case, Armando, my beautiful red traditional PK male from Sieg and Judy Illig, just could not figure out how to wrap my little yellow female. Again and again she came under the nest and nudged  him, but he never responded. He later went blind, which makes me think that his eyesight was poor enough at this early stage to prevent him from seeing her  cues successfully. It was awful to watch...went on for a LONG time. The female eventually dropped all her eggs in a corner and I removed her. I was never able to get a spawn from him.

NEVER wait to spawn if you have an opportunity to! I could have spawned him many times, but just kept putting it off. Oh well...things happen :(

One of my old giant bettas jumping up for his food. Scared the crap out of me lol

My very first prints of my own photographs came in, and wow!! I'm not used to seeing my photos on glossy paper, they look so snazzy! Way better than on a computer screen :-D I'm so happy lol. I got these done at adoramapix. They did an AMAZING job with both the printing and the packaging. And each 8x10 was only a dollar! Couldn't be any more satisfied :)

I used to do a lot of clay sculpture when I was in high school. Lately, I've been having difficulty focusing on any particular topic for long periods of time, so I decided that re-visiting this old hobby would be good for exercising my focus and concentration :) I love sitting and working on something so intensely that the minutes and hours just slip by...