Thread: A slightly different farm - reloaded

Some of you might remember my visit to a siamese fighting fish farm in this thread: https://teakdoor.com/farming-and-gard...rent-farm.html

As in different areas of Thailand different species are used for the fish fights, my farm visits continue:


Betta smaragdina-Fighter and their reproduction in Thailand




A good week after having arrived in north-eastern Thailand I started my first fish excursion. I went to meet a Facebook friend around 100 km east of my place who is mainly into the breeding of Betta smaragdina.


After 1.5 hrs in the partly chaotic Thai traffic Oof – in Facebook named „Betta Esan“ – met me at a prominent place and we went to his home and the small Betta farm.


Besides the Bettas I immediately recognised a lot of nice orchids being cultivated in the garden.
In the showroom, a small room constructed beside the house there were all kind of Betta smaragdina: nominat, copper and guitar were swimming in the typical small Thai containers.


There is still some confusion if copper and guitar are „real“ smaragdinas, for copper a hybridisation is guessed to be possible but the tail pattern in the guitar variant clearly is not the result of a breeder so we can expect to get a new species described.









A bit aside in the garden was the place for the normally used concrete rings and stone build containers to raise the brood. The surface was covered with plants, not as much as a hideaway for the fish but to protect the water from evaporation due to the high temperatures which may occur especially in the dry season.
For this and also to protect the water from overheating the containers are covered with sheet metal. Usually to 75% which is sufficient fo ensure the plant growth. But even on completely covered containers the plants still grow thanks to the intense light outside of which enough finds its way inside.












One catch







Big females of Betta smaragdina







The ovipositor tubeis easy to spot







New brood is growing




The diet of the fish consists mainly of Moina and bloodworms which are cultivated in further concrete rings.









Just at the very end of the tour I was able to see that on the other side of the house there are still more containers with different varieties of Betta splendens.




After some time we sent further south to a big farm only breeding Betta smaragdina.


Close to the house there were only single specimen but also the fighting arenas in which the fish fights are performed with Betta smaragdina.









Then we crossed a rubber plantation to get to the farm, 3200 sqm besides some rice paddies – which at the moment were in the middle of harvesting – in which one small pool was placed beside the next.







Manual rice harvest







Who can spot the Betta farm?




As the pools are placed on different elevational levels, water can flow through plastic or bamboo pipes, at least when it rains, which in this are is not very often.
Even in rainy season the rainfall consists of some occasional drops and very few tropical showers which then fill every pool with 10 or more cm and if having superficial water entering then even more. So the water distribution with the pipes is more than needed to not loose fish being just washed out.














The farm is directly at the shores of the Nam-Un-dam, just separated by some rice paddies. The view from the Betta pools is that magnificent that I was close to ask for the price of land in this area!




If you look at the different sized pools a little closer, you see that from the aquarium perspective the water would be classified more as liquid manure than as Betta cultivation water.
This is due to the fact, that the Bettas are risen completely natural, without artificial feeding. All food is supplied by nature leading to the presence of a lot of dragonflys (and their larvae) and even frogs.
So the low maintenance and food concentration is the reason that this farm „only“ keeps around 30000 Betta smaragdina.









The main reproductive season is from June to August, but also in mid November at some places I could spot bubblenests. A very special place for his nest had one male which choosed a bamboo pole with a drilled hole in the middle, so the nest filled the complete pole and the fry was protected from any predators leaving the male with an easy job.
Why do we always put something on the surface to support the nests?










Nest in the pole




From some of the pools the owner catched some Smaragdina of different ages but on one pool the just above semi-adult ones just spashed into my eyes, as brilliant the color was. That just led to one of them being put into a bag to be presented to me as a gift.





















Freshly cought Smaragdina „Turbo“







And the enlarged detail




Now we drove back to the start and 5 km into my direction.
The breeder over there had, besides the Betta smaragdina some very niche Betta splendens Crowntail and Super Red. One of the Super Red males with an exceptional finnage also found the way into a bag, here also was no discussion regarding the price, another gift!
Unfortunately no fitting female was available.



























A pair in preparation for mating




Like 10% of this small farm was dedicated for food production which is a lot easier if you have tropical sun instead of european cloudy skies.
Just take one of the typical concrete rings, fill it with water and add some Moina – you can catch daily fresh from the algae blooming water. Some mosquito larvae or bloodworms are the surplus.














And to use available space effectively, old 5 l oil cans have also been transformed to breeding habitats.









Finally we went back to the starting farm of Oof where I inspected the fish in the showroom.
I wanted to take some couples, so 6 Smaragdinas went into the bags and as seventh fish a female Super Red fitting to the male from the other farm was also packaged.
Even though I tried not only once – as now it was a significant quantity – I wasn't allowed to pay for the fish. They all were a gift for the visitor from the country the father was wearing the futbol shirt from.
In the showroom there were also some trophys won in fighting competitions wiuth the smaragdinas.














The whole trip took like 5 hours and were like 300 km driving to which I put another 160 km after dropping the fish for buying me a motorbike, so it was a busy day, but also a lot of fun!




Bye,
Derk

Hi Derk ,

Thanxs for your time and effort posting an intresting read

Interesting post. Where do the fighting competitions take place? And I apologize but what is moina? It would be great if you happened to attend a competition and were to post some picts. Thanks again.

had to look them up never heard of them.

Derk how much they sell for?

Originally Posted by moxhambi

Interesting post. Where do the fighting competitions take place? And I apologize but what is moina? It would be great if you happened to attend a competition and were to post some picts. Thanks again.

Moina are like the more known Daphnia belonging to the water fleas.

Unfortunately I have never been around when competitions were hold, but if interested, there is a designated fighting fish magazin which sure has them listed.

Originally Posted by Yasojack

had to look them up never heard of them.

Derk how much they sell for?

The Betta smaragdina is known in Thai as "pla kat keaw" but usually you find it from time to time in fish shops in Isaan or regularly on JJ Market in Bangkok.
The price ranges from THB 40.- to 2000.- but usually is 50.- - 150.-.

As they are not looking very colorful when in sales containers you have to look well as they "disappear" between all the colored Betta splendens.

Mine I left in one of the concrete rings when I went back to Germany for a doctors visit and during these 4 weeks they were breeding at least twice...

Bye,
Derk

Nice pictures. Interesting activity you have visiting these farms.

Very interesting dirk. Well done.

Very interesting, Thais are really clever here in breeding these fish,ingenuity.

Are there "Fish Snakes" lurking around th shallow pools. They hang around all the Paddy irrigation Pond sin Issan.

Good info.Great day trip.

is fish fighting like dog fighting?

Thank goodness an Animal protection charity has not spotted this, it could be a new big money earner, a new cause, stop fish fighting in Asia.
Fish fighting leaves orphans, please donate generously , to help us protect victims of fish wives fights.
If you have a gambling problem, betting on fish fights, then contact the fishy U.K based charity, Gamblers anonymous.

Those fighting fish remind me of some posters here. They see the enemy, but the enemy is just the same as them.

You must be kidding!

Originally Posted by Kurgen

is fish fighting like dog fighting?

Much the same except one group tends to fight on land...

Originally Posted by BaitongBoy

Originally Posted by Kurgen

is fish fighting like dog fighting?

Much the same except one group tends to fight on land...

Short fight if you make fish fight on land. Guess it involves a lot of mouthing off and flapping about?