Lets start with the sad news, my female Betta albimarginata has died. She has not been well over the past few days so I separated her from her male. She continued to feed well on black worms but had a swimming disorder. Last night, instead of floating she sunk and looked extremely lifeless. This morning she was found dead.

It’s fustrating knowing that this is the last wild female I can get my hands on given the new laws in Australia that prevent further importation of this fish.

Onto the good news. This morning, I discovered that the hendra eggs have hatched! The male hendra is doing a great job of looking after his nest. I can see the film canister float up more towards the back as the number of bubbles hes squeezing in increases. He’s also doing a good job at guarding his nest, chasing the female away when she approaches. I am looking forwards to seeing the little critters become free swimmers!

Plants plants plants. I am trying to jam more and more plants into the aquariums. Apart from my fondness of plants, I am also relying on them to absorb the nutrients floating around before they reach harmful levels. So far I am relying on duck weed to do the exporting of neutirents but I have more Bucephalandra to add to the tanks. I am thinking that the Bucephalandra would do good with shaded light from the duck weed. I just hope that they can with stand the low PH. So far I am seeing good growth on my existing Bucephalandra, time will tell how this goes.