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Scarlet Badis


dan12boy
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Has anyone had any experience with keeping or breeding scarlet badis? I would love to keep them in my "shy guys tank" which I technically already have setup but has other inhabitants that will be moving to my 75 gallon in the coming weeks and months. I know the males are aggressive with each other so kinda wanna make sure I get just one male and at least two females, hopefully 3. My lfs always has them in but I'm not sure how to sex them since it can be very hard. I'm going to also ask my lfs to feed them because they told me that theirs accepts dry food but everyone says they never do and only accept either live or frozen. 

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On 7/3/2022 at 10:23 PM, dan12boy said:

Has anyone had any experience with keeping or breeding scarlet badis? I would love to keep them in my "shy guys tank" which I technically already have setup but has other inhabitants that will be moving to my 75 gallon in the coming weeks and months. I know the males are aggressive with each other so kinda wanna make sure I get just one male and at least two females, hopefully 3. My lfs always has them in but I'm not sure how to sex them since it can be very hard. I'm going to also ask my lfs to feed them because they told me that theirs accepts dry food but everyone says they never do and only accept either live or frozen. 

Heard they are hard cause it’s hard to get females but if you can get one you should be good feed good and good clean water. 

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On 7/4/2022 at 1:26 AM, Leo2o915 said:

Heard they are hard cause it’s hard to get females but if you can get one you should be good feed good and good clean water. 

Yeah and I wonder why. Same with how honey gouramis females are also sometimes hard to find. I believe it's just the fact that the males are much more colored up whereas the females are more drab so they never ship those. 

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I found out to my dismay that they are jumpers and can get out through the tiniest hole.  I have tiny gaps (less than 1/8”) at the back of my 6 G cube where the plastic trim is and I had 2 jump.  I thought they might be females but I’m pretty sure in retrospect they were subdominant males.  Females are significantly less colorful and smaller than males.  I was hoping I had 1:2 but now I’m sure it was 3:0.  Now I have 0:0.  The last male just flat disappeared and I never found a trace.  The other 2 jumped and were found much too late.

The gaps and the chaser when I still had him.  You can see the gaps are less than the 1/8” thickness of the glass on the rimless cube.

AEE6A0B5-527F-4B7E-9BFC-70A880E43084.jpeg

CC8DFBF4-8ADC-4E81-9894-E60C6D71B5F3.jpeg

B20DE5F2-9723-4610-BDFF-D5ED33140F90.jpeg

Edited by Odd Duck
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I found them to be pretty easy and hardy fish to keep, other than they needed live or frozen foods. They are really fun to watch! I ended up with all males, although I tried to pick some of the plain colored ones hoping to get females. When they got home and settled in, they colored up beautifully, so were definitely not females.

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On 7/3/2022 at 10:33 PM, dan12boy said:

Yeah and I wonder why. Same with how honey gouramis females are also sometimes hard to find. I believe it's just the fact that the males are much more colored up whereas the females are more drab so they never ship those. 

Well they say the breeders only like selling the males makes sense they are more colorful and they control who breeds them 

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On 7/4/2022 at 9:12 AM, Odd Duck said:

I found out to my dismay that they are jumpers and can get out through the tiniest hole.  I have tiny gaps (less than 1/8”) at the back of my 6 G cube where the plastic trim is and I had 2 jump.  I thought they might be females but I’m pretty sure in retrospect they were subdominant males.  Females are significantly less colorful and smaller than males.  I was hoping I had 1:2 but now I’m sure it was 3:0.  Now I have 0:0.  The last male just flat disappeared and I never found a trace.  The other 2 jumped and were found much too late.

The gaps and the chaser when I still had him.  You can see the gaps are less than the 1/8” thickness of the glass on the rimless cube

That is actually so insane, so far I've lost one fish to jumping and it was a guppy. Now that I have clown killis I made a diy top and it had one very tiny hole at a corner. I hope that when I get mine they feel safe enough to not wanna do that. I hate when fish disappear without a trace so much! One time in my 20 tall I couldn't find one pygmy cory for the longest time, was doing a water change and there it was...just bones nothing else. I was in shock and didn't even take a picture of it. At least I know my tank is quick enough to not let dead fish mess up the parameters lol.

 

On 7/4/2022 at 10:28 AM, BradfordAquatics said:

I found them to be pretty easy and hardy fish to keep, other than they needed live or frozen foods. They are really fun to watch! I ended up with all males, although I tried to pick some of the plain colored ones hoping to get females. When they got home and settled in, they colored up beautifully, so were definitely not females.

Yours never took dry food? I don't mind having to feed them frozen foods, live might just pose a challenge since I wouldn't have the time to hatch bbs every day but I could just get vinegar eels or white worms and culture those I'm guessing. 

 

On 7/4/2022 at 1:10 PM, Expectorating_Aubergine said:

Finding a female is going to be the real challenge. Subdominant males look like females. Immature males too. Aquabid doesn't seem to be any better. I know a handful of people that bought females off there only to have them color up and reveal themselves to be males.

That really sucks because the males are pretty territorial, if I got them and they were all male I'd just return them and keep one and hope to find females.

 

On 7/4/2022 at 1:14 PM, Leo2o915 said:

Well they say the breeders only like selling the males makes sense they are more colorful and they control who breeds them 

Wow that actually makes sense, if possible I'd try to personally contact a breeder from aquabid and straight up plead for them to ship me one lol! Never bought fish online though so kinda worried to attempt that. Especially since it's so costly.

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On 7/4/2022 at 6:12 AM, Odd Duck said:

I found out to my dismay that they are jumpers and can get out through the tiniest hole.  I have tiny gaps (less than 1/8”) at the back of my 6 G cube where the plastic trim is and I had 2 jump.  I thought they might be females but I’m pretty sure in retrospect they were subdominant males.  Females are significantly less colorful and smaller than males.  I was hoping I had 1:2 but now I’m sure it was 3:0.  Now I have 0:0.  The last male just flat disappeared and I never found a trace.  The other 2 jumped and were found much too late.

The gaps and the chaser when I still had him.  You can see the gaps are less than the 1/8” thickness of the glass on the rimless cube.

AEE6A0B5-527F-4B7E-9BFC-70A880E43084.jpeg

CC8DFBF4-8ADC-4E81-9894-E60C6D71B5F3.jpeg

B20DE5F2-9723-4610-BDFF-D5ED33140F90.jpeg

They jumped with floaters!? wow. That's a fish with a wish. You know where I'm going with that.

 

Bummer. I had thought about getting 3 to predate on my shrimplettes in the 5.5 but decided against it because the tank is too small for a healthy population of them.

 

On topic: I guess with a well fitting lid and enough space though, you could pick up a group of them online and then you'll get a decent mix of male/female. I can't remember the size of your shy guy tank though.... They are good in a 20G if you have 6. They like a lot of plants and decent current.

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On 7/4/2022 at 11:48 PM, Minanora said:

They jumped with floaters!? wow. That's a fish with a wish. You know where I'm going with that.

 

Bummer. I had thought about getting 3 to predate on my shrimplettes in the 5.5 but decided against it because the tank is too small for a healthy population of them.

 

On topic: I guess with a well fitting lid and enough space though, you could pick up a group of them online and then you'll get a decent mix of male/female. I can't remember the size of your shy guy tank though.... They are good in a 20G if you have 6. They like a lot of plants and decent current.

Some form of gourami like the sparkling gourami could help with predating on them. I'd have said paradise fish but they'd decimate all the shrimp not just the shrimplettes. I believe. The shy guy tank is a 20 tall, my lfs always has them so the next time I go in I'll ask try to study to see if I can find a definitive female and also ask the owner to try to help me out. They would go with clown killis right? I believe they're mainly "aggressive" towards each other and that'd be just the males being territorial, otherwise I believe they're shy.

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On 7/4/2022 at 8:54 PM, dan12boy said:

Some form of gourami like the sparkling gourami could help with predating on them. I'd have said paradise fish but they'd decimate all the shrimp not just the shrimplettes. I believe. The shy guy tank is a 20 tall, my lfs always has them so the next time I go in I'll ask try to study to see if I can find a definitive female and also ask the owner to try to help me out. They would go with clown killis right? I believe they're mainly "aggressive" towards each other and that'd be just the males being territorial, otherwise I believe they're shy.

Killis are good with shrimp tanks from what I understand.

I have Chili Rasboras with a group of shrimp in a 2.6 called the "Chili Ruins" (eventually I'll update my signature to reflect the name). Those fish are letting the shrimp breed like no tomorrow. They do not care about the shrimplettes. Not even if I don't feed for a week. Or, rather, I don't see a notable decline in population when I do that.

Edited by Minanora
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On 7/4/2022 at 11:59 PM, Minanora said:

Killis are good for shrimp tanks from what I understand.

I have Chili Rasboras with a group of shrimp in a 2.6 called the "Chili Ruins" (eventually I'll update my signature to reflect the name). Those fish are letting the shrimp breed like no tomorrow. They do not care about the shrimplettes. Not even if I don't feed for a week. Or, rather, I don't see a notable decline in population when I do that.

Maybe the chilis just accept that it's so many shrimp and try to act like they don't exist lol! My shrimp population is surprisingly growing pretty fast but my snail population is declining at the same rate...hmm

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On 7/4/2022 at 10:30 PM, dan12boy said:

That is actually so insane, so far I've lost one fish to jumping and it was a guppy. Now that I have clown killis I made a diy top and it had one very tiny hole at a corner. I hope that when I get mine they feel safe enough to not wanna do that. I hate when fish disappear without a trace so much! One time in my 20 tall I couldn't find one pygmy cory for the longest time, was doing a water change and there it was...just bones nothing else. I was in shock and didn't even take a picture of it. At least I know my tank is quick enough to not let dead fish mess up the parameters lol.

 

Yours never took dry food? I don't mind having to feed them frozen foods, live might just pose a challenge since I wouldn't have the time to hatch bbs every day but I could just get vinegar eels or white worms and culture those I'm guessing. 

 

That really sucks because the males are pretty territorial, if I got them and they were all male I'd just return them and keep one and hope to find females.

 

Wow that actually makes sense, if possible I'd try to personally contact a breeder from aquabid and straight up plead for them to ship me one lol! Never bought fish online though so kinda worried to attempt that. Especially since it's so costly.

The first 2 jumped out before I even realized they were subdominant males. I still don’t know for sure exactly where they got out since the gaps around that tank are so small.

Scarlet badis are too small for anything but the smallest white worms. They can eat Grindal worms or anything smaller - microworms banana worms, Walter worms, vinegar eels, and small Daphnia, Moina, or Ceriodaphnia.  Obviously baby brine shrimp, too.

Even when people have requested breeding pairs of scarlet badis that isn’t necessarily what they get. No matter the website where they’re ordered. It’s harder to tell than you might think since juvenile males look like females. Subdominant males can look like females. I picked out the 2 smallest and plainest badis in the tank first, and then the brightest and largest. Still got 3 males in retrospect. 

On 7/4/2022 at 10:48 PM, Minanora said:

They jumped with floaters!? wow.

I didn’t have floaters in that tank at the time. 

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On 7/5/2022 at 6:19 AM, Odd Duck said:

The first 2 jumped out before I even realized they were subdominant males. I still don’t know for sure exactly where they got out since the gaps around that tank are so small.

Scarlet badis are too small for anything but the smallest white worms. They can eat Grindal worms or anything smaller - microworms banana worms, Walter worms, vinegar eels, and small Daphnia, Moina, or Ceriodaphnia.  Obviously baby brine shrimp, too.

Even when people have requested breeding pairs of scarlet badis that isn’t necessarily what they get. No matter the website where they’re ordered. It’s harder to tell than you might think since juvenile males look like females. Subdominant males can look like females. I picked out the 2 smallest and plainest badis in the tank first, and then the brightest and largest. Still got 3 males in retrospect. 

I didn’t have floaters in that tank at the time. 

I'll maybe get only the least colored ones and see if they color up to be males or not. I'd have more chances, although slim, of finding a female.

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