Sexing Scarlet Badis

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RachelG

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California
I bought a pair of scarlet badis yesterday and I love them! They were the first fish I wanted for my first tank, but I was never able to find them until now. I feel lucky! I currently have them in a 5.5 gallon with plenty of plants and a few cherry shrimp.

One is for sure a male, but the other, which the store owner insisted is a female, I am not sure about. "she" was pretty pale yesterday, but today she has bright red stripes on her sides. This makes me think she might actually be a younger male. (Pictures of both fish below)

If I do indeed have two males, are they going to become aggressive when the smaller one matures? If this is the case, I can take the smaller one back. I know that a seller on ebay sells single female badis if I need one, though they are a bit pricey...

My male badis seems to be very energetic, zipping around the front of the tank, waving his fins frantically as if he is excited to see what's in my room. The way he darts and stops with his fins flapping reminds me of a hummingbird. It's cute. Is this normal behavior or should I expect him to calm down after a while? The smaller "female" doesn't do this and is content to sniff around in the plants.

So far the female has eaten(a live bloodworm, which was the only live food available around here at the moment), but I haven't seen the male eat. I have frozen daphnia and brine shrimp to try to feed them, as well as mini nls pellets and flakes if they decide to take those.
 

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Are there other fish with them? Scarlet badis will almost never compete for food.
 
I'm guessing that one is a male and the other female, because although the females are almost always white to grey in color, they do have faded red along their sides, like you described. As for food, Scarlets will almost never eat pellets, but the baby cherry shrimp in that tank, along with live worms, should be sufficient for food. Sounds like you have all the basics covered though.

Nils
 
Glad you posted this and congrats on the fish!

I got a fish order yesterday that including 2 badis...there's definitely a male and I'm almost positive the other is a female, still trying to get some decent photos :rolleyes:
 
Are there other fish with them? Scarlet badis will almost never compete for food.

Nope, just some cherry shrimp and a bunch of teeny-tiny two millimeter long snails that I can't ID. (They make a great algea-busting crew so I don't mind them)
 
Now the female has a tiny fuzzy white bump on her head. I will do small daily water changes to try to clear it up. If it doesn't clear up or gets worse, what kind of treatment should I look into?
 
Sorry to hear that, is she acting normally? Have you checked into what it might be?
 
It sounds to me like a bacterial infection, could be fungus too. I don't know much about treatments, but with ich, you'll want to raise the water temperature to 80 for 3 days and if it doesn't go away by then you'll have to deal with meds. Hopefully someone else can chime in on this.

Nils
 
I agree. Can you get a photo? Might be a good idea to post in the Unhealthy Fish forum :(
 
I'm sure it isn't ich and I have seen this type of fuzzy bump appear on my rasboras a lot when I would first bring them home, but it usually went away in a couple of days, so I'm not worried about it just yet. I guess whatever it is is in my water and attacks my newly-bought and stressed fish, but clean water can usually clear it up.

I took the best picture I could, but this fish is tiny. You an barely see a fuzzy white bump above the eye.

There is also a video of my male darting around excitedly. He does this a LOT. is that normal behavior or is he going nuts for a reason?
 

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I just found out that the "bloodworms" I have are actually tubifex! Aren't they bad for fish? This sucks, there are no other live foods available locally. I hope my badis learn to love frozen daphnia. :(
 
Try to see if you find some grindal worms. Mine love them. Got mine from eBay for 18 bucks for a whole culture. Bought last it August and now I have four cultures going.


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Try to see if you find some grindal worms. Mine love them. Got mine from eBay for 18 bucks for a whole culture. Bought last it August and now I have four cultures going.


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There are some on ebay still, and I think I may have found the $18 portion you bought. Looks like a big portion. I might grab that.
 
Try to see if you find some grindal worms. Mine love them. Got mine from eBay for 18 bucks for a whole culture. Bought last it August and now I have four cultures going.

I'm definitely interested...what exactly do I do once I receive the culture?
 
What I did was first sprayed a little distilled water on the surface of the culture. Then I fed them. I feed them new life spectrum .5 mm pellets. 1 mm will work too. You'll need a piece of plastic or glass, cd cover works well you'll just need to break it down into a half or quarter, and place over the food. Oh, lightly spray the food with distilled water to soften up the food. Don't use tap water unless it's conditioned. In an hour check on them, you'll see them all over the food and plastic piece you put in. They'll be ready to harvest.
What I do is I get a small plastic container, like a Tupperware dish, hold the plastic piece over the dish and spray the worms off. I rinse them a couple of times and feed my fish.


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Now to start another culture what I did was I got another container. It can be gladware or Tupperware or any sturdy plastic container. Cut a hole in the top cover then cover the with a face mask. You can find them at the 99 cents store. I fill the container half way with coco fiber, the kind used for reptile terrariums. I like the one made by Exo-terra, but any of the others will work. They usually come in bricks and you'll need to soak the brick. The Exo-terra takes three liters to soak. Squeeze the fiber to drain the extra water out and you should have a lump of fiber. You don't want the fiber to be sopping wet, just moist to the touch.
Now after you're done harvesting and feeding you fish you'll notice you have left over worms. Take those left overs and and pour them into the new container. Put in some food, just a tiny bit cause you'll have only a tiny bit of worms, and a little spray of water. Do that after every feeding and you'll have your second culture going in about two weeks.
This is what mine looks like....ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1425166995.395445.jpgImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1425167020.798107.jpg


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Oh,there are some good YouTube videos out there that will help a lot, check them out. That's how I learned. Hope I was helpful.


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I prefer to feed mine whole grain baby cereal mixed with spirulina and astaxanthin powders to ensure they are packed with nutrients.

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Bloodowrms and tubifex are not supposed to be fed to Scarlet Badis because of how fatty they are. They screw up the digestive system, so just don't feed them those. Live blackworms work well, and my puffer goes nuts for them. As for the male scarlet, look for clamped fins or any other signs of stress, but other than that I think he's just getting accustomed to the tank.

Nils
 
Bloodowrms and tubifex are not supposed to be fed to Scarlet Badis because of how fatty they are. They screw up the digestive system, so just don't feed them those. Live blackworms work well, and my puffer goes nuts for them. As for the male scarlet, look for clamped fins or any other signs of stress, but other than that I think he's just getting accustomed to the tank.

Nils

The problem is those tubifex(which were sold to me as bloodworms) are the only live food available here, and that's what the store owner was feeding them exclusively before I bought them. I threw them out as soon as I figured out they were tubifex because I was horrified...Tubifex are supposed to be crawling with parasites, right?

Blackworms aren't available for online purchase, it seems. Got a link? I will order grindal worms online this week when I can scrape up some money but they may take a while...I haven't seen the fish try to eat the frozen daphnia or brine shrimp I put in. :(

The fuzzy bump on the female's head has gone away, though.
 
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