I have come to a friend's farm to get some fighters. It is a one hour journey and it is located in an agricultural park in the north western part of Singapore. The farm is situated within an ornamental fish farm, part of a small area which he rented to raise bettas.

There are over 100 concrete ponds built to house the bettas. Due to the high operating cost in Singapore, many ornamental fish farms have folded or moved overseas, and much land are left vacant and fish enthuiasts of all kinds would come here to rent some space to breed and raise their pet fishes in the outdoors.

My friend is one such enthuiast and together with a partner they set up a betta farm consisting of over a hundred ponds. Many of the ponds were built from scratch as the existing ones used to raise other tropical fishes may not be suitable for their purposes.

When you are at a place with over one hundred ponds and each pond with a few hundreds bettas, where do you start? How do you know which are the good ones? It would be reasonable to say that my friend who is the breeder would know. But how will he knows? He knows because he bred and raised them? This is however not the case. There is only one way to choose a good fighting strain bettas and that is to fight them. The problem is, a betta is usually fought once only, when they are fit and healthy and are free of injuries. Fighting them again is not recommended as they may not be as fit and healthy anymore and may have suffered permanent injuires in their earlier fights.

So how do you choose a good fish without fighting them? But experienced breeder like my friend will know that a fighter's genes is shared among its' brothers, so it can be said that their fighting ability is shared within the spawn. And Voila we have got the answer!

In other words, choosing a fighter is a selection of a spawn and not an individual betta. When bettas are at about 5 months old, they are ready to be tested. A few brothers are chosen and prepared for fights. It is during such test or "AHLoo" as it is called in the local language, the spawn's fighting ability is then graded. Good or bad, could be determined in this "AhLoo" tests, of course most or all such tests are done by the breeders' loyal customers or by the breeders themselves. Only a handful of bettas are needed for the "AhLoo"(testing the spawn) and the fishes are given free of charge or at heavily discounted prices. If the spawn is good the customers will come back for more! Otherwise you won't see them coming for any! and the breeders are not stupid and will raise the prices accordingly.

I ask my friend for a good spawn and he tells me about a fresh "AhLooed" or "tested" spawn. The result in the ring is pretty good, no loses, so I take his advise and got 3 fighters from the recommended spawn. This spawn is a "confirmed" spawn in his words, meaning the buyers are coming back for more. Alternatively I could choose to take fighters from a "untested" spawn and try my luck! The difference is of course the price! Untested spawns are usually free of charge while "confirmed" spawns cost money.

Though there are buyers for this spawn and he could sell them for some money but he doesn't want my money and I galdly have them as a gift. I notice the spawn consists of at least 3 colours and I choose one brother from each colour. The first brother is a blue fish with black wash, the second one a green fish with black wash and the last fish is a green fish with some red wash. Though they are brothers, they not only come in different colours but they also look different physically. My friend confirms that they are indeed brothers who are from the same spawn and so shares a common male and female parents. And if selecting a individual fighter is by selecting a spawn, do their physical differences make any difference? I am about to know very soon.

In betta terms, a spawn is called "Xiu", while a pond is called "Ti". You will notice some breeders use these terms to mean the same thing. But to me they are different terms and should not be used interchangeably. A "ti" is a pond, in a pond a breeder may raise more then one spawn and therefore the bettas in the same pond do not all share the same male and female parents. While the spawn "Xiu" can sometimes be raised in different ponds or "Ti", but the bettas neverthless still share the same male and female parents and can be considered of the same "xiu" but of a different "ti". In such cases raising environment and conditions differ but genetically no differences. Most players wrongly assumed that all bettas raised in the same pond will automatically shares the same male and female parents, so they take it for granted that "Xiu" and "Ti" are the same. In my case my 3 brothers which I have got were from the same Spawn or "Xiu" and comes from the same pond or "Ti"(no mixing of different spawns to a common pond). So, is there any chance that other breeders do mix the spawns and raises them in one pond? The answer is Yes, they do, but very few I think. There is in fact advantages to mix the spawns in one pond. It is widely noted that fry in the same spawn when raised in a common pond do not all grow at the same rate. Some will grow quicker and the growth rates are not uniform for all the bettas. In a Discus farm, the breeders would make water changes daily to produce uniform growth rates in their fishes and help their fishes grow quickly. In betta farms, the breeders do not have that kind of time and it takes too much effort, besides it can not gaurantee they can raise good fighters. Breeding Bettas is after all not about growth rate but for tough and enduring fighters. Breeders however do want uniform growth rate in their bettas, and so they do mix the spawns in one pond. My 3 brothers' breeder does not practice such methods so I can be very much assured that they are truly blood brothers and nothing less.

The first brother(see above picture) is a blue fish with black wash on paired(Pelvic fin) and unpaired fins. A stocky fish with plenty of agression, looks like the best of the 3 brothers.

The second brother(see above picture) is a green fish, but has a light blue tint on the body when it flares. It too has black pelvic fins and black wash on the dorsal fin and a combination of black and red wash on tail. It packs a robust body, more muscular of the 3 brothers, also of stocky build and are energetic and keen for a fight.

The third brother(see above picture)has a bluish green body, but has red wash instead of black wash like the other 2 brothers. The difference does not stop here, it has a slender body, and has an aloof demeanour. It's flaring consists of mainly "mating dance" or "Kee Chio", other times ignoring the fighters in adjacent bottles during flaring exercises, not the type of fighter I like about and lacking a robust body, I am keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

Above picture of First Brother after fight.It was a crowded ring and finding a match was not easy as the ring owner Mr.X placed restrictions on the number of jars on each player so as more players could fight their fishes and it was the last to fight among the three brothers. After the final arrival of the last players, more jars were opened and it was finally matched with a green/red fighter weighing in at 1.61g, who had a 2g advantage over mine. First Brother was badly mauled within 2 hours, but hanged on for it's dear life with pure grit and determination. Unkown to me though, the opponent looked well, but showed signs of fatique as the fight progresses. The opponent's agression was slowly sapped and showed some mating signs (bad sign actually)in the second hour and very quickly afterwards began to show it's unwillingness to carry on with the fight. By that time, my fighter was seriously wounded and could not take advantage of the opponent's mental weakness. The green/red opponent was a local bred and was trained by EK, though the two fighters were bred by different breeders, both were however bred in the same farm! The opponent was bred by my breeder friend's partner.

Above picture of Second Brother after fight. I fought this one first, it looked the best and was matched with a local bred trained by AL. The opponent is a blue fish weighing a featherweight 1.44g, but it still managed to have a 1g advantage and has been with AL for 2 months already. The opponent came from a good spawn, but with that long period of jarring, the condition of the fish was not at it's best both mentally and phyiscally. Why it was kept for so long I don't know, but it must have taken it's toll on the fish as it looked lethargic. It didn't go unnoticed, very quickly my green fish made mince meat out of it in less then 2 hours, almost killing it. The picture above of the second brother was taken days after the fight and it looked "without a scratch", the fight was a quick and easy one.

I do not usually fight my fish again as I do believe they are no longer healthy and fit after a fight. But I have decided to try this fish again in the ring after a 3 weeks break, enough to nurse it's injuries which I think was not serious.

Picture of a recovered Second Brother. Fighting it the Second time. It had been 3 weeks since the last fight, though it had recuperated well but was not in fighting fit condition. To fight it again after recovering from it's injuries from earlier fight plus 2 months of jaring with a lack of sunlight, less then ideal living condition and food under my care, the fish was not its usual self anymore. Players here in fact seldom jar their fighters for more then a month. Once harvested, their fighters will go to the arena within a few weeks, with some training of course. This way their fighters would still be at their prime when they hit the ring.

Though it was a second mouth, it was nevertheless fought with a fresh fighter from Mr.B. Mr.B is a hobbyist like myself, the fighter was bred by him in a farm which he shared with a friend. A senior executive in an I.T firm and a graduate with a Masters degree from a prestigious university, and his academic credentials is probably the highest among the players I have met. But does that matter in our match? Luckily for me, his expertise in I.T does not count much in betta fighting, we are equal, and our fighters fought to a draw. A lucky draw indeed for me as his fighter was harvested a few weeks earlier and was fresh and in excellent condition and though it dominated the fight but it could not win. His fighter was obviously in better shape, but my fighter was "tested" having done well in his previous fight and many of his brothers were good and so it was not a game of chance but a game of good genetics. In our language, my fighter was a class better and very often that can determine the results.

PICTURE OF Third Brother. My last fighter, may not be my favourite, but it was in good shape. Never mind the leap out of the net and landed hard on to the ground, 3 foot from the table top when I was transfering it to a small bottle for carrying it to the ring 2 days before, it never seem to be bothered a bit and to me it was a good sign.

Third brother was matched with Mr.K, his fighter was a blue fighter from Malaysia, costing about 50% more then a typical local bred. Mr.X the ring owner was not confident in my local bred fighter, he urged me to use Malaysian fighter next time and said they were more value for money and gave me referrals of good sellers. To me it just meant simply, my fighter would lose period, for sure! He couldn't be wrong? Could he? and I began to have my doubts in my fighters. I know about Malaysian fighters, they are physically the toughest and are very aggressive, but somehow I bet this "worst" of the 3 brothers with a doubling of the bets! because Mr.K insisted that I do or no fight and so I was forced to oblige as I badly wanted to test Mr.K's quality. My fighter weighed in at 1.56g, just one gram lighter and was thinner but was slightly longer. The first hour looked like Mr.X was right, but as time progressed my green fighter started to pick up the pieces and slowly regained its composure. It was a see-saw fight, advantages changed hands until both fish were exhausted after 3 hours. Bites were ineffective by then as both fighters' mouths were in bad shape and less harm was done to each other. I agreed to a draw towards the fourth hour.

email: redhillbetta@yahoo.com.sg