A New Badis Badis sp. "Scarlet"

By Kevin Korotev
kevinkorotev@ameritech.net

The 26^th AQUALOG NEWS has a headline, "Fantastic Dwarf Badis Discovered in Assam Lately". Frank Schafer writes the article. In the article, the author states that the fish was first imported at the beginning of June 1999. He also states (I summarize) that it is NOT one of the 3 presently known species; It is a dwarf. The article ends with this, "All the Badis known to date are cave-spanners…"

This article and my experience with Badis Badis was all I had to go on.

I bought 8 Badis sp. "Scarlet" and set them up in a 50% R/O water to tap water mix. I set the temp at 78-80 degrees, fed them live and frozen foods (the only things they’d eat), placed a simple coconut shell in the tank and waited. This set-up had worked fine for their bigger cousins. I expected similar results.

It didn’t work.

I tried PVC tubing, clay pots, little terra cotta huts…I tried small tanks, large tanks, soft water and –heaven forbid – I even tried TAP WATER! I tried separating the sexes, underfeeding, and overfeeding…

Who was it that defined insanity as "Continuing a behavior while expecting different results"?

If I kept live plants, I would probably have spawned this fish months ago with little effort. In fact, I suspect a handful of Java moss would have been enough. The final, successful experiment was with a new item I’d never used. TW and Gary (Pets ‘n’ Things) had suggested it for some of my other fish, so I finally went out and got some "long fibered sphagnum moss". It’s a great item. It floats for a day or two then slowly sinks. You can hasten this process or slow it down as need be. It’s natural, doesn’t stain the water badly nor significantly change the water values. It can be a little messy at clean-up time, but we’re used to that.

So, if you get your hands on Badis sp. "Scarlet", you can try caves, because "All the Badis known to date are cave spawners…" Who knows? Maybe they are…but I’d tuck some Java or sphagnum moss inside first.