Maintaining Plakats

[Sebas]

start the ball rolling

How about including stuff like feeding, keeping, water changes.
Will love to hear Sam's way of feeding.

Keeping:
As many people who kept plakats will know, these buggers jump out of their tanks like nobody's business. Anyone has any methods of stopping their jumping-instincts without covering their tanks?
My own line of marbles jump out as soon as i remove the covers.

[kennho]

Jumping betta ? Good sign leh. Like Carp fish jump over the Dragon Gate ... hahahahaha...

Let's hear from the plakat lovers. I just got 2 spawns of blue mask plakat. Now working on the 2nd spawn red devil plakat. No jump leh ... no luck. :)

[Ong Ginyew]

r plakats stronger than HM and CT bettas.....?
lots of ppl tell me they r....
sorri Sebas, dun noe where to post dis... hope u dun mind :)

[Samuel Phan]

Plakats are born jumpers ... so everytime I will caution pple keeping plakats to either lower
the water level or cover up the tank. I believe many will strongly agree on this as many have lost prize fishes in such manner.

As for feeding ... I feed them almost pure tubifex worms but with occasional mosquito lavae on a once per week basis.

Feeding frequency will be twice per day with the portion of each feeding enough for 5 minutes and with just a little excess for them to feed on for the rest of the day till the next feeding time. People might find that a definite no no to have those excess food in the tank ... but I supposed plakats are more hardy than delta in this area.

They dun need large tank ... a 6(L)X4(B)X6(H) will be more than sufficient although they would very much appreciate a 6(L)X6(B)X8(H).

Water change for me a twice weekly ... anything lesser than this will cause the fins to clamped up due to water quality.
(PS: I have plants in the tank to remove the toxics ... so for those without the plants and still feed the fishes as much as myself ... probably a more frequent water change is required)

That is all for now ... will come back for more.

[Sebas]

haha, no need sorry lah...u post in the correct thread i think.

Plakats are built to last in conditions which the long tail splendens normally dont. They are normally more active even when they are quite old.
Thats wad i observed from my own fishes.

[Foo Hong]

In Thailand, show plakats are raised in same containers as HM. But a few Thais told me that for 'normal purposes', a 5/5/8 or 4.5 / 4.5 / 8 tank will do. water up to 5 or 6 inch.

[Ong Ginyew]

so r plakats considered much stronger bettas than long tail splendens?

[Foo Hong]

Yes in a way bcos they need less effort to swim. Thats how they look in nature anyway.

[Samuel Phan]

In most if not all cases.
At least they are less susceptible to clamp fins.

[Ong Ginyew]

hmm... ok. Thanks ppl, but how do u explain HM plakats and CT plakats?
r they less susceptible to clamp fins too??

[Samuel Phan]

Being plakats ... they have shorter tail and thus ... less susceptible to clamp fins.
Even if they do ... they recover fast and completely.

[Ong Ginyew]

so the rate of recovery for plakats is faster than long tail splendens?

[kennho]

Ginyew, still depends on how fast the fish is diagnosed with sickness.

[Samuel Phan]

True ...

[Ong Ginyew]

hmm... i agree doc. lol