# Presenting Lord Gabriel Humperdink!



## longtail4711 (Jun 8, 2010)

Shameless showing off of Lord Gabriel Humperdink, Lord and Master of the Zen Tank at the End of the Counter. Yes, he gets a pretentious name for him, because that's how he looks and acts. 



He's a Delta Tail I got at Petco a couple months ago. He was completely white when I bought him. Stress and living in tiny bowls and cups can cause bettas to lose much of their coloring or stunt the development of it. Good nutrition, space, and rest will cause them to regain it or start developing it again. He started getting the red in his dorsal fin about a week after I got him, and the powder blue coloring at the base of the tail just showed up a week ago. He won't likely become totally colored, but I'm very interested to see how much develops. 

Lord Humpy presides over a 10 gal. planted aquarium. I hope soon to be able to add a few pygmy corys and a snail for his subjects.


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## MediaHound (Jul 19, 2006)

That is a beautiful fish and nice to hear how you are getting him more healthy than before.


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## longtail4711 (Jun 8, 2010)

Thank you. I ended up going with some otocinclus cats yesterday. He tried to pick on them when I put them in, but the otos and he quickly realized he's far too slow to catch them. 

So he's happy with his "scullery maids" *L*


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## mielikki (Aug 29, 2009)

beautiful Betta. We just got 2 new ones, yesterday, one of them is white, and I am curious to see if any coloration occurs. They have 5 gallon tanks with an oto in each. One trick I got from an old friend is to take the Betta out, re-arrange the tank a little, then put in the prospective tank mate, then return the Betta. They think they are in a different place, and are less territorial towards their new tank mates. It works for me, fwiw.
The last time I tried to put a snail in with any of my Betta, the Betta killed the snail. Would NOT leave it alone, and got to it before I could pull the little guy out. It was that quick. I hope it works better for you.


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## longtail4711 (Jun 8, 2010)

My last betta was like that. He was very aggressive, and would attack my finger if I put it in there, so even a snail was out of the question for him. He lived alone in his 1 gal for a good 4 years though, so he had a good life. 

His Lordship is getting the run around with the cats now. I just watched him go after one on a rock, and it lazily swam just fast enough so Humpy couldn't catch him, swam around the rock, and sat down in the exact same place it was in before right behind him. Humpy floated there looking very confused and then floated off wondering where it went. :fish9:

Gave me a good laugh for the day. *r2


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## mielikki (Aug 29, 2009)

Betta are entertaining little fish. I had a big red one that actually had three african glass catfish as his tankmates. He couldn't see them real well most of the time, and when he did see them, they could swim a million times faster than him, so got away. After about an hour of the back and forth, he just gave in and let them be. It was a really cool looking tank with the bright red of the betta, and the practically see through glass cats...


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## longtail4711 (Jun 8, 2010)

Very cool! I had glass cats a long time ago in a community tank when I was a kid. I thought they were SO neat. 

I've always had bettas. They're my favorite fish of all time because I could keep them even when I couldn't have a "real" aquarium. I had one a long time ago when I was in college that was really deformed. He had some gigantic growth on his head and only one good eye. I named him Johnny after John Hurt who played the Elephant Man in the movie and is one of my favorite actors. Johnny the fish was like the Elephant fish, he was so ugly and freaky looking (he had beautiful blue plumage though). 

The fish store was going to euthanize him because nobody wanted to buy an ugly betta. I asked them to let me have him instead. They gave him to me for free and warned me he'd probably die of his deformity. 

He lived 5 years.


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## fishlover2009 (Aug 3, 2009)

:betta:::I like bettas as well. I have a female betta named Susie. She lives in a two gallon filtered aquarium with a lid. (which is a must when you have two cats). I've always had bettas. I love them. I've had Susie for a year. Your fish is cool & has an awesome name!


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