About Page

Bettas DōjEwas founded by me, Jeff M. Inada, in 2000.  (DōjEmeans institute or ashram in Japanese; like a Karate DōjE. I have been breeding bettas on and off when I was a kid.  Once I hit college, I started to research about the new types of finnage bettas had mutated into.  I was fascinated by genes in the first place and wanted to do some research, so I applied for a job opening at the Ohio State University's Aquaculture Research Laboratory.  I got the job, but was not able to do the research I wanted with the so-called "hobby fish".  We were mainly doing research on food fish.  For example, McDonald's Fillet-o-fish is actually fish meat of a tilapia, which is a now a growing market for fast food restaurant fish.  Anyway, the time of employment at the Aquaculture research laboratory helped me to understand how hydraulic systems work, feeding certain diets, making own fish food, live food cultures (rotifers, artemia, mosquito larvae, microworms, vinegar eels, etc.), etc.  This was how I was able to build my own system with, of course, the famous beanie baby boxes.  I originally wanted to purchase containers they had at Aquatichabitats.com but, they charged too much.  I do give credit to the person who replaced the aquatichabitats.com's containers with beanie baby boxes.  The rest looked like the system of the aquatichabitat's systems.  So, instead of buying a mad expensive system (Aquatic Habitats) or an expensive system (BCBetta; nothing bad, but I just can't afford it.  I always support Marianne, her fish and her system), I decided to make my own since I researched about them.  It was quite easy with additional help with a book titled "Aquatic Systems Engineering: Devices and How They Function" by P.R. Escobal.  The rest was just measurements and ordering certain items to help the system: drip emitters or labcock ball valves, air tubes, outflow Poly Tubing Insert Fittings, PVC piping, PVC glue, etc.  These things could be purchased at www.aquaticeco.com (Aquatic Eco-systems, Inc.) and/or www.drsfostersmith.com (Dr. Foster and Smith), PVC at Lowes Home Improvemnt, etc.  I was able to build a 110 barrack system with 11 10-gallon tank breeding/grow out tanks and a 20-gallon grow out tank system attached to it.  One advice I give to people that decide to build one for themselves:  First make sure you draw out and measure (exactly) your materials for size and shape (PVC pipes, shelves, etc.); Second, make sure you buy machines (Air pumps, water pumps, UV sterilizers, sump tanks, heaters, R/O units, etc.) that can handle your system.  For example, your water pump must be able to pump out enough water to EVERY tank that is connected to your system.  I mean, if you buy a pump that is weak, you'll never get water flow to all your tanks/containers equally.  Trust me on this one.  In any case, I finished my system measurements and calculations in 6months.  It was named Gen II.  See Fish Room for photos.

My first step in to the real/non-pet store betta world was with stock fish from Rhonnie of Bettas 'R Us.  From here I gathered the rest of my stock from various breeders in the US and also Asia (mainly Thailand and Indonesia).  I found a breeder in Indonesia that wanted to sell his bettas in the states legally (with the receiver being a licensed importer/exporter).  I made a unit with Ron of Bettas House both to get my foot in the doorstep and to get his name and my name up in the market.  I entered Aquabid in 2000/01 and then after my rank went a little higher I joined IBC in 2003.  Now, I am using my homepage as well as Aquabid to advertise my stock shop.

My lines of focus are the following:

Green and Blue Mask (HMs, DTs, CTs, Plakat-CTs)  Metallic Blue Mask (HMs, Deltas)  Yellow BF (HM, Plakats, soon CTs)  Copper (Plakats)  Copper Gold (HMs, DTs)

Solid Colors: Red, Turquoise, Yellow-type I, Yellow-type II,  White, White-opaques, Royal Blue, Steel Blue, etc. (HMs, CTs, Plakats)  Albino (HMs, Deltas, DTs; right now they're genos)

Mustard Gas: True types and Asian types (HM's,DTs; Tri-bands)  Tri-color/Tri-band Cambodian (CTs)  Marbles: Blue, Red, Chocolate, etc. (HMs, CTs, DTs, Plakats)   

Cambodian-Red/white type including piebald cambo BFs (HMs, DTs, CT; someday an extreme piebald-up to the dorsal-cambo BF=will call them "Hi-no-maru" representing the flag of Japan)