About me

First of all thank you very much for visiting my website! Bettaterritory.nl was created in 2003 to provide information about Betta splendens in a simple and easily accessible manner for both novice as experienced hobbyists.

During my childhood I bred English show budgerigars and several species of Australian parrots together with my father. During the period of 1989-1999 we participated at several shows with good results. Due to my study I moved out in 1999 and had to take the hard decision to stop this beautiful hobby. 

In 2001 I came in contact with the aquarium hobby when I started to breed guppies on a small scale in my student room. At the end of 2002 I the obsession for Betta splendens started when I accidently stumbled on a betta website on the internet. I gathered more information by visiting several betta sites I became more and more fascinated by these beautiful fish.

I obtained my first pair of Betta splendens (longfin, superdelta) in march 2003. The silhouette of my first betta male (see left picture) is represented in the Betta Territory logo. What then started with a few small aquariums quickly expanded to an almost complete betta wall in my small 2.5 x 3.5 m student room (Betta Territory V1.0) and a lot more knowledge and experience about these extraordinary fish.
In october 2003, me and my girlfriend bought an apartment in Rotterdam where I started with new stock. My "Betta Territory" quickly expanded to a special fishroom (Betta Territory V2.0) containing several tanks for spawning, grow-out and individual housing, including a small dripsystem.

In april 2008, we moved bought a new house and the fish were temporarily housed in one of the rooms on the first floor of the house (Betta Territory V2.5). In august 2008 we started the construction works in our garden in order to build a custom build shed especially for the bettas. In february 2009 a dream came true and all the fish were housed in the Betta Territory V3.0.

Although I initially started to work on longfinned fish, my breeding program is fully dedicated to breeding of shortfinned halfmoons since 2005. The ultimate goal of my breeding program is to establish a healthy quality line of (a)symmetrical show plakats.

In september 2004 me and my good friend Bas Schurink founded www.bettas4all.nl, the international forum for betta enthusiasts from all over the world. In August 2006, the Bettas4all Team, organized the first betta show in the Netherlands: the Bettas4all show. The show was a great succes with >250 quality bettas of 22 breeders from 6 different countries. A report of the Bettas4all show can be viewed by clicking here.

In april 2005, I received my judging certificate from the European Halfmoon Betta Breeders Club (EHBBC). In july 2008, I started my apprenticeship to become a certified judge for the International Betta Club (IBC).

Bettaterritory.nl was awarded with the Orange Betta Award in recognition of a quality betta website by Victoria Parnell-Starke of Bettysplendens.com in februari 2006.

In June 2008, I was awarded a FLARE Editor award at the IBC convention in Jacksonville, USA in appreciation of my articles which were published in FLARE, the clubmagazine of the IBC.

Joep