Betta Coccina Breeding Tank

[Retired Viking]

He certainly is a watchful father . I am looking at making my shrimp/guppy tank just a shrimp tank. If things work out I may try adding that Betta. It is a 30 gallon tall with plenty of plants. I want to have a back up tank if not. I have 3-10 gallon and 1-20 gallon tanks empty in the basement that I checked out and are good. Have a couple 5 gallon one too.

 

[Sylvan]

At least with him on his own I'll be able to answer the question of who was destroying the nests in the main tank, I still suspect it was the other females but it will be good to be definite.
I think if I had more space and that many spare tanks I wouldn't be able to resist, you have more willpower than I do. It's only because I wanted to attempt breeding the Coccina and I only had space for one more tank that I didn't acquire a pair of Betta Channoides that I found in my local Maidenhead. As I said earlier on I would love to attempt breeding my Betta Splendens pair but again no space and the Coccinas have much smaller broods so less fry to rehome at the end of it.

 

[Sylvan]

There won't be any fry from this spawning. Big Daddy has destroyed the nest, I suspected he might have been doing it in the main tank and I'm holding out a faint hope he may have just moved it somewhere I can't see but since he's still hanging out in that corner I think it's pretty conclusive he's eaten the eggs.
Plan now is to give him some time to recover and recondition before trying again with Split Fin. If they spawn again I will remove him at the same time as Split Fin or work out how to get the eggs into a net without disturbing them. If it doesn't work with him then I'll try swapping him for Boss Man but I'm not convinced that will work as none of the females have ever been interested in him apart from Little Girl but she's a bit small.

 

[Sylvan]

After a week apart I've reunited Big Daddy and Split Fin. Displaying started straight away, haven't seen any signs of a nest yet but Split Fin has her breeding stripes on so hopefully there will be another spawning soon. This time I'm going to try slipping a net under the nest once they've spawned to stop it being destroyed again. If this pairing doesn't work then I'm going to try Filter Girl next though if I haven't got any fry by the end of March then breeding will be put on hold for a couple of months as I'm away for a week and don't want to leave a tank of young fry alone.

 

[JuiceBox52]

It's so cool to see the breeding stripe!

 

[Sylvan]

It's so cool to see the breeding stripe!

I will keep trying to get a better photo that shows the colours more clearly but at the moment they don't want to keep still. She gets two vertical tan/orange lines on the gill covers and dark vertical stripes on the body. They're a fish of many colours. If they get spooked then they change to horizontal stripes of red and gold/brown.

 

[JuiceBox52]

I will keep trying to get a better photo that shows the colours more clearly but at the moment they don't want to keep still. She gets two vertical tan/orange lines on the gill covers and dark vertical stripes on the body. They're a fish of many colours. If they get spooked then they change to horizontal stripes of red and gold/brown.

That's interesting!

 

[Sylvan]

So I had another spawning over the weekend. Split Fin wasn't cooperative about leaving the tank again so she ended up staying in and where Big Daddy had built the nest meant I couldn't get the net in underneath it. However I don't know if Split Fin staying in the tank meant his guarding instincts were a little bit stronger as the nest was still intact after 36 hours. Unfortunately I think it has now been destroyed but I'm wondering if they did start to hatch and seeing them wriggling made him hungry. Things seem to be slowly improving so hopefully third time is the charm for this tank.

 

[Sylvan]

I think I might have to eat my words. I think there are eggs that have hatched. I've just fed the tank and noticed Big Daddy still by the nest then one of the eggs suddenly started moving and dropped out of the nest, only to be caught and put back in. I'm going to try netting Split Fin again tomorrow morning.

 

[Sylvan]

Photo of Big Daddy with his nest. I mentioned in a previous post about how he's changed his nest from spawning to spawning so a little note to follow on from that. The initial nest for this spawning was actually built in the biscuit cutter I'm using to keep a feeding hole clear. It was a large flat nest that followed the biscuit cutter about half way round. I think he decided against this nest because obviously with feeding through the same gap I caused too much disturbance. He rebuilt a much smaller and condensed nest to the back of the tank in the Salvinia and above a tall plant, its because of this plant I couldn't get the net under the nest. I missed the spawning but when I checked and saw eggs they were grouped together in a cone/pyramid shape, the best description I've read about is like a bunch of grapes. The nest is now much bigger and spread out, as a wriggler falls out he catches it and places it back into a bubble. Unfortunately he has missed a few but I've watched him replace quite a few.

 

[Sylvan]

The fry are now 3 days old and becoming more active. I can see them wriggling and starting to swim a little bit around the nest site. Big Daddy is still being a good father and putting them back in the nest if they drop too far. He's also going hunting through the plants and the bottom of the plants for any that he's missed. I think I am going to remove him tomorrow though as reading through the International Betta Congress's page about them, Betta Coccina don't always continue the good care once the fry are free swimming. I'm also removing him because he hasn't eaten since they spawned, he won't come to the feeding area to eat so I think he will be ready to relax a bit.
The fry are developing, when they first hatched they were basically an egg with a bit of a tail. I can now see eyes and more of a tail. I still can't get over how tiny they are.

 

[Sylvan]

The fry are now 4 days older and free swimming. I've moved Big Daddy out as he'd moved away from the nest area to the front of the tank so I think he'd reached the end of how much caring he was going to give. He's looking a little bit stressed at the minute but he'll settle back in soon hopefully.
Photo of one of the fry, still mainly eyes. It's those 2 black specks against the 3rd leaf from the right.

 

[Back in the fold]

Betta Cocaine !?!?!? What is this world coming to ?

 

[Crispii]

Following.

What pH are you keeping your coccinas? I am currently trying to breed a species of Betta that is from the coccina complex.

 

[Barry Tetra]

Following.

What pH are you keeping your coccinas? I am currently trying to breed a species of Betta that is from the coccina complex.

Normal pH