betta fry missing ventrals?

[endparenthesis]

This guy is about half an inch long or so (or about a cm). I'm starting to wonder if I've ended up with one of those spawns that's missing its ventrals. I figured I'd get some input here. I took at look at the growth chart, and the ventrals don't seem to be pronounced in those pictures until the fish gets a little bigger, but it's really hard to tell with that image quality. Do the ventrals appear later on after all the other fins have developed? Or am I going to be joining the adopt-a-cull program now? Thanks.

 

[rollntider]

I would like to know this myself, i will start looking into it

 

[juliethegr8t]

By that size, I'd think that fish should have ventrals. My falx fry are only like a half inch long, and they are developing ventrals.

 

[wuvmybetta]

Ventrals should sprout at about 2 to 3 weeks.My 2 week olds already have the beginnings of them. I've heard of this happening to people before. Is the entire spawn like that?

You can already see her egg spot,the ventrals should definitely be there. How old are they?

 

[endparenthesis]

I'm not so sure that's an egg spot... when I was taking the pictures I think he/she was about to expel something to be honest.

Yep, entire spawn is like that. I'd read about the ventral thing before I spawned... it supposedly tends to happen to spawns in tanks that aren't clean enough. I kept mine pretty clean... I'm not really sure what more I could have done. I blame the snails . I had snails in there keeping things extra clean and they made too many of themselves. It kept the algae down beautifully, but made for more snail poo to clean up.

They're about 7 weeks old if you can believe it. I had a little slow growth problem too, despite the big water changes. They've suddenly started going into a growth spurt again recently.

I guess this may just be evidence for why you should always get the very best quality stock to breed from.

 

[wuvmybetta]

I'm not so sure that's an egg spot... when I was taking the pictures I think he/she was about to expel something to be honest.

Touche

I don't use snails for the same reason. I've seen an apple snail poop...it isn't purdy

How big is the tank they're in?

 

[endparenthesis]

29 gallon... pretty small spawn. I only had it 1/3-1/2 full for the first month though. That may have had something to do with it too... they were so small I didn't realize it might help.

The snails are all babies, but there are a lot of them. More than I thought I'd end up with. I was a master snail breeder at least. To their credit they cleaned off every strand of my java moss and now it's growing again.

Next time, no snails, more water, better stock...

 

[wuvmybetta]

Well, it sounds like you were doing everything right.It's just one of those things.

 

[cutecotton]

imo they still look adorable with or without ventrals

 

[billy61788]

wow thats kind of freaky, but as cutecotton said they are still adorable

 

[Bettaman]

An extract from B C BETTAS

Missing Ventrals
This has been a major ordeal for us and we have finally got to the root of the problem. In fish
tanks there is bacteria that grows this is very normal if the bacteria is kept to normal levels. In
fry tanks this is quite difficult to do has it is not so easy keeping the bottom of the tanks clean.
We have resolved this issue by adding an airstone to the tanks to keep the water well circulated
and the fry of the bottom of the tank most of the time. Dry commercial foods can also be a
problem as this sinks down to the bottom of the tank and causes abnormal bacteria grown.
Every second day from when the male is removed we siphon the bottom of the tank and wipe
carefully with a sponge. We also only feed Microworms or other live foods for the first 3 weeks
this is the time period that the ventrals are most likely to be dissolved. Baby brine shrimp is also
a good option as they swim around the tank and will keep fry of the bottom, we stopped
feeding Baby Brine as we were getting lot of fish with Swim Bladder problems but this could
have been due to over feeding. I personally do not like Brine Shrimp in any form I find it bloats
the fish and is a very unnatural food for fresh water fish, they can also carry a lot of parasites.
But in saying this a lot of people feed it with no problems. Feeding live food also saves cleaning
up a lot of mess on the bottom of your tanks.

 

[cutecotton]

so fry that sticks to the bottom of hte tank a lot won't have ventrals? any ideas why?

 

[Bettaman]

I think as it says above......In fish
tanks there is bacteria that grows this is very normal if the bacteria is kept to normal levels. In
fry tanks this is quite difficult to do has it is not so easy keeping the bottom of the tanks clean.

 

[cutecotton]

ah, so i assume that the bacteria which grows in the fry tank could end up inhibiting the growth of ventrals if not kept in a normal level?

endparenthesis, how often do you do water changes?

i guess water quality really IS exactly that importnat for the fry. For my newborns i'm doing 2 20% water changes a day using an airline tubing as a syphon (sucking up lots of stuff )

 

[Danno]

I was thinking bout the problem...If the fish stay at the bottom of a tank then can u buy like a 3.5 gallon mini tank and put that blue stuff? If im wrong..of well.. im not an expert