Betta Smaragdina Fry

[Elisabeth83]

Here are a few pics of my Smaragdina fry. I've got them in a heavily planted 30 gallon along with their parents. To my surprise neither of the parents really want to eat them. The father especially never tries to eat them. Mom on the other hand I have noticed will chase if she sees one ping away but I've never seen either of them eat one. I guess it's because they are wilds? They also have many hiding places so they've been able to survive very well. I mostly feed them on baby brine shrimp but they also get whatever the parents don't eat like flake, brine shrimp, bloodworm and some veggies.

In the tank there are fry from two seperate spawns about a week or two apart. In this picture you can see the size difference between the fry from spawn number 1 and spawn number 2. Of course some of the fry from both spawn number 1 and number 2 differ in size especially in spawn number 2 but that's probably because there are more of them so I can notice. Oh and Their bellies are so full and orange because they had just eaten a bunch of baby brine shrimp.

Here is a close up of one of the older fry. Sorry not the best quality I know but these guys are hard to get good pics of and especially harder when you have water spots on the glass

This one is quite fuzzy but it's one of the better shots that I managed to get

edited to add more stuff

 

[laurasmithuk]

ah bless em. there lovely

 

[lucky62]

Very nice , way to go , Elisabeth ..........nice tank too

 

[Angel Lady]

Very nice fry and that is a pretty tank. Are they hard to care for??I would love to have me some of them..

 

[Elisabeth83]

Thanks guys

Angel Lady - They are a little more difficult to care for than say molly fry in being that they are so small that for the first few days up til a week or so theres not much they can fit in their mouth. I heard you were meant to feed them infurosia and micro-worms and then move on the baby brine shrimp. I left all the fry in the big tank with the parents and since it was a matured tank with live plants and wood I believe there were small one celled organisims that they fry ate as I never fed them anything but some fry flake which I don't think they ate. Then once they were bigger I started feeding them the BBS and since then they it seems like growing right before my eyes

Wuv has raised Smaragdina fry too so you could message her for more info..she's an expert compared to me. I think if you raised them outside of a matured tank yo'd have to make sure to feed them enough as well as keep up with water changes. I haven't done anything differently in the tank since they were born like more water changes or what not. I've just squirted in BBS. They are thriving so something is working

 

[lljdma06]

Wuv has raised Smaragdina fry too so you could message her for more info..she's an expert compared to me. I think if you raised them outside of a matured tank yo'd have to make sure to feed them enough as well as keep up with water changes. I haven't done anything differently in the tank since they were born like more water changes or what not. I've just squirted in BBS. They are thriving so something is working

I think you bring up a very interesting point. Raising fry in a mature tank could be far easier than setting up a tank just for them. When I had krib fry, much larger fry, the parents would take them on food outings, and I got away with only feeding them BBS twice a day, and they grew like mad! When they got bigger, they watched their mother kill small snails and eat snail eggs, so they learned to munch on living things. Planted tanks are full of all that good, yummy stuff. The water quality is also far more stable. Good job! The pictures look great.

What are your plans for the little ones?

 

[Angel Lady]

I just thought I would ask to see how hard they are to take care of....Thanks for filling me...