Experimenting

[juliehainsworth]

Well I'm trying a different way at getting my bettas to breed! I have my two males in a divided tank! I added a female in with Cobolt the night before last and when I got home they had spawned (Cobolt is such a male tart)! Last night I decided to try my other female in with Gabriel who already had a bubble nest going she barred up straight away and went to look at the nest then she left it and went to lurk near where Cobolt is! Gabriel keeps going up to her and flaring and working on enticing her back to the nest but she's just flaring back and hanging about in the corner! Think she might want Cobolt but I could be wrong! Anyway last night I left the tank uncovered and turned out the lights as my previous spawn I left the lights on and covered! In theory when I get home I should have a nother batch of eggs but this is theory! Another thing I'm going to do is to feed my males a little whilst they have their broods and see how long they take care of the young!

Some of you may think I'm being horrible but I just want to see if there are any different methods of getting them to spawn instead of introducing the females via a vase and leaving lights on etc! I may or may not end up with fry I'm not sure yet what the outcome would be!

Does anyone else have any other ideas on different things I can try? I was thinking of trying to raise the fry on different foods to see which works best besides Microworms and bbs!

 

[Bettaman]

its nothing new i sometimes leave my males in the tank up to 30 days depends on space ....if you want to try diffrent foods the only other is Atisons starter which i am using and find very good.......you do what works best for you but why reinvent the wheel.

 

[juliehainsworth]

Where did you get your atisons starter from? I havent seen it in any of my LFS!

Wow 30 days thats a long time, I removed my fry at day 2 after hatching which was prob too early but I still have at least 25 out of the 50 left I say 25 as I can never see more than 25 at any one time and its hard to count them when their in a tank with gravel (my mistake)!

There has to be other elements that I can change! I suppose I could try conditioning them on different foods to see which gets bigger clutches of eggs etc!

I want to improve my wheel to get better results thats all! I'm never satisfied with what I've got I suppose I could try selective breeding but thats not much fun!

Hmmmm another question has anyone ever tried having 2 females in with a male? Have they both spawned or has just 1 spawned? I always wonder wether in the wild they have just one female or multiple like other animals/fish!

 

[juliehainsworth]

Well I've just found out Gabriel and Chihiro have also spawned today! So it is possible to get two male bettas to spawn in a divided tank!

In theory yesterdays spawn should be hatching today and todays should hatch tomorrow! Can't believe that Gabriel actually has a spawn its his first time so we'll see how he does! Apparently there are more eggs than in Cobolts but that doesnt suprise me as this is the mom to my 10 day old fry and she is very eggy and produced loads of eggs on her first spawn!

All I need to do now is work out what to feed apart from bbs and microworms!

 

[Joby]

How is the tank divided? Does the water flow through from one to the other? My 2 worries would be that the fry will wonder into either section if you've used something like craft canvas plus either male could get stressed from seeing the other male and eat the eggs or fry

Just my thoughts on it

Congratulations on the spawns though I just had two this week as well.

Bettaman sells the Atisons on his website

BBS and microworms will do them for the first month and then I like to introduce small granules and chopped defrosted bloodworms and artemia.

 

[juliehainsworth]

I didnt use canvas but did use a really fine mesh that water can go through but even bbs cant pass through it as I use some to catch it!

As far as I'm aware neither male has eaten their eggs but I'm not home to check!

I already have some 10 day old fry which are eating bbs so I was wanting to try something different but have learnt that baby daphnia are way too big for them at the moment! I'll be removing the males in the next week or so depends on how they do!

 

[juliehainsworth]

Got home last night to see how my males were doing with their broods to find two totally different styles of bubble nests! Cobolt's nest was large and thin where as Gabriel has kept his eggs in a small thick batch of bubbles!

I was quite intrigued as I was expecting the eggs to have already hatched (Cobolt's) when I got in but they hadnt! Luckily though I actually got to watch them hatching! It's strange watching the little eggs twitching away! I counted over 60fry this morning and in Theory Gabriels clutch should hatch today at some point! I didnt leave the lights on over night and some of Gabes eggs had strayed away from the nest but when the lights came on he quickly placed the eggs back in his nest! Cobolt is franticly trying to keep his fry in the nest even though everytime he places them in it just snows more fry! A few have swam back up to the nest on their own!