Need Help Unexpected Betta Fry

[nikki128]

Hi all-

I am in need of some advice. Let me give you the story. Tuesday I came home from work to find my female betta jumped her divider and spawned with my male. I camre hom,e to find a buybble nest with eggs in it. Now, a little later that night the buble nest was destroyed. Today about 36 hours later I thought I saw a small fry swiming around the tank. And a little later I now see 5 fry. Is it possible for the eggs to be viable if they are not in a bubble nest? Also, I went out and got a seperate tank for my male and some liquid fry food as well as baby brine shrimp. Do you think other fry will show up ? I have not seen that one except for the one time. If I happen to get fry is there anything I should do other then feed them ? I have already covered the filter intake with a pant hoe in case. Should I take them out of the tank and put them in a breeder net in my 55 or just wait until I see more or they are free swiming. Also, when should I start adding a little fry food? Please help I am very excited about these little ones.

Thanks,
Nikki

 

[lisie]

Do you have any live plants at all that you could put in there, especially java moss? It would provide lots of little "buggies" for the babies to eat. If not though, there's probably plenty of stuff around the tank for them to eat, especially since it doesn't sound like there are that many. That and the liquid fry food (after they are free-swimming) should be good for the first few days I think, and then you can feed BBS... is it live or frozen that you have? Hatching your own is best but other people have used frozen too. Just make sure that you don't overfeed, since there aren't that many mouths to feed.

Also, definitely leave them where they are for now. Moving them at all isn't a good idea at such a young age.

That's very exciting about the babies... you got farther by accident than many people do when trying to breed them on purpose. Just be thankful that those two spawned instead of tearing each other apart!! Good luck with the little ones!!

 

[RandomWiktor]

Is the female still in the tank? It sounds like you removed the male, but if the girl or any other fish are still in the divided betta tank the babies are at risk of being eaten.
For future reference, most commercially available dividers are easy for bettas to jump because they don't touch the lid/hood of the tank. If you use plast canvas, the kind used for Needlepoint, you can replaced the existing mesh to the divider with something a little higher, while still keeping the convenient clamps and frame of the store-bought divider. I've done it myself to all of my divided betta tanks after having 3 fish jump the dividers in a period of 48 hours.

 

[tank212]

Seems rather fast to have free swimmers in 3 days? Considering the spawned one day out of the three..Hehe well for fry foods you can try liquidfry as lisie suggested or (cooked) egg yolk to prepare the egg yolk of course boil the egg, take the yolk out and what I do is put the yolk in a jar with some water and stir it around each feeding and put it in the fridge so it doesn't get spoiled. This usually lasts me about a week then I move on to micro worms and start to incorporate hatched bbs around week 3 or so. Also I would NOT recommend putting them in a breeder net. I use a barebottom 10gal tank but with that few fry I would imagine a 5gal would be fine but you might wind up with more than you see I know I did...
Long post but I think I covered everything anything I missed I'm sure others will point out.

 

[Commander Cool]

Good luck with the fry!

 

[nikki128]

Thank you everyone ..... I have not moved them and now I see 8 .... the female I took out as soon as I saw the eggs the first night. I figured once the fry are free swimming horizontally I will start feeding right now they are atatched to the glass or gravel tail down.

Nikki

 

[The Equillibrium]

Gravel is a bad idea for fry under 2 weeks old. They may get stuck under it. Also, have the tank at about half way since they need to go to the surface alot as their labyrinths develope and its hard for tiny fry to go upupup. You can add more each water change until full. One more thing...good luck!

 

[wuvmybetta]

Just a forwarning- cycled tanks with gravel are usually home to all sorts of things you can rarely see with the naked eye, the worst for fry is planaria (tiny white worms often seen stuck to the glass or freeswimming) they can, and will devour immobile fry in a heartbeat. Once they become freeswimming they're pretty much in the clear...it's just those days that they spend hanging around. So if all the fry disappear, that's pretty much what happened. If dad was around he would repeatedly clean the eggs and fry and prevent that from happening.

Good luck to all of ya's. I hope it turns out for the best

 

[nikki128]

Thanks everyone-

I'm afraifd to move the gravel I dont want to squish anyone. I will however lowe the water to basically nothing. At this point IO guess a filter is not important? I should just change water often?

I saw as many as 10 last night. I just woke up and only see 4

Nikki

 

[wuvmybetta]

awww, sorry nikki, but they might still be there! They can hide (wind up?) in the craziest spots, most likely under the folds of leaves.

 

[nikki128]

awww, sorry nikki, but they might still be there! They can hide (wind up?) in the craziest spots, most likely under the folds of leaves.

I see all of them plus one today

 

[wuvmybetta]

!!!!
Almost there! They must know that everyone is rooting for them

 

[liz2]

well done

 

[Loko17]

wow thats exciting, And to think I was going to have to tell someone off for housing a male and female together . Thats funny that you were so successful from an accident. Fingers crossed for the little ones.

 

[K.J.]

Congrats!
Any pictures of the parents, or what they look like?