Red Dragon Spawn

[newfishy]

finaly a spawn with out mayhem and carnage again! I had been conditioning my white girl princess, and the male I was going to use just didnt look happy so he is off resting and I thought, well Ill try this little guy aptly named dragon. spawning went very well and theres a good amount of eggs.

I stole about 45 eggs while they were busy wrapping...just syphioned them up off the floor and into a floating tupperware. then I let the bettas take the rest and place them in the nest, I think there are about 30-40 in the nest too.

reason for stealing some eggs and artificaly hatching is I have had several spawns where the male or female ate intire nests full of eggs. my last spawn with the same mother I only have 10 babies that the father for whatever reason didnt decide to eat.

princess is off resting and dragon is very defensivly now guarding his nest. hopefully soon I am going to have some wigglers.

 

[Hawkins]

pics

 

[newfishy]

as soon as I get some new batterys...

 

[azulfire24]

yea dragon!

 

[newfishy]

this morning I went to check on Dragon and the nest is 100% gone and there are no eggs to be found. grrrr, so I got a cup and got ready to take Dragon back to his own tank. He kept frekin out and did not want to be caught. finaly I got him and he was in the cup for a few seconds while I recovered the tank with plastic wrap to keep it humid for the eggs I had stole and had in the floating tupperware.

I look back at dragon in his cup and suddenly he spits out close to 50 eggs....eck! I poured dragon off to a new cup and floated the cup with eggs back in the spawning tank. I again went to take him back upstairs and he spits out another 50 or so eggs. I pour dragon off again to a new cup and float the egg cup in the spawning tank.

Did he eat them and puke them all back up? or was he jamming all of those eggs in his mouth trying to hide them? His belly did not look big before he spit them all out. and the eggs that I have floating in cups-seperate from the ones floating in the tuperware do not look damaged at all, in fact they look like they are progressing just like the others.

time will tell but do you think the eggs he spit out could hatch?

 

[bronzecat]

He probably thought.....hey, you might have stole some of my eggs, but you're not having these

 

[newfishy]

he was very angry when I got the eggs away from him. lol.

 

[Amerce]

Maybe he got confused and thought he was a mouthbrooder

 

[russogden1982]

does taking the eggs actually work then because i can get mine to do the whole process take the female out shortly after i think they have finished then the next day they have always all gone even after a couple of days no sign of them i will have to try this if it works

 

[newfishy]

what I do is place the eggs in a wide tupperware container with about an inch of water in it, and float it in the spawning tank. then once the fry are free swiming I tip the tupperware into the spawning tank, keeping the water level at 2 to 3 inches for a few days. after the fry are swimming and eating well I raise the water level.

the major thing with using the tupperware to artificaly hatch is NOT to feed the fry in the tupperware. it is a very small amount of water in comparison to the 2-3 inchs of water in the spawning tank and the excess foods rot and kill the fry VERY QUICKLY. also I find that the larger the spawning tank, the better the spawns turn out.

I steal eggs because I have had several spawns where hundreds of eggs have been eaten, for no reason. I keep every betta I own very well conditioned so I know its not for lack of food that they do it, and my spawning tanks are all secluded in the basement so it is very peacefull and nonstressfull.

 

[Netty]

I did the same as Newfishy with our last 2 spawns and it was very successful. Not because the male was eating them though but because the eggs weren't staying in the nest and were lying all over the bottom of the tank

 

[azulfire24]

maby he is part mouth brooder? who knows what his parentage is.

 

[Netty]

It doesn't sound like he wants to give em up You may have to leave the betta forum and join the livebearers section

 

[Amunet]

That's pretty interesting. You should breed him again to see if he does the same thing. Just leave him be to see if he does try to mouthbrood them.

 

[newfishy]

well it is 4 days to the hour exactly that the eggs were spawned and still none have hatched yet. the temp is set at 82, and while a few eggs have some very small black dots in them, most do not.

any one still think there is a chance they will hatch?