Baby Betta Update *BREEDING TANK Pics Added*

[sarahbella]

Thought id give everyone an update on my 6 week old betta babies.

The father is a tri coloured cambodian combtail, the mother lavender, possibly comb/crowntail, either way she exhibits the extended tail rays..

Ive counted 26 or 27, ive moved them from the 10gal into a 5, it seems the perfect size for that many fry...

The babies are just starting to come into their colour.  You can tell some will be red, some will be dark, and about 25% of them appear to be cambodian with sky blue fins... time will tell i suppose.

The tails are still rather small, but i believe i did notice extended rays on one..  

Diet now consists of microworms for all, suplemented with hikari first bites and the bigger ones enjoy live water fleas and the occasional live bloodworm or whatever delectable treats i find  floating around in my big jar of pondlike water.

Ill start posting pics when they get bigger, they are still a bit small for my camera to pick up.

[PaleoFishGirl]

Can't wait for the pics!

[sarahbella]

here are some pics of the happy family

[Mettle]

Haha. The babies look like guppies, lol.

[Jim]

They do eh

but there going to look awsome!

[sarahbella]

the babies have been starting to show colour for a few weeks and today i finally was able to capture colour on the cam...

the pics are really bad but hopefully you can see the difference between the fry now.  about 25% are flesh coloured showing no sign of a black layer or stripes, and the fins appear to be only one colour, some have turqoise fins, some appear more lavender.

The other 75% are dark coloured fish and all are sporting their purple juvy stripes.  You cant notice in the picture but the fins so far on most of these guys have a thicker red band and a thinner black band around the outside.  Possible patterning inherited from Papa??   One of them has a purple band instead of a red one.

This has definitely been interesting, i cant wait for the tails to become more prominent ....

[Jim]

there looking great... are you going to be selling any

[sarahbella]

Jim, i hope to keep only 10 of the best from each spawn so im sure some of them will need a good home at some point, but whether or not they are gonna be pretty enuff to actually sell  is yet to be determined...    we'll find out in a few short weeks!!

[sarahbella]

here are the two breeding tanks.

the first one is the one my daughter dedicated to breeding.   we had rocks on the bottom for the first spawn but have since removed them.  I dont think they'll go back in.  The only problem the rocks caused was it gave the fry too many places to hide and we never saw them.  This was good for the fry, but not so good for anxious on lookers  All thats in there is a clump of something green (i forget what it is) and the two fish.  When we are ready for them to mate we will increase the temp and lower the water then let nature take its course.  they live in there together quite happily, the green provides her with a safe haven if she needs it, but he doesnt bother her at all..

the second pic is my 10g tank. Mother is Sarah, Father is Earl a double double ray crowntail, fry  are 3 weeks old..  this spawn was accidental so once i noticed the nest and the female actually in the tank with the male i shut the filter down.  there were also a lot of rocks which i removed last night  thats why so theres so much yuck on the bottom.  now that the fry are big enuff to see i can syphon all that out..  

since there is gravel in there i use a scallop shell   as a feeding trough so all the fry congregate on the shell when i drop the microworms onto it. I've been able to count 17 fry eating at once.