determined little fish

[sarahbella]

I added a new male crowntail betta (Earl) to my 10 gal. yesterday.   In this tank there is 3 female bettas. I put the 3 females in one of those floating livebearer birthing traps as to allow Earl to get settled without the females nipping him...  

Well wouldnt you know it, this morning i wake up to a HUGE bubblenest AND a very vibrant Sarah, breeding stripes, fat belly and all swimming freely in the tank.

Sarah spawned with one of our males last month and i had no plans to breed her again.  I cant believe she jumped out of the trap.  She looks determined to spawn again tho so i havent put her back in the trap with her lady friends.   I really dont want my tank to be a breeding tank but it looks like mother nature has other plans.  

When we started keeping bettas we thought breeding them was gonna be tough but they seem to be doing alright with little help fom us.

Oh Sarahs babies from the last spawn are doing really well, theres about 10 of them and they are growing rapidly.  They are about 4 or 5 weeks old now and their colours are just starting to develop.  Its been interesting.

[sarahbella]

Update:

They are spawning right this second.  unbelievable.  it must have been love at first sight as i only introduced Earl late yesterday afternoon.

It was VERY quick.  Last time it took almost a week from introduction to nest.   Then the mating ritual lasted for days and they mated for hours before there was a release of eggs.

This time i saw eggs released on the very first embrace, and Earl is very efficient at collecting the eggs.  

I wasn't prepared for this at all.  I didnt want to breed again until the first batch of fry were out of the other tank. oh well, just another excuse to ask Santa for a bigger tank

[blueturq]

Congratulations!!!!

[RedFish]

That's exciting...you are not in Ottawa are you?   I would have loved to come and see the baby bettas.

Do post pics when you can!

[sarahbella]

Well they are finished spawning now and Sarah is back in the breeding trap (i moved the other female into a big jar)

There are just soooo many eggs.  Once when Earl was embracing her loads of eggs came out and stuck around her underbelly, i had never seen so many eggs at once and i really thought he burst her by squeezing so hard. i can't wait until they hatch to see how many made it...  last time we got maybe a dozen fry.  I have a feeling its gonna be more

Redfish, i'll try to take a few pics of my older fry.  they may be just about big enuff for the camera to pick up  I have 3 or 4 that i consider to be  big,  a couple medium sized and 1 or 2 that are still smaller than newborn guppies.  There are no bright bold colours or fins yet tho, just a shimmer of colour over their pinkish skin if you are looking at them from just the right angle.

[nickie]

If ever your looking for a nice size betta jar,...some grocery stores carry drinking water in a 2 liter square acrylic jug !.... I cut the top off and its great for catching youg fish, guiding the young fish with a net right into the clear jug....  Aslo would be greayt for holding bettas,...or a single betta....                         John P

[Mettle]

What are you growing the fry out in? I was thinking about breeding some of my bettas and using my 40 gal that I have sitting in the basement for growing them out in.

Also, what are you feeding them?

Survival rate so far?

[sarahbella]

The tank with the first batch of fry was very heavily planted and i noticed them eating from the roots of the plants.  I supplemented with hikari first bites, and extra infusoria.  

Now that there are almost 5 weeks old i've removed a lot of the plants and am supplementing the first bites/infusoria with finely ground dried bloodworms and they seem to be enjoying it. I think there are a dozen and they are growing rapidly. I see them picking at the sponge filter too and they always have full tummies.

Im hatching some brine shrimp for the new batch but i cant see me trying to find and harvest the little buggers for long.  My first batch did well with the infusoria and first bites so that will do for the new guys.  Next time i hope to have microworms and vinegar eels for them to see if it makes a difference.  

Growing them out, hmmmmm...  Theyll do for now in the 10 gal and we can always split them between 2 10's if we need to later on...  

Survival rate is very hard to determine as my tank was very heavily planted so i didnt see too much for a very long time..   I can tell you the most fry i ever saw at one time in the beginning was 10, today at almost 5 weeks i counted 12 *i think* so im up 2 lol

[sarahbella]

http://midwestbettaclub.com/articles/page.asp?articleid=3239

heres a good article about genetics.  This pertains to my new batch of fry as the mother is a normal single tail betta (ctct) and the father is a crowntail (CTCT)

The F1s wont produce any crowntails but the F2s should produce 25%. by F3 there should be 100% crowntail offspring.

I had hoped to breed 2 different  ctct x CTCT lines at the same time after xmas when we add 2 new tanks to the house, but Sarah & Earl had their own plans...

[sarahbella]

Update:

It's snowing baby bettas in my tank!!  YAY!!!   and there are quite a few.  At least 20 to be on the conservative side.  

They all started dropping a little while ago and Earl is doing a wonderful job of picking them up. The ones he misses end up swimming back up to the top on their own after a few minutes.

[Mettle]

Haha. That's fantastic. Now you have me wanting to pair up some of my fish. I've got two fat females (big girls!) and some nice boys who'd love to make some babies.

[sarahbella]

if you have the extra space then i say Go for it!  
They really take little to no time to care for when they are young.  I can see a little more time being spent on them when the males need separated and cleaned all the time but for the past 5 weeks ive done almost nothing to the first batch of fry.  not a water change, tank syphoning or anything.  I sprinkle some food in there once in a while and thats about it.  I'll probably do some syphoning of the tank today now that the fry are bigger and can swim away from being sucked up the tube.

[kitten]

good job!!  post some pics if you get a chance

[sarahbella]

heres a really bad pic of one of the bigger fry. My digicam sucks and doesnt do too well with close ups. Ill see if my daughters cam is any better...  

he fry is less than a cm long but compared to the newly hatched babies he is a monster