Blue Marble HM Spawn Log (Hopefully!)

[LittleBettaFish]

Well I've finally decided to take the plunge into breeding Betta splendens with my blue/green marble HM male from Interbettas in Thailand.







Unfortunately, the female I was intending to pair him with has developed some red wash on her ventral and anal fins, which I really didn't want. So now I'm possibly pairing him with a teal HM Plakat female from QLD (I don't own her/have any pictures of her yet).

I intend on purchasing a couple 50-70 litre black tubs from Bunnings as grow-outs, and I already have a BBS hatchery and about a million dried eggs as well as a colony of live, home-grown blackworms for conditioning.

I'm planning on feeding the fry infusoria as well as whatever micro-organisms I pull out of my Indian Almond Leaf tank (I use that water to feed my wild betta fry as it is teeming with all sorts of weird things) when they are younger. However, I will be switching them over to live BBS, live blackworms, and ground up frozen bloodworms/daphnia when they get bigger.

At the moment I'm going to be working on getting my pair conditioned, and cycling a couple of sponge filters in my goldfish tank for the spawning tank and grow-out.

[animallover4lyfe]

Beautiful Pair! I love their attentive little faces so cute!!
Good luck!

[LittleBettaFish]

Originally Posted by animallover4lyfe

Beautiful Pair! I love their attentive little faces so cute!!
Good luck!

Thanks. Depending on how nice the teal female I'm getting sent is, I won't be using the pictured female to breed with. She's got a good caudal spread and a decent topline, but I don't like the red wash coming through.

The teal female is also a plakat, which I would prefer as 99% of my HMs either regularly tail bite or have done it in the past. Plus there's less fins to be chewed on during future spawnings.

Hopefully they will willingly spawn and I can get a few marble females out of it.

[MrVampire181]

Red rash? Sounds like ammonia burn (common in imports from shipping). It might not go away. But just some clean water might clear it up.

[LittleBettaFish]

Oh no, I meant red wash not rash.

She is a marble, and over the past couple of weeks I have noticed she has red coming through on her anal and ventrals.


(where I've circled although it looks coppery in this picture)

Since I want to minimise red in this spawn, I'm going to be using a different female. I might cross Blue with my white HM male from Patsayawan since he has nice form.

[dramaqueen]

lol! I'm glad it's wash instead of rash.

[Animalfreak]

That is a beautiful male you have, I want an HM so bad.

[WiccanWisdom]

Gorgeous HM male!!! Wow! Completely drool worthy!!

It may just be the picture but your female looks a lot like a HMPK male... :)

[LittleBettaFish]

Thanks, he is a pretty fish to look at, and he definitely knows it.

And that is a female. She just has larger fins than you usually see on females as she's a HM. PK males generally have a more angulated anal fin I've found, and tend not to get eggy in the presence of their menfolk

Here's a side-on and slightly unflattering shot of her.



I'm just waiting on my other female to arrive to see how she matches up with my male and then I will start conditioning them.

Two of my wild bettas spawned a few days ago so I'm going to have to set-up a few BBS hatcheries to get some of these fry fed once they hatch.

[TequilatheBetta]

That's actually a gorgeous picture! She's so pretty it's scary :)