Was I Right to Pull Her?

[babystarz]

Quick background: I was attempting my first spawn, the female ended up jumping out of her jar and into the breeding tank earlier than I was planning for her to but I had been conditioning the fish for a week and a half and she was showing vertical bars and the right behavior so I let her stay out. This was two days ago. The fish made a go of trying to embrace, they're both first timers so they were a little lost. Daddy couldn't decide if he wanted to breed or chase the mom away from his piece of styrofoam (I hesitate to call it a nest because he didn't blow any bubbles). I let them try to muddle through things for about 4 hours and then decided to pull the female for the night because I would be asleep and unable to referee if the spawning happened. I put her back into a jar inside the breeding tank at 1 PM the next day (yesterday) after my job interview. Vertical bars showed up immediately, so after a half hour I put her back into the main tank. Same story - they tried but had no idea what they were doing. I decided to try leaving her in the tank last night, figuring that with the lights off she wouldn't be harassed too much. Woke up today and her fins were in tatters, I mean, really nipped up all over on every fin. I decided to pull her again. She's in a jar next to the tank. Still showing vertical bars.

So my options now are re-add her or pull her totally, put her back in her normal tank, let her rest and then re-condition. Should I just go ahead pull her completely? The last thing I want is to kill my female, and with the male acting so aggressive I just don't know that it's safe to leave her in there with him overnight or unsupervised for long periods of time again. I realize some aggression and nipping are normal, but this seemed over the top. Do-over time?

[Setsuna]

idk but when i breed my bettas i wait till the male makes a full and completed bubble nest before i think about releasing the female. give it another try. make sure the male see the female very clearly for him to want to make a bubble nest put her kinda close to the nest/Styrofoam

Originally Posted by babystarz

Quick background: I was attempting my first spawn, the female ended up jumping out of her jar and into the breeding tank earlier than I was planning for her to but I had been conditioning the fish for a week and a half and she was showing vertical bars and the right behavior so I let her stay out. This was two days ago. The fish made a go of trying to embrace, they're both first timers so they were a little lost. Daddy couldn't decide if he wanted to breed or chase the mom away from his piece of styrofoam (I hesitate to call it a nest because he didn't blow any bubbles). I let them try to muddle through things for about 4 hours and then decided to pull the female for the night because I would be asleep and unable to referee if the spawning happened. I put her back into a jar inside the breeding tank at 1 PM the next day (yesterday) after my job interview. Vertical bars showed up immediately, so after a half hour I put her back into the main tank. Same story - they tried but had no idea what they were doing. I decided to try leaving her in the tank last night, figuring that with the lights off she wouldn't be harassed too much. Woke up today and her fins were in tatters, I mean, really nipped up all over on every fin. I decided to pull her again. She's in a jar next to the tank. Still showing vertical bars.

So my options now are re-add her or pull her totally, put her back in her normal tank, let her rest and then re-condition. Should I just go ahead pull her completely? The last thing I want is to kill my female, and with the male acting so aggressive I just don't know that it's safe to leave her in there with him overnight or unsupervised for long periods of time again. I realize some aggression and nipping are normal, but this seemed over the top. Do-over time?

[babystarz]

Originally Posted by Setsuna

idk but when i breed my bettas i wait till the male makes a full and completed bubble nest before i think about releasing the female. give it another try. make sure the male see the female very clearly for him to want to make a bubble nest put her kinda close to the nest/Styrofoam

Thanks for responding! I've heard mixed things about the importance of the nest being in place before breeding, but since I know how likely she is to jump, I'll keep the female's conditioning jar outside of the tank next to the stryofoam next time to give the male more time to build a nest if he wants to.

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by babystarz

Thanks for responding! I've heard mixed things about the importance of the nest being in place before breeding, but since I know how likely she is to jump, I'll keep the female's conditioning jar outside of the tank next to the stryofoam next time to give the male more time to build a nest if he wants to.

also if you have any almond leafs it helps with the spawning. Almond leaf promotes spawning it also makes the bubble nest stronger. Everytime i breed i use almond leafs give that a try i garente you that will work only downside is it makes the water brown for you to see but if you dont mind the brown water then go for it. Thats wat thai breeders use

[babystarz]

Yeah I have IAL in the breeding tank and the conditioning tanks too.

[crowntaillove]

I was in the same situation with the bubble nest and the reluctant couple. It took about 2 weeks of pulling her out and putting her back in before the "magic" happened. He had to nip her up pretty good before she was finally submissive enough. He would never chase her endlessly, but at night when I left them together a small piece of tail went missing. I was about to take her back out when I saw her swimming head down next to him and rubbing against him. The next day, I had eggs!

[CandiceMM]

How are things going now? I know how frustrating this is but I know in time you will have some beautiful babies!!

[vilmarisv]

If you already took her out I would not place her back in.
My advise is to give them a week to rest and try again.
What I do is I place the male in the tank and the female in a clear container inside the tank. They will remain this way for 1-3 days depending on their behavior. If the male has a bubble nest it is good indication for me that he's wanting to breed. The female also needs to show interest.
Once I see the right behavior I will release the female. Not always will they spawn quickly. I've had pairs together for 3 days before they decide to get down to business. The delay is not an indicator of breeder inexperience like I've seen some people say on this forum but the willingness of the pair to breed.
When they take long I do feed them separately because IMO a male who's too hungry will either not breed or eat his eggs.
I'm very cautious about when I release the female because I would hate to have my perfect HM's fins shredded. But this is MY preference and a little nipping is completely normal.
Also I NEVER release a female unless I have enough time to supervise the interaction between the pair for hours.

[babystarz]

Thank you all for the tips and encouragement! I really appreciate it, as a first timer I'm still feeling a bit lost despite having done my research for months.

I have pulled both fish back to their "home" tanks for a rest. I will re-start the conditioning process in 4-5 days. I have decided this is the best option for the fish, I just didn't want to over-stress them and frankly I think the female jumped the gun before the male was at all ready and that's what really made things go haywire The female's anal fin is really torn up so I think she just needs some time for that to start healing.

I am still very excited about this couple and now I know what to look for behavior-wise. I will also be adding a few more nesting materials to the tank in the next go around. I did have styrofoam this past attempt, so I will be adding a square of bubble wrap and a yellow lid as options. And I will be using a taller container for the female so she can't jump into the main breeding tank early again!

I do have a video of them to add to my spawn log at some point here today as well, so keep an eye out for that if you'd like to see it :)