Wild Species Bettas

[babystarz]

LBF, that brownorum fry is adorable. I don't know why, but its mouth looks beaky and cute. Also those are some glorious ventrals on your tussyae.

I have more exciting news! One of the ocellata pairs has successfully spawned. It turns out I was right about that female looking eggy. I didn't realize the male was holding eggs until last night because I fasted all the fish the day before, and I didn't notice if everyone ate the day before that. So the date of conception is ~ December 16th. If he's able to hold the babies until they're ready to be released, I might get some ocellata fry as belated Christmas presents :)

Since this is his very first attempt at raising eggs I'm not going to be terribly upset with him if he gets hungry/spooked and swallows, but so far he's doing an exceedingly good job. He's staying in the upside down herb planter, he popped his head out far enough for me to see his swollen chin pouch last night but otherwise refused to come out. The females have turned into his bodyguards, they come out right away when I enter the room going "who's there?! Lemme at 'em! I will cut you!"

The patoti took pellets right away last night, no problem. They were ravenous after at least a week without food so they'd probably have taken anything I gave them.

[babystarz]

Ok, now both of the male ocellata appear to have eggs XD The other male is now refusing food and looks distinctly puffy-chinned. I'll know for sure on him in a few days. I may need to separate the females into their own tank if they're this fertile to give the males a break!

[ChoclateBetta]

I am so glad you spawned them.

[LittleBettaFish]

Congrats on hopefully getting them to spawn. Not all new dads swallow their fry. My unimaculata male held to term even with another male in there and me doing water changes every couple of days as it took a while for me to realise he was holding.

I thought he'd swallowed until I had someone from another forum over and she pointed out there were tiny fry in the tank with the parents.

Hope you have lots and lots of grow-outs handy. Mouthbrooders have so many fry, so many times once they get going.

I have started setting up a tank in (hopeful) preparation for the arrival of my burdigala, uberis and brownorum pairs. Haven't heard from the shipper yet and they are due out of quarantine today so biting my nails right down thinking they were all DOA in Australia.





As you can see lots of leaves. This tank is divided up for my brownorum and uberis pairs. My burdigala will go into their own tank.

Going to put a layer of peat moss down over the bottom, some twiggy branches I cut off some of my bigger pieces of aquarium wood, some dried long-fibre sphagnum moss (giving this a try as I have seen it used in killifish tanks) and a terracotta tunnel hide in there and then see how they go. Hopefully that will drop the pH right down.

Got some more photos of my rutilans fry. Camera was telling me if I wanted to get better focused pictures I was going to have to put the macro lens on.















This species is pretty aggro for some reason and so I have already sprung a couple of them flaring and circling each other. At 1/2 an inch in size.

[ChoclateBetta]

The Baby reminds me of my Guppy fry.

[LittleBettaFish]

I think most fry at a certain age look pretty similar. However, apart from the first fry in the first three pictures who is the youngest in the tank, the others are all starting to look like miniature bettas.

It's funny watching them try and flare at such a young age. If they are anything like their parents and adult siblings, they are going to grow up pretty ferocious.

[ChoclateBetta]

The only difference is my guppies have black fins and sometimes partly black bodies.

[LittleBettaFish]

Well I wish they would grow as fast as guppies. Would be a lot shorter wait for me.

Just have to figure out where they are going to go once they are older. I get too attached to my fry. I would never make a good business woman.

Good news is I think that I may have a male/female pair in their adult sibling group. Two of them are always hanging out together so might try them in a tank of their own once I have more money and space.

[ChoclateBetta]

Mine grow faster than average they reach half the size for male guppies.

[babystarz]

Originally Posted by LittleBettaFish

Hope you have lots and lots of grow-outs handy. Mouthbrooders have so many fry, so many times once they get going.

Yeah, realized that today! I have several 6 gallon acrylic tanks on hand for little fry and have ordered everything I need to set up a new shelf and two more 20 long tanks that will be fry growouts. I have a 14 gallon tank that isn't being used at the moment too. And another 10 gallon that will be free soon. I'm hoping between them all I can handle the fry. It all depends on when the other pairs start spawning too. Despite their apparent willingness, the albimarginata haven't successfully spawned again and the imbellis are a little clueless but the patoti are big enough to spawn now. I don't want to mix the patoti and ocellata fry because telling them apart will be impossible for a long time, so if that pair spawns soon too I may need to look into a 40-50 gallon tank. Fortunately there is a huge fishkeeping community here in MN (it's because of our winters, I swear) so I can probably find people interested in raising juveniles too.

I was reading some notes on breeding ocellata today and realized that between my water change and my downstairs neighbor's drum playing a few days ago, I may have unintentionally made the ocellata think monsoon season was starting. Apparently if you make thundery noises and do a slightly cooler temp water change, it can jumpstart spawning. Now I know what to do if I ever have problems spawning. Just call Nate downstairs and tell him to play really loud

LBF, are all those rutilans fry from the same spawn? Those full little bellies are so cute, the last one looks like it's about to pop!