They grow up so fast...

[LittleBettaFish]

Well since I switched to blackworms and grindals, my fry/juveniles have started growing at an enormously fast rate. Have a couple of really big bullies in there, but still too early to tell their genders. Probably will never be able to tell anyway as I am hopeless with sexing these fish!











I think there was around 25 or so of them at last count. The actual species is on the verge of extinction in the wild but luckily seems secure in the hands of hobbyists around the world.



This was taken when they were still in with mum and dad and only a week or so old.



This is mum and dad who I sadly have since lost.

[Shrimpsta]

Those pictures make me want to breed in the future. =]

[LittleBettaFish]

Haha I know. I don't breed splendens, but every time someone posts up photos of their breeding pairs and fry I get so clucky.

It always amazes me that they go from this sort of miniature tadpole to looking like an actual fish in only a couple of months. Now I just have to cross my fingers I get some pairs or a nice male to match up with my lone adult female.

[vilmarisv]

Those are amazing! I had the same results once I switched my fry to grindals at 6 weeks... they just took off!
I'm bad at sexing juvies too. Just today I was told by my fishie's grandmommy that there are a few males left in the growout I HAD to pull.
I knew I had a few males left but I thought one she pointed out was female.

[LittleBettaFish]

Thanks. I never really was into raising fry (just left them in with mum and dad) and so I only had a very low survival rate because of predation by siblings, runts not getting enough food etc. Now I have proper grow-outs it is so much easier and more efficient for me to raise large numbers of fry.

I basically never use BBS. I feed MWs and a couple of feedings of BBS and then once the fry are big enough to at least fit a grindal worm in their mouth I switch them over onto grindals almost exclusively.

Smallest in this tank is maybe 1/2-3/4s of an inch and they have no problems smashing down blackworms and white worms. I had to remove some off the bottom the other day as they looked like little blimps swimming around.

It's so very hard with the species I own. Males and females can look almost identical. I have six adults in one tank I have no idea what gender they are and they are a year or so old (takes around a year for some of these species to actually hit full size).

Another thing I love is my two year old male and female who nearly died recently from velvet have been producing fry at least once a week for the last three weeks. Goes to show just how hardy and prolific some of these wild species are.

[blueridge]

Very pretty fish LittleBettaFish! What species are they?

[LittleBettaFish]

The pride of my fish room, Betta persephone.

The one in my display picture is one of the bigger ones coloured up. They wash out because of the light.