Breeding, should water be clean? What Types Of Food to feed M+F

[Aroe]

Should the water be clean or somewhat clean? I heard the bacteria can be helpful but it seems to me it would be better clean..

What kind of food would you guys reccommend feeding to the male and female?

[Sena Hansler]

I feed the pair for 2 weeks beforehand keeping the water clean. Live, frozen, and high nutrient pellets is what I go for. I feed them more than usual as well, because it encourages them to breed through the instinct of "enough food for fry to live".

As for the water I never found how to "keep it cycled". I find it impossible. So while the pair is in there I clean the water using a siphon, removing waste and being careful of the nest. Once the eggs are laid, the female is removed, and I stay clear of the nest, using a turkey baster to remove waste without lowering the water (nest can stick to the side of the tank, leaving eggs out of water which is not good). When they hatch, and when dad is removed during the free swimming stage I try not to clean for a few days until they are bigger. Then using a turkey baster I clan every day, slowly re-adding water using a drip method.

[flyingpony22]

What live/frozen food do you feed your pair? I just started conditioning mine yesterday and I've been giving omega one pellets and frozen blood worms. Not sure if should add something else to the mix too.

[babystarz]

My fish LOVE Hikari frozen bbs and daphnia, you could also do live foods if you have access to them, like grindal worms, mosquito larvae, live bloodworms, or other high protein foods. If I am trying to encourage breeding I will also do a cooler water change and flash the lights, even play a storm sountrack, to imitate the coming of monsoon season. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it works! It gets them spawning more reliably than anything else I've tried, including conditioning with foods.

[LittleBettaFish]

I recently had some fry I moved out of their father's tank when some still had their egg sacs intact as the father is a fry eater. I lost a few but I had around seven survive.

From day one I was doing l water changes as I only had a small volume of water to begin with. I would simply use an airline tube to siphon out waste and debris from the bottom and then over the course of an hour or so, trickle it back in. None of my fry died because of it.

I don't like leaving waste and uneaten food to build up on the bottom of grow-outs, particularly if you are breeding splendens where missing ventrals can be an issue. It is very difficult to maintain a stable cycle in a grow-out, because sometimes the pH can be quite low (because of things like IAL being used), and the amount of ammonia being produced by the fry is going to fluctuate based on numbers, size and food intake.

Therefore, it is important to me to keep my grow-outs as clean as possible.

I always condition my pairs on live blackworms, live whiteworms, and sometimes frozen foods. Many of my fish don't actually take pellets so that does limit the choices I have available to me. Which is why any fry I have are always transitioned to pellets ASAP.