Tank info: 8gal, filtered, heated, lightly planted, divided with a piece of wood and a safe net. They both live on their own side.
Tank mates: 6 neon tetras (they can go through the net to each side) 2 Ancistrus and 1 Helena snail.
The male has made a huge, thick, bubble nest (10x4 inches). She is swelling with eggs and has vertical stripes. Now, I haven't done proper conditioning but I fed them all sorts of different foods (dried worms, flakes, pellets..) a bit more than usual for the past 2 weeks. I will do proper conditioning once I obtain frozen bloodworms (should be soon).
Anyway, since they both seem ready, my question is:
Why does the female hide from the male? They were together for 2 hours before I took her back to her side of the tank and I was watching them all that time. She had found 3 very good hiding places and she just went from one another all the time so no nipped fins.
But, he attacked her a few times after what she started swimming frantically in circles at the bottom for a few seconds. I realized that nothing will happen between them and took her away.
The male was behaving great, flaring, dancing, fixing the nest, trying to get her to swim to his nest...
I don't understand her behavior, someone please explain.
This is normal behavior. Some people will use a small container to prevent the female from getting away from the male and they do breed a lot faster that way. HOWEVER< the female also gets alot more beat up!
I use a tank with four plants one in each corner for the female to hide behind. Also I use a big bunch of flooting plants incase she wants to hide in the middle of them. My females usually have very little injuries from their spawns. It may take a little longer, but to me, I'm not in all that big a hurry.
When she hides, if you wait long enough, and when you first put her with him, it will be longer a wait, she will eventually make herself known, the male will chase her, maybe give her a nip, and she will hide again. She will make her "hiding sessions" shorter and shorter as she grows more confident in what is going on. This also wears the male down a little, so he is not as anxious and full of energy to be rougher with her. Now if her bars change to the horizontal line from her mouth to her tail, she is scared, and they are not flirting. I always look to the female to tell me what is truely going on. If the male is being mean, or if the female is not ready, she will not show bars.
Alot of people do not breed with things in the spawn tank. I have found it to be alot better. just my opinion though. I don't mind one bit letting the female hide. In nature, I'm sure the female hides from the male. I think this way is a more natural process. It is also very funny when you see the female come out of hiding and swim up to the male like, "well aren't you gonna come find me?" lol
This is normal behavior. Some people will use a small container to prevent the female from getting away from the male and they do breed a lot faster that way. HOWEVER< the female also gets alot more beat up!
I use a tank with four plants one in each corner for the female to hide behind. Also I use a big bunch of flooting plants incase she wants to hide in the middle of them. My females usually have very little injuries from their spawns. It may take a little longer, but to me, I'm not in all that big a hurry.
When she hides, if you wait long enough, and when you first put her with him, it will be longer a wait, she will eventually make herself known, the male will chase her, maybe give her a nip, and she will hide again. She will make her "hiding sessions" shorter and shorter as she grows more confident in what is going on. This also wears the male down a little, so he is not as anxious and full of energy to be rougher with her. Now if her bars change to the horizontal line from her mouth to her tail, she is scared, and they are not flirting. I always look to the female to tell me what is truely going on. If the male is being mean, or if the female is not ready, she will not show bars.
Alot of people do not breed with things in the spawn tank. I have found it to be alot better. just my opinion though. I don't mind one bit letting the female hide. In nature, I'm sure the female hides from the male. I think this way is a more natural process. It is also very funny when you see the female come out of hiding and swim up to the male like, "well aren't you gonna come find me?" lol
Hahah, thanks for the great response! :)
She has a lot of hiding spaces, are you telling me that I should keep them together for longer than 2 hours or just try again the next day?
Her vertical stripes get stronger when she is close to the male. Even after he attacked her, the vertical stripes became much brighter.
While she is in hiding, he fixes the nest, dances and chases neon tetras (good for wearing him out). She has hiding places so good that he starts to search for her. :D I wouldn't expect much nipped fins.
Thanks again for replying, I really thought that something was wrong with her and I feel much more confident now.
You are more than welcome. I love talking about fish.:) lol
You still have the other fish in the tank with them? They haveto bein the spawn tank alone, with a bare bottom. If you had a successful spawn with the other fish in the tank, one of two things would happen. The other fish will eat the eggs/fry, or the male will kill them.
You needthe bottom of the tank to be bare because when they wrap, the eggs will fall to the ground.They will collect them and put them in thenest. They will continue tofall out of the nest and Daddy will collectthem and put them back. If you have gravel, they will fall in in between and die.
Once you have all that done, usually you place the female in a jar and let the male flirt and build a nest. But since you have already had them in the tank together, I would try going ahead and skipping that part. Putthem together, and just leave them. If you take her out, when you put her back in, the process has to start all over again.
The females like when the guys get a little rough. Some females won't spawn if the male isn't rough. Her having the bars is avery good sign that she is enjoying the attention.
If they are both virgins, it may take them a while. I just spawned a young pair of virgins and it took them almost a week to figure out what they were doing.lol It was quite funny to watch. They were both very interested in one another, but didn't know what it was that they wanted to do. They finally figured it out though and I have about 300 healthy fry!
Now at times he will chase her and nip her. And other times he will swim up to her,do a little dance then swim back to the nest. Sometimes the male will start to stay longer and longer under the nest and its not much longer the female till join him. She should be approaching him head down.
Good luck with this spawn! It sounds to me that with just a few adjustments and more time you will have you some nice little ones.lol Don't forget to start a spawn log if they do!
Keep them in together for as long as you feel comfortable.. I've kept pairs together for over a week.. once I kept a pair together for 2 weeks. If they lose interest, she isn't eggy, etc.. then remove and recondition. But if they continue to flirt, act interested, eggy, etc.. then leave them be. Don't disturb them.. the less you move around the tank, the quicker they will "get the job done" in my experience. Why I tape up a dish towel to the front of the tank with masking tape so I can peek in every so often without disturbing them too much. Virgins tend to get shy/nervous/excited too easily, in my opinion.. so the less you mess around them, the better they will be.
Wait.. you have neon tetras in the tank??
You really need to have them in their own breeding tank with no other fish... the care the fry needs is specific and they are very fragile.. the neons will kill the fry and eggs.
I have read a lot and saw too many videos on how to breed bettas the best way. I don't want it to be perfect, I would like it to be more natural, eggs fall to the bottom in the wild, that's why there are so many of them. I would certainly put my neon tetras away until the fry are fully grown.
And about keeping them together... I kept them together for 2 hours the first time, and 3 hours the second time on the same day now, and she hid much less the second time.
I will definitely post a spawn log once it is done. :)
Well, I won't even get into how these fish are totally innapropriate breeders, but you have to condition properly. Flakes, pellets, and dried worms are not conditioning foods. And some betta pairs must be together for weeks before they breed. Why are you breeding in a community tank? In a tank with gravel (believe me, gravel is not natural. In the wild, the bottom is mud and sand.), the eggs will get caught, rot, and die. Once the fry hatch, they can get caught inbetween the gravel and die. Cleaning will be next to impossible. Bars on females technically do not indicate readiness to breed,they indicate submissiveness (fear/giving in).
IMO you are not ready to spawn. You do not have a proper spawning setup and you have not conditioned your pair properly.
Well, I won't even get into how these fish are totally innapropriate breeders, but you have to condition properly. Flakes, pellets, and dried worms are not conditioning foods. And some betta pairs must be together for weeks before they breed. Why are you breeding in a community tank? In a tank with gravel (believe me, gravel is not natural. In the wild, the bottom is mud and sand.), the eggs will get caught, rot, and die. Once the fry hatch, they can get caught inbetween the gravel and die. Cleaning will be next to impossible. Bars on females technically do not indicate readiness to breed,they indicate submissiveness (fear/giving in).
IMO you are not ready to spawn. You do not have a proper spawning setup and you have not conditioned your pair properly.
Horizontal lines indicate fear/giving in. The fishes are great. An egg fallen into mud and sand is as lost as in gravel. Please note, once again, that I am breeding them under conditions that will produce just about grown up fish as it would happen in the wild. You can not judge my readiness to breed bettas on what info I posted here. Bloodworms are to be bought, neon tetras taken out... This wasn't a spawning thread after all, I just asked a simple question. I didn't expect them to spawn right away (especially since they weren't conditioned), I was just confused by her behavior, so I asked about it.
"I haven't done proper conditioning but I fed them all sorts of different foods (dried worms, flakes, pellets..) a bit more than usual for the past 2 weeks. I will do proper conditioning once I obtain frozen bloodworms (should be soon)." - You missed this part of the text.
Hey, I mean you learn by doing, right? She's going to remove the gravel & tetras. Horizontal bars are stress stripes, and vertical bars are breeding stripes. I think she should give it a shot!
EDIT: wait a sec. You posted before I did! Whoops!
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