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First spawn!

4K views 60 replies 15 participants last post by  SerenaRena 
#1 ·
My silver mustard dragon and his gold dragon sib are in the process of spawning now. They had wrapped at least 15 times and were still at it when I came up to post this.

The mother is helping put the eggs in the nest. I truly had no idea how utterly, absolutely tiny betta eggs are. They are specks. I am completely daunted at the thought that I will have fry in a few days.

You can see the eggs in the bubble nest in the background of these photos.
 
#7 ·
I happy clapped for you when you told me earlier, now I get to see the pictures! Squee!!!!

Congrats again! They did a great job, don't look too beat up :) You did a great job too! I see you did the bubblewrap under the leaf trick - it works great :D

So happy for you! In 2 days or so you'll start seeing them falling from the nest.. daddy should be picking them up and placing them back in. It's so fascinating watching them grow from little specks to adult size.. <3 it!
 
#8 ·
Congrats Deanna!!

How old are your pair? How long did you leave them in the spawn tank before that started to spawn? Did you disturb or feed them during the time inside the spawn tank?

I'm trying to spawn a pair of sib (both virgins) but nothing yet. They're around 6 months old.
 
#11 ·
Each of these fish were about four months old. I used a 10-gallon tank filled about two-thirds of the way with water (because I wanted to use a BBS hatchery that requires that water level), with a divider that limited them to less than half of it. I put in Atison's Betta Spa, a heater set to 80, a hiding spot, some floating plants, and bubble wrap with an IAL on top of it. I left her in the jar for several hours, and when I let her out he was so extremely aggressive (constantly chasing and biting and not wooing) that I put her back in the jar and let her out later that night, when his bubble nest seemed complete and he seemed more interested in mating instead of fighting.

I let her out into the tank at 3 a.m. and checked on them occasionally the next day. I left the light on at all times. At 8:30 the following night, when I walked in, they had begun the process of spawning. Each time they wrapped, the male and female both gathered the eggs and put them in the nest. They continued until about 11:30. The female was dropping fewer eggs with each wrap at that point, and the male chased her away. I removed her to a jar.

In general, though, I would listen to the experts here rather than to what worked for me. I am new to this and have not yet raised fry, and this is my first successful spawn out of three attempts (the previous two of which were with another male).
 
#20 ·
The good news: There are still eggs there, plenty of them.

The bad news: The in-tank BBS hatchery I bought was a terrible idea. I didn't stop to think that it might be making a slight current out the escape hatch (it was), and the current diminished the bubble nest substantially. I am hoping that the eggs will still be able to survive--some of them are floating by just a few bubbles, out from under the bubble wrap now. :( And now I have to worry that it might have spilled a bit of its salty water into the tank when I pulled it out.

Learning process. I'm chalking it up to a learning process. But damn.
 
#25 ·
The male is incredibly excited this morning and gets agitated when I try to take close-up pictures of the nest, but I don't see any tails hanging down, and he's maybe moved the eggs up higher in the bubble wrap, because I don't see them again either.
 
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