Female Built Bubblenest and Put Eggs In It

[grinsinthedark]

My female's behavior is like how this website describes to summarize: http://www.bettysplendens.com/articl...?articleid=889

Last night, she built a bubble nest and I saw her laying eggs and putting them in there. There's a bunch of eggs in the nest now. So because I thought she was ready to mate, I put my red VT in there. She is displaying male-like behavior to him, and he tends to flair back in the normal behavior. There's a lot of plants and hiding spots in the tank, so if either one ever needs to duck out that is what they do.

The female seems to hang around her nest a lot. She always checks on its condition. The male doesn't seem to bother it or try to eat the eggs. Instead, he's just trying to court her. I had them conditioned together for more than two weeks because I said I wasn't going to try to breed again until I was done with college. I had them conditioned on blood worms and at times normal food to get other nutrients in them. I did this for perhaps 3-4 weeks.

He's nipping at her and I think he made her submissive and got rid of her male-behavior. She's hiding in this fake log. Oh well, that's enough reporting for now. I was constantly reporting what was going on while writing from what I could see. Any advice? Has this happened to you?

[kathstew]

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be a failed attempt.
If the female released eggs, and put them in the nest herself BEFORE you put the male in, the eggs aren't fertilized. Therefore there is nothing in them to hatch.
I reccomend taking the male out ASAP, and condition them again before trying anything else.
I also think you should do some more research before continuing to try and breed them...

[grinsinthedark]

I've done research on this before. You have to just do the attempt to learn anything. I've breed them before but there's always problems. The last issue was my CT male wasn't fertile enough to fertilize the eggs (so it was suspected). I put him in there because based on "research" it said to do so. We don't know if the female has released ALL her eggs.

Right now, he's working on her bubble nest, making it bigger and she's kind of just hanging out. My red VT isn't too aggressive and so he hasn't harmed her really (from what I can tell). I'm sure he'll clean everything up and when she lays more eggs, hopefully he'll be there to fertilize them. And also, there is no research that assists with the issues I have with my fish. You'd just to have had or experienced these problems before. If you haven't, then lucky you, your special.

I have tried to mate him with a female in the past but the female was too big for him to wrap around. So I don't know if he's going to be like my crowntail who was too old. My king betta just mated and then ate the eggs immediately after. So he was fail. Perhaps my red VT will be a normal case.

[BettaMas]

From what u've written, if the female did not release too many eggs by herself, she should still be full of eggs as u've conditioned her adequately. Look at her egg sack, if there is still a bulge there.

Females flaring back at males during mating is common. Her showing submissiveness is a good sign of her readiness to mate. For dark bodied females, if the female is ready, there'll be horizontal bands on her body.

Most breeders let the male be the "host" so that the male is ready when the female is introduced. Since in ur case it's the opposite, making sure that the male is ready is essential. Aggressive males are known to kill or severely injure the females, especially if they are not ready to mate.

U mentioned that ur male is not so aggresive and he is adding his own bubbles to the female's bubble nest. These would increase the likelihood of a successful spawn. What I would do is monitor the pair well, and separate them if the male is only interested in harming the female, and not spawning. For me, if the male does not make any bubbles for more than 24 hours, I'll remove the female. From my experience, if the male makes bubbles, it has always been a successful spawn. Some breeders will wait for as long as 3 or 4 days for their pair to spawn before calling it a failed project.

[grinsinthedark]

Yeah, what eventually happened is he cleaned up what unfertilized eggs there were floating around. He had made his own bubble nest, but when I returned to look at them after a few hours, the nest was gone as though it dissolved or something so I took him out and put him back in his tank. My female is okay with no damage. As I said, he isn't really aggressive. It was just an attempt to breed them. I probably won't again since I leave next month and my family don't want to watch a bunch of fry while I'm gone for two months.

And you mean "vertical" bars. Not horizontal.

[BettaMas]

yup vertical, typed the wrong word. If it was horizontal it wouldn't be bars but lines, and it will usually mean that the fish is stressed.