Introducing my males to the spawn tank

[HD4life]

Ok I've been conditioning my pairs for 2 weeks now, giving a variety of brine shrimp, mosquito larva, daphnia and betta pellets. I placed my males in a 20g with a divider, water is clean and 82 degrees, they each have 3 thick plants and I have continued to feed them live food, but a little more sparingly. They also have a half a cup for bubble nest support. Its been 2 days and neither of them have even attempted anything with a bubblenest, what else can i do?

[Creat]

I forget where I found it but someone on here attempted to stimulate rain and it worked I tried it and noticed huge results... but are you trying to breed to spawns in the same tank?

[PitGurl]

Are you trying to spawn them all in the same tank? If so I'd only spawn one pair per tank but that's just my opinion. Can the males see each other through the dividers? Some males won't build a nest until a female is introduced. I'd move the males to a smaller tank and use the 20 gallon as a growout for your fry.

[HD4life]

Not necessarily, I'm only going to pick one male to spawn and remove them both once fry are free swimming.

[bettafish15]

Remember when spawning to only have the tank half full, or even less in a 20g, because thats an awfully long way down for the male to collect eggs.

[Creat]

I think your males are physicking each other out. I would do only one male per tank in a spawn they get very defensive once eggs are in the nest and it could lead to more fry deaths. I would suggest only picking one male and letting him rule the whole tank lol then introducing a female, sometimes it takes a female around for a male to want to build a nest.

[DarkMoon17]

Creat- I think I was the one that did the simulated rain thing, it works like a charm. But it is much more effective when there is a female present...

HD4life- Males don't generally build nests "on demand". Most don't build a nest until after the female is in the tank. I doubt they will build nests in the presence of another male because it isn't a secure place for them to raise fry and they know it. Do one at a time. If you want to spawn them in the 20g then use a divider to close off most of the tank. Large tanks wear out the male too much.

I did read a study that showed that bettas are more likely to spawn in the presence of a "teaser male". Basically, set up the breeder male and female in the spawn tank and but another male in a divided off section. The study said that the pairs breed sooner b/c of the male's fight for dominance but I'm not sure if it was a good study.

[HD4life]

Yes it's only half full, about 6 inches deep, just enough the tops of my amazon swords stick out. I don't think they can see each other, they haven't flared or anything

[Creat]

@Darkmoon you might have been I had it in my head and I tried it and the nest grew substantially and the female became super interested in the male... whoever did invented it, it worked super well and I am defiantly using it for other difficult spawns.
And i read the same article except I use teaser females I find it works better because its usually my females who ignore the male unless there is another female they have to dominate.