Conditioning help?

[Creat]

What is wrong with my males :/ or me for that matter... everytime I condition my fish for breeding right the male and female get the same treatment, with the standard clean water, varied frozen food diet for 2-3 weeks (because I dont have live food) and every time I pair them together I have the same response the female immediately gets stripy and flares and chases the male around the tank for hours... the male however just kinda pokes around the tank looking at things and ignoring the female....
This is going on right now with my hm pair, it usually takes a shock of barometric pressure or if i introduce another decoy male floating in the tank and after 3 days to get a nest or eggs however I have heard of pairs that immediately spawn when introduced.. What am I missing and how can I get my pairs to spawn sooner?

[MMAsac]

Beats me, I'm basically dealing with this same exact problem. They just dont show any interest in one another!

[Oldfishlady]

To bad you can't get some live food...mosquito larva is great...mass fed can really help to trigger reproduction instinct....or even new born guppy fry...chop up some red worms......

You can also try the shock method-keep the breeders in separate container so they can't see each other in cooler temp (74-75F) and limited water changes...mass feed-small meals 5-6 times a day-live is best or frozen-let them see each other twice a day for 5 min...do this for a week...have the spawning tank ready, lots of live plants and tannins, no filter-water temp 80-81F-turn off the lights and drop them in the tank at the same time without acclimating them either at first light or at light out...healthy fish will tolerate the temp shock...usually spawn will start within the hour or at first light if you added them at night

If you have rainwater-use that in both the tank and the holding containers used to condition......

Even in small containers-short term water quality should not be an issue...don't make any water changes for the 7 days...sometimes going from dirty conditions to clean conditions will trigger a spawn

Don't worry about a nest-if you have something natural to use-like oak leaf or IAL that has not been water logged or even a sword leaf pinched off the plant and allowed to float-some like natural items to nest under....

Live foods are the biggest trigger especially with reluctant spawners-take your brine shrimp net and a small container of dechlorinated water and go looking for some standing water-dip and place what you collect in the water-rinse again before you feed-mass feed the larva......

If the breeders are healthy and of breeding age-mass fed live food and temp shock usually will work....

Good luck.....

[Eziekel]

what temperature do you have the water at? i usually have better luck at 85 degrees F

[Creat]

Water fluctuates a little but it is about 82-87*
And OFL how small is a small container like about a gal. or 1/2 gal ? And I have started collecting rain water but its not much we are having a little bit of a drought... would pond water work? I have access to ponds legally to collect from I was just worried about collecting dragon fly larva...

[Oldfishlady]

I personally wouldn't use pond water....and I understand about the drought...laffs.....I would just use the source water that you normally use....

Small containers-the containers that some Bettas are bought in work well-but half-1gal will work fine too.....with hard spawners/breeders-sometimes if you make the conditions somewhat cramped, not as great water quality, cooler water.....once they get placed in the larger space, improved warmer water.....they think (my theory) the rainy season hit and its time to spawn/reproduce...some could care less....but with reluctant breeders I have found this to work 80% of the time and 20% may never spawn no matter what you do and I feel this is either age, genetic, unseen health reasons...etc.......

[Creat]

Thats what I thought about with the pond however I will go an a adventure to try to see if I can find live food *grabs net hastily* but I do have a small creek that I trust and I have tested the water from do you think this would work better then city tap water? If not I have no big issues using tap water. My breeding tanks usually have a ton of oak leaves java moss and duckweed.
And I will try "cramping" my males I do have some of those little cups.. and it makes sense I spoil my males in larger 2 gal containers for conditioning, but the female this time was in a 1/2 gal. I will see if I can make this work, I hope he will spawn...

and thank you for your help :) you always have good info
oh and on a random note I had a question regarding outdoor breeding... I know you sometimes place multiple females with a male when breeding but have you ever placed multiple males together in a large enough container?

[Oldfishlady]

Take a look at my album and you can see my tank of males......I DO NOT recommend keeping multi males together......this has taken years, lots of work and several generation to get them to live together without issue-it won't happen overnight or with just any males especially unrelated and ones kept in separate containers for long periods of time-it is not without some problems....but it can be done......and yes, I have done multi males and female in some outside spawns successfully in much larger containers...

If you think the creek water is safe...try it.....I would...laffs......

[Creat]

Ha ha of course I wont try it soon I was just curious I assumed it would mimic natural styles of establishing territory, and I will try it with creek water I feel better about it then the tap cause it runs from a natural spring we will see if the pairs like it better.
And thanks again !