Good luck, I can't wait to see them

 

kids are two days old, smaller batch than originally thought, but that could be due to my limited viewing (i cant see the nest well)

hilarious sidenote-- daphnia in the tank are slightly smaller than the fry and are gray colored. papa's been catching them and placing them in the nest along with the fry. lol.

 

That's funny, can't seem to tell the difference between his kids and food. Hope he figures out soon. Do you have any photos of him and the mother?

 

no photos of mother or father currently. will probably do in the future but dont have the time to do it like i used to.

male removed just now.

 

everyone went to bed...everyone woke up...nobody died.

pics of the fry, and their shoebox home--

typical spawning setup--the honeymoon suite; spared no expense.

 

Nice job.

 

@teal: as you can see-- spawning bettas is easier than you think; no need for large tanks for the actual spawning event, just enough cover for the female to hide. Kids will be transfered out to a larger tank when they reach 7.5 mm.

 

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I got an eight gallon storage container, mostly so there'd be enough space to house the fry.

 

here's another common question: how much live food is necessary to keep the fry alive for the first 3 weeks?

i apologize for the vertical phone display and the EDM. when i decided to download movie editor, it turns out it's no longer supported. no excuse for the EDM though.
http://vid6.photobucket.com/albums/y204/amphirion/IMG_1060-1.mp4
im guestimating that the food supply should be good for at least 2 weeks...

 

dame:

sire:

 

LOVE that male! Those babies are going to be gorgeous!!

 

Nice. I really love the female. I know of a place that has koi bettas but they're not easy to come by.

 

poop butt fart...
so something unexpected happened... the food that was meant for the fry ended up being capable of swarming and devouring them.... so kids will not be hanging out with the food until they can eat them. cant wait for sweet, sweet revenge.

did a respawn of this pair, and i think i've gotten my largest spawn up to date. probably around the 500 number? kids are munching on rotifers right now.

 

Oh my gosh!! I can't wait till their colors start coming in!

 

Goodness gracious. I'm sorry to hear about the lost spawn...but all those little swimming pairs of eyeballs you just showed us are GLORIOUS!!

 

labyrinth organelles started to kick in yesterday.

 

Aw... look at those faces!

 

How's the size of the spawn looking?
Still a 100+ fish? I definitely bet you'll find your dream fish if you have such a large spawn to work with

 

unfortunately, somewhere between day 4-8, i had a massive die off. food wasnt an issue, it was lack of aggression (no desire to attack prey). still have a good amount to work with--stopped counting at 60.

eating bbs right now with a dash of grindal. still surprise that they have the tenacity to take on something roughly their same size. im happy with this batch--i see pelvic fins developing.

conditions:
1) infusoria and paramecium for the 5 days.
2) microworms/bbs from day 6-7, and week 2.
3) bbs from week 2-4, microworms sparingly aka bbs culture gave low yield.
4) bbs from week 5 to present + grindal worms.

did not clean tank bottom, had 9-10 ramshorn snails doing janitorial duty. this makes me believe that having a sole microworm diet was the cause for absent pelvic fin development.

anyways...pictures pictures pictures:

 

Very nice. What do you use to keep the shoebox breeder tank warm? A heater or perhaps on a heat pad?

 

Shoebox floats inside another tank, which is heated.

 

It's been documented elsewhere that a microworm only diet leads to lack of pelvic fins, but microworms + something else as a diet doesn't have the same issue. While popular speculation has it that microworms promote some sort of bacteria growth that eats away at the pelvic fins, the fact that the pelvic fins develop when a secondary food is introduced, even if microworms are still fed, suggests that it is a nutritional deficiency instead.

And that came out way more dry and academic than I'd intended.

 

I feed amounts of micro and banana worms that would make some breeders angry at me. I'm serious. For the first month of their life, they get microworms 90% of the time... And they turn out just fine. I've had one case of missing ventral fins, and that was on a fish that didn't grow properly.

I find the "nutritional deficiency" theory highly unlikely, because it shouldn't take any different nutritions to grow the ventral fins than any other fin. I just find it extremely strange that a nutritional deficiency would cause issues with the ventral fins and nothing else.

The bacteria theory makes some sense, as fry spend a lot of time at the bottom, where the worms sink to. The main issue I have with this is that it should affect the anal fin too, but I suppose the fact that anal fins develop much earlier than ventrals, which some in later, could explain this.

Either way, I never experience any issue, probably largely because I clean the bottom fairly often and have snails to do it for me in the meantime. I can sent you to some discussions we've had on the topic, if you want.

 

I love dry. And I totally followed your thought. I too read an article with the same findings. I just wanted to test it out for myself. It does seem more like a nutrient deficiency/inhibitor issue vs dirty bacterial floor issues.

 

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of discussions on the topic, lol. It's probably a combination of different factors, honestly, and until someone does clinical testing with a control group, lab tools, and training on their side, we'll probably never know for sure.

There are other young fry cultures to choose from, so giving microworms a pass entirely doesn't seem like a bad plan.

Sorry, Amphirion. Didn't mean to derail your thread.

 

no worries. all good here. my hypothesis was that it wasnt a malnutrition defect, but more of an inhibitor mechanism going on, either chemical or physical.

This is my first time looking at baby betta fishies and I just have to say that they are soooo adorable~look at their little eyeballs and their colored little stomachs! there are so many of them! The male sire was very beautiful and fiery, can't wait to see these little boogers all grown up!

thanks, i have another thread somewhere that actually logs the fry's development from egg to about 2 months...