Ezrock's Spawn Diary - Born 16/01/06

ezrock said:

I don't think my fry are eating. I feed them several times per day with either microworms or hard boiled egg yolk (mixed with water), or some guppy fry food I tried to see if they would eat. I have not seen the fry eat at all. However, they're now 4 days old and still alive so they must be eating something. I suspect they could be eating infusoria that might be in there from the plants. Should I try any other food? I think I have some Wardley's liquid fry food somewhere.

The fry just don't seem to swim at the food whenever I feed them, though I'll admit I don't spend much time watching them in general.

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I never actually saw my fry eating during their first week and a half after reaching the free swimming stage. I assumed they were eating microscopic infusoria as well. Then I finally observed them eating microworms after about a week and a half. Since then I have also watched them eat powdered fry food (Atison's Betta Starter) as well as Baby Brine Shrimp.

I have some pictures from the 24th, so I guess they were 8 days post-bubblenest at that point. They seem to be growing quite nicely for the most part. There are one or two that are growing slower than the rest, but that's to be expected.

Some fry pics:



And, mom's healing nicely though she still needs to get her deep red colouring back:


Quite exciting!

-Ian

lovely fry and mom looks on the mend

Well, they're 11 days old now, and one thing I notice is that I can finally see detail of the caudal fin and the pectoral fins! If I look down from above, the pectoral fins are really noticable now as they flit around constantly!

The fry are also spending a LOT more time out in the open and actually swimming around.

Also, I see them eating the microworms now which is a little bit of a relief. Whenever I feed them, their bellies get so full so they should continue growing pretty quickly!

Cheers,

-Ian

Congratulations EZrock

Hope It's That Easy Again For Me

Bret

Good to hear they are out in the open and stuffing their bellies with microworms. Have you any thoughts on feeding BBS? they will really come on with those

Good pics too as these little devils are difficult to photograph

hey. well it's been around 2.5 weeks. I really notice the bettas are starting to bulk up now. they're past a stage of just growing mostly in length. Their bellies are almost always dark. I feed them wardley's fry food several times per day, and have recently started feeding some floating fry food (that I originally bought for guppies). I feed microworms once in awhile.

I bought the Oscar Enterprises Hatch N Feeder on Monday night and received it Wednesday afternoon but it was a lot larger than I pictured. It's taken since then to get the water level high enough. I added about a liter or two of aged water per day and vacuumed the bottom of the tank once since then, because I didn't want to add TOO MUCH water at any one time. I'll be starting the BBS auto-feeder tomorrow morning I think so it should be feeding BBS automatically, and hatching them automatically too, for the next ten days or so until I have to re-start it with fresh salt water. I'm hoping this will let me feed fewer doses of Wardleys yet maintain a fast growth rate of the babies.

I think I might be able to get some decent pics now so I'll try to take some in the morning.

Oh yeah, I can now clearly see caudal fins, dorsal fins, and I believe some ventral fins too! So hard to see though, so I may be deceiving myself on the ventral fins

~~~~~

Goldfish Bowl said:

Congratulations EZrock

Hope It's That Easy Again For Me

Bret

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Thanks. I don't ever recall saying it was easy. Breeding bettas has been one of the most difficult things I have done fish-wise since starting the hobby. It took me probably close to 15 attempts ranged over a year to get a spawn to succeed past eggs in a bubblenest. I had only one other close call but I left the male in too long that time. And this time, I still only have an extremely small spawn of 10 or so fry alive (I left the male in several hours too long this time too).

I definitely don't want to give the false impression that it was easy by any means!

-Ian

Updated pics:

First, from Feb 5: yummm microworms!


Now, two from Feb 9: showing big size differences


And, anyone know if that could be some white colour developing on the anal fin here (lower right betta):


They're now three and a half weeks old. The big ones seem to be growing at an acceptable rate to me. I now feed them just once per day for the fry liquid (Wardley's). The other feedings are either brine shrimp (via my OSCARENT Hatch N Feeder supplemented with manually hatched bbs) or microworms. The betta fry love both kinds.

After seeing the pics of mom and dad, can anyone help predict what the babies might develop into? The dad actually has lots more red in him than the picture shows and the blue iridescence can't be seen with the naked eye if that helps.

-Ian

How are they on microworms Ian?

My fry are on BBS. I'd like to try some microworms also.

why'd you breed VTs? not that i have anything against them, but aren't they hard to find homes for? either way, congradulations on the spawn.

Pugbrat said:

How are they on microworms Ian?

My fry are on BBS. I'd like to try some microworms also.

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They devour the microworms about as avidly as they do the BBS. Microworms are easier to keep (though some culturing media can smell aweful)

CaptainRetardo said:

why'd you breed VTs? not that i have anything against them, but aren't they hard to find homes for? either way, congradulations on the spawn.

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The male is a VT. I'm fairly certain the female is not. I suppose she may look VT'ed but I bought her off an importer in my city, and from what I know, he does not keep any VTs. His males were mostly CT, but this female does not look CT to me so I'm not sure what tail type she is.

Anyways, to answer your question: this is my first spawn. I wanted to practice on some fish that were not overly expensive. The male cost $4 and the female was $10. It's a small spawn so I'm sure I'll have no problem finding people to take (for free) the few I don't want. Also, I knew that I should be able to get back to whatever tailtype the female is by selectively mating the offspring to eachother. So, I selected a male with the colourings I liked from the petshop. He's now my sister's fish.

Either that picture has been doubled or thats a pretty big bubble nest.

Congrats! gahh, you don't know how lucky you are to have 10 ;0)

The babies should be pretty colorful. I predict mostly Mom's coloring - red with green or blue wash. Red usually overtakes blue/white, especially since the mom is almost solid red. Hrmm.... it's really hard to tell with such a nipped tail, but she looks like she could be Plakat. Honestly, it'll be extremely hard to get quality Plakats from breeding VTxPK crosses, IMHO. But it could happen.

HI. thanks for the replies.

Mishy: it's really the size of his bubblenest. he was quite avid about helping the fry out any way he could!

Splash: Thanks for the help with figuring out what she might be, and what the fry might look like. Unfortunately 10 fry isn't quite enough to get the full range of variation expected from this cross. I really was just doing this through as a test run. I'm getting a few pairs from Synirr's plakat spawn (if I don't choose to go with an Albi pair...tough decision eh?). I'd use HER plakat's as future breeding fish rather than the fry I have right now, unless I have a VERY PROMISING male and female come from this one (though I also doubt that).

I'll update with pics in a week or so. I may try updating just on mondays as that's when they hit the weekly milestones in age That'll make it easier for keeping track of overall rate of progress in the end!

-Ian

Not too much to add lately. They're continuing to grow at a nice rate. I can see colour starting on them. So far, a few seem to be getting red on their bodies, and a few other have a whitish anal fin. Two of the ones with white anal fins have a tiny black border on their anal fins as well, so hopefully that stays with them as they mature.

The colours are definitely not anything that will be picked up on my old camera!

-Ian