Betta Breeding Clean Up Crew

[braxenburg]

Hey guys,

I was getting as much info on breeding bettas as i could. I was wondering what kinda clean up crew i could use in the fry tank (Ghost shrimp, snails?) and when should i put them in? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[fishbit]

ramshorn snails are ok.. i put mine in the same time as the bettas, but ive yet to spawn, so i dont know if they will eat the eggs or not..

to be safe you might wanna wait till the fry are free swimming to put them in

 

[GuppyDude]

rams horn will b ok, and corys maybe to, but dont put them in until the male is out and the babys can swim, snails will eat the eggs and the male will eat the snails. corys the same, they will eat babys that cant swim and the male will kill them.

by the way, i think ghost shrimp r a bad idea, even if they ar babys i think the might bang up on em, i can c it

 

[Inchworm]

Hi braxenburg

I'm not sure it's really a good idea to keep corys in a breeding tank. They are schooling fish and should be kept in groups of three or more. Also, corys can be quite active, from time to time, and might cause too much agitation in the water for tiny fry.

Another reason is that corys will occasionally shoot up to the surface to get air and they cannot be expected to realize that a nest, or group of fry is there and avoid them.

Also, corys need very clean water and are every bit as likely to get finrot as bettas if their environment is less than clean. They cannot live amid fish waste and spoiling food and be expected to remain healthy. Since this is the case, siphoning is necessary, so why not just siphon to keep the fry tank clean and leave the corys out?

 

[braxenburg]

Thanks Guys !!!!!!!

 

[cutecotton]

i agree, personally i wouldn't put anythign in there for cleanup until they are about 3 weeks old or so, in whcih case you can add a snail, but keep in mind taht they are very messy themselves, so instead of having algae u'll just have a lot of snail poo, which means you'll have to syphon more often to keep ammonia levels down.

Same goes with most other bottom feeders, the easiest way is to do daily water changse wtih a syphon and replenishing the awter wtih good clean water.

 

[shrks1fan]

I swear by Ramshorn snails in my fry tanks...as soon as the fry are free swimming, in they go. If any fry isn't strong enough to get out of the way of a small Ramshorn snail, then he needs culled anyway, as he'll just die soon anyway and spoil the water quality. Ramshorns do an incredible job keeping the floor and walls of the tank gunk and algae free, I was amazed the first time I got them. Yes, they do poop alot, but I would rather have very easily vacuumed poop then that yucky gunk that forms all over the place without them. Also, snail poop promotes infusoria in the tank (assuming you have live plants), so that's free food for the newborn fry. It takes me all of 3-5 minutes a day to vacuum up the poop, and does a small water change, which needs to be done anyway.

Linda

 

[David]

snails will eat the eggs and the male will eat the snails.

Um, how can a snail eat eggs that are in a bubble nest? As far as I know snails cannot just leave the glass and swim over to the bubblenest. And I seriously doubt that bettas eat snails.

 

[f250fisherman]

Bettas love to eat small snails. They will not bother a ramshorn, unless the male wants to protect his fry. I personally put corys in a fry tank. I wait till the fry are 3-4 days old, then put them in. I do put young dwarf corys in. They are smaller, and if the young corys grow up with fry, they will not think of them as food. The biggest reason for having corys in the fry tank, is to keep the fry off the bottom. Thats how the bettas lose their ventrals. They lay on the bottom in the extra food, and get a fungus on the ventral fins. It eats it back to the body. They are so small. you don't notice the fungus on them. I will use adult dwarf corys in the growout.

 

[cutecotton]

Bettas love to eat small snails. They will not bother a ramshorn, unless the male wants to protect his fry. I personally put corys in a fry tank. I wait till the fry are 3-4 days old, then put them in. I do put young dwarf corys in. They are smaller, and if the young corys grow up with fry, they will not think of them as food. The biggest reason for having corys in the fry tank, is to keep the fry off the bottom. Thats how the bettas lose their ventrals. They lay on the bottom in the extra food, and get a fungus on the ventral fins. It eats it back to the body. They are so small. you don't notice the fungus on them. I will use adult dwarf corys in the growout.

that's a pretty good theory about the ventrals, do you know if it's true with evidence or just a theory? because some of my fry came out without ventrals, and i have no idea why IMO they stayed off the bottom quite well, but i'm tryign to prevent this in my next spawn, so if the cories think work then i might try, probably only after the fry are a week old though.

what would you feed the cories though? they can't just eat fry poo all dya

 

[Inchworm]

...that's a pretty good theory about the ventrals, do you know if it's true with evidence or just a theory? because some of my fry came out without ventrals, and i have no idea why IMO they stayed off the bottom quite well, but i'm trying to prevent this in my next spawn, so if the cories think work then i might try, probably only after the fry are a week old though.

what would you feed the cories though? they can't just eat fry poo all dya

Hi cutecotton

Corys don't eat fish feces at all. They would eat food that sank to the bottom that the top dwelling fry missed. That part makes very good sense.

But if there is bacteria that causes fin rot in bettas growing at the bottom, and the little bettas can become sick from it, it will effect the corys too, and from there you risk it losing all the other fry in the tank. IMHO it is better all around to keep the tank clean manually.

 

[cutecotton]

hey inchworm,

i'm just desperate to solve thsi mystery missing ventrals thing. In my last spawn i have been syphoning the water with an airline tubing and dong water changes TWICE a day, and fed 3 times a day (sometiems more) with live food, and STILL about 50% of my fry came out with no ventrals

sorry to hijack ) i think i will start my own thread about this

 

[endparenthesis]

I think the best way to avoid no ventrals (after having a whole spawn without them, although recently one has sprouted some... weird) is just keeping the fish off the bottom all the time. And the best way to do that is probably to feed them free-swimming food as often as you can. I noticed my spawn spent 24 hours a day on the bottom until they learned about BBS. Then it actually occurred to them to start swimming around to search for food instead of dragging their butts around grazing for microworms.

Something that keeps them swimming (like cories) could work too I guess. I'm sure water that's clean enough for baby bettas will be clean enough for cories or anything else.

 

[wuvmybetta]

I dunno, IMO the best thing to keep the bottom clean....is a gravel vac I don't use snails or anything,they carry parasites and germs and I prefer to keep my fry tanks as close to sterile as possible. The cory idea really just....scares me (?) I don't see why the cories wouldn't eat the newborn betta fry,that makes no sense to me.

 

[shrks1fan]

I dunno, IMO the best thing to keep the bottom clean....is a gravel vac I don't use snails or anything,they carry parasites and germs and I prefer to keep my fry tanks as close to sterile as possible. The cory idea really just....scares me (?) I don't see why the cories wouldn't eat the newborn betta fry,that makes no sense to me.

The snails I use I've had for a while, in fact most of the Ramshorns are babies from other snails I've had...so I don't need to worry about parasites, if they have any, they got them from my tanks and then I'd have other worries than my fry tanks, LOL. But I agree, I would only use snails I trusted the source of.

Linda