Neglective Pappa

[fishykisses]

My MG spawn was yesterday afternoon and it took quite a while for the dad to get the hang of things. Even now he's really clumsy and as he takes eggs out of the nest to clean and move them around, he knocks a bunch out and this last half hour or so has stopped picking them up. He's looking after the ones still in the nest but if any fall - too bad.
I'm not sure what to do - if anything. I don't think it's necessary to remove him but is there anything that i can do to ensure i'll get some survivors?! I was so happy this was gonna be a large spawn...now i'm not so sure.
It was strange from the start, for the first part of the spawn the roles were reversed. Legales (pappa) would be stunned instead of the female and the mom would gather all the eggs. When instinct finally kicked in and he wanted to help gather eggs, momma got really aggressive with him. I've never seen that. So anyway, any opinions would help.

 

[fishykisses]

Well they've hatched now and i only see a couple. I know there could be more than that but anyway. Pappa is not tending to them at all. I guess i'll take him out and lower the water level so i don't risk him eating the others.
Is that what you guys would do?

 

[wuvmybetta]

Yes. If he's clearly not helping them, yank him out.

 

[fishykisses]

i went down again and there are 2 babies i see and now he is caring for them but not well, he blows them back up but not strong enough, they come right back down. How disappointing
Wuv, have you ever bred a male a second time if he was a poor caregiver the first time? I'm wondering if he would improve.

 

[wuvmybetta]

Yes, I have done that several times and they're usually much better the second time. It's like something clicks in their head. Others have done a poor job repeatedly but I kept trying and it finally worked. My oranges were horrible. They were what I started with, it took over 10 spawns before I finally got three fry out of them but I wasn't going to give up. Then I tried again after he was finally successful and he had a huge spawn

 

[fishykisses]

thanks so much - the parents are too beautiful not to get a good spawn.