Small Male + Big Female = Successful Spawn!

[fawnmodel]

Well, I decided to give this one a try as I needed an outcross and preferred not to purchase another suitable female at this time...

I have a gorgeous, veteran excellent spawning male that I really want to get a few more batches out of before I retire him - wonderful spawner and papa, but he is a smaller male...

Only suitable outcrosser I have is a female who grew very large very fast, a 'virgin' spawner. Gorgeous finnage tho, but the one time I attempted to spawn her the male did not like her and beat her to pieces so she has not been tried since. I knew I would have alot of time to careful monitor them, so why not see what happens.

To for the past several days, I have intro'd her to my males spawn tank, where he has been homed for around a week. Both were well conditioned, and ready to go, but I kept her penned for awhile. She is about , oh 40% bigger than he is!

Letting her out they did the regular courtship. This male tho, he likes a long courtship so I usually have to repen his females every day and at night so he does not get too nasty. He likes a submissive girl)

Needless to say, she was very willing and trying to literally force him to wrap her, but as he would try he would get frusterated eventually at her size, and start beating on her. So after she would hide awhile, I would repen her for several hours so he could court her and get excited without hurting her.

This morning, I let her out again, and watched them carefully. It took him around 30 very good but tiring tries and one frustration where she was repenned for awhile - before he figured out how to wrap her in a way where he could get those eggs out! I am so proud of them

Now that he figured his technique out, they are spawning away - she is very full so I think this will take some time, her eggs also look larger than normal, I think as a turq she has a bit of giant gene there.

Anyhow, just thought I would share the unusual success story. She seems to be helping rather than eating too, so I hope to have so hatclings eventually!

 

[ezrock]

that's great to hear! do you have pictures of the two bettas?

-Ian

 

[fawnmodel]

Sure I will try to post some later - funny thing, I am a professional portrait and fashion photographer yet I have no clue how to photograph fish using a sad low-res digi) I am ashamed to say! My photos are horrible...

But, the male is the one I spoke about in my other post today, the one who likes to ruin his tail so it is still growing back with damage, and the female is also quite tattered from her original spawn attempt, warriors, they be. lol

 

[fawnmodel]

Ok here are a few, some are new and most are old...

The male is a blue butterfly. The before is an old pic of him under a bubblenest, not flaring. He makes massive nests that cover more than half the ten gal. He bad a really nice pattern until he ruined himself


The 'during pic' shows how bad he mangled himself in the filter. That is two months ago.
I'll try to post a pic of his regrowth after the fish are free swimming, it is pretty good but his pattern got mangled in the repair job.

The female I can't find a pic of, but will take one later.

Also, here are a few others:

A little one of my turq marble hm (who is actually a ohm but rarely flares out too much), you can see his mini flare he is the same fish as my avatar you can see how they darken in only three months!


New female, nasty grrl, she is sooo eggy, male ate all her eggs last time
New CT Feather, he's great, always flaring

 

[splashluff]

I'm so excited for you, Fawn! Little guys and big girls can really be a challenge, but your boy sounds like a pro. He's gorgeous! I absolutely know how the tail-ruining goes...gah. Maui bit his tail badly twice, but with lots of IAL and a calmer environment his tail is looking beautiful again. Good luck with your little guy and his big nestfull of eggs!

 

[fawnmodel]

Terrible thing happened = I always enlist my kids to help with the daily raising, caring and cleaning of bettas...

Today my 5 yo (very independent) asked if she could hold one of them, of course I told her no....

During the cleaning process she came and told me that the male (above) had destroyed his nest because he 'went crazy'. I didn't understand what she meant, and she looked guilty

Finally after I checked his spawn tank I found there were eggs EVERYWHERE and no nest left. He was scared and hiding in the plants -
Turns out, she admits, she has 'stirred' the tank up with her hands while inspecting the bubblenest, god knows why

So after I turned his light down, shed a tear, and covered the tank up nice moving plants otu of the way, heis on the way to rebuilding when I sneak little peeks.

After this I checked all the tanks, and found a bunch of snail food dumped into the other grown outs.. ack!

So after the cleanup, all seems on the road to normalccy

Still, it is a great thing I think, for kids to be involved with and learn from. Her favorite molly died of old age today, so maybe it was a little jealousy thing


*edit/update* He seems to have repaired and rebuilt most of a nest with most eggs, I only see a few stragglers away from the nest. Hoping he didn't eat most out of frustration.... phew