Spawn This Winter

[GuppyDude]

Howdy follks, im going to be spawning this winter maybe and i want to be prepared. i know betta lova has recently done a spawn and he knows as much or maybe even more than me and it sounds like hes lost a bunch of babys to be honest i dont even have a pair set up that i wanna breed, im still looking for a female. Iv got a few questions i need an expert to answer. ( btw, this winter i mean like in january or late december )

~ What am i going to need in the way of food for the lil guys? iv got tropical flakes, betta bites and frozen blood worms ( im not starteing a live culture, iv got brine shrimp eggs i may use but it always turns out to be a hassle. my lfs has all kinds of frozen food )

~ How big of a tank am im going to need to spawn and keep the babys for a month? (after a month i will be moveing them to individual cups ) Iv got a 10g will this work?

~ In the tank im going to have a heater, a couple small 1g filters, suran wrap on top, and maybe plants ( but i might remove the plants after i remove the parents ) does this sound good? ( also not haveing any gravel )

Please lemme know wat u guys think and if im missing anything let me know. id like to be totally prepared for this spawn. This is going to be nothing like breeding my guppys

 

[cutecotton]

Howdy follks, im going to be spawning this winter maybe and i want to be prepared. i know betta lova has recently done a spawn and he knows as much or maybe even more than me and it sounds like hes lost a bunch of babys to be honest i dont even have a pair set up that i wanna breed, im still looking for a female. Iv got a few questions i need an expert to answer. ( btw, this winter i mean like in january or late december )

~ What am i going to need in the way of food for the lil guys? iv got tropical flakes, betta bites and frozen blood worms ( im not starteing a live culture, iv got brine shrimp eggs i may use but it always turns out to be a hassle. my lfs has all kinds of frozen food )

~ How big of a tank am im going to need to spawn and keep the babys for a month? (after a month i will be moveing them to individual cups ) Iv got a 10g will this work?

~ In the tank im going to have a heater, a couple small 1g filters, suran wrap on top, and maybe plants ( but i might remove the plants after i remove the parents ) does this sound good? ( also not haveing any gravel )

Please lemme know wat u guys think and if im missing anything let me know. id like to be totally prepared for this spawn. This is going to be nothing like breeding my guppys

1) by ways of food for the little guys, tropical flakes wont' work, betta babies are picky eaters, and trpiocal flakes usually dont' rovide enough nutrition to boost them in the first month or so anyways. Betta bites you can try, but it should not be a main meal, only when all else fails or if they are really hungry. When they first born, frozen food of any type will be tioo big, they will take frozen at aroudn 3- 4 weeks.

So, basically for the first month, yo'ull have to get an mw culture (or vinegar eels, or grindle worms, but the point is, somethign LIVE), and BBS. Its a hassle i know, but you gottaaaa do it for those hungry little mouths! first 3 days after hatching, they will feed off their eggsack, i suggest leavign all the plants in becuase they rpovide hiding spots for the fry, and if they are live they will provide some kind of infurosia, which will last them first few days after they becoming free swimming.

For the first week, i fed my fry microwroms....lots of them (not overfeeding though). At about a week, i started mixing betta bites and bbs inot the diet, and continued thits for 2 weeks or so. As an alternative, i've ehard of people trying egg yolk during the first week, but i can't tell you whether or not it works out to be good. YOu can give it a shot but be aware that it can foul your water quickly.

2) For the tanks, fry at 4 weeks will not be old enough to be jarred. I'm afarid if you jar them right at 4 weeks, you will not be ablet ot ell the difference between the males and females, which means that you have a medium sized spawn of about 50, that's 50 jars that you have to change amost daily...not cool. Breeding is recommended in a 10g, and that's where the fry should stay for the first month or so. After the first month, tha'ts when people usually move them to a big growout tank (30g to 40g). Since i only have 24 fry, their "growout" is 12 in a 15g and the other 12 in a naother 15g. If i had say 50 fry i'd go with a 30 - 40G growout.

3) the heater is great, set the tempreature 80F, a sponge filter would be good (i use that it also provides infurosia for the babies). Suran wrap is used to let the tank stay humid so the babies can develop their labyrith organ (comes in at aroudn 3 weeks). If you use saran wrap, make sure you do have some kind of hole/aeration. You don't wnat to suffcoate them by accident.

Anyways, good luck if you want me to post pics of my fry raising tanks i'll do that

 

[GuppyDude]

Thanx a whole lot cc, that really helped. i do have brine shrimp egs so i think im good for a lil while there until they can eat blood worms and betta bites. iv got a 20g in my basement. its pretty old and is going to need work. thats about as big as i got in the way of grow out tanks. will this be ok? also about cupping them, when should i do that? after im able to get an estimated count im going to find out where walmart gets their big betta cups and get about 100 or so of those. about infurosia, wat is that?, ill put in live plants if ist good for them.

 

[cutecotton]

hi guppydude, good to know that my info helped you out

anyways, bbs is great live food if you dont' have anythign else. Keep in mind that you would want to have 2 hatcheries altnerating so you wouldn't be left with starving fry and the eggs aren't hatching. Do you have any other live food cultures? microwrms are a great substitue when you don't have bbs.

a 20g mgiht be okay depending on the size of the spawn you haev. If you have a small spawn like mine, then it'll be fine. But if you end up with a big spawn of over 100 then i really dont' know However, if you dont' want to go out and get urself a huge 30 - 40g for a growout, you could at least get one of those big rubbermaid tubs, get a heater, sponge filter and set it up as a growout tank.

The bettas can be jarred at around 8 weeks or so i beleive. Soemtimes earlier, soemtimes later. Basicall you start jarring when you see aggression, or when you can start to tell between the sexes. Keep in mind that when you jar them, the males would not liekly be fully grown, they still have a lot of growign to do. I woudlnt' suggest keeping them in those tiny walmart cups, i believe most members here keep them in those beanie babie containers, i forgot exactly how much water it holds thoug, but defintely more than a walmart cup.

For my fry when they grow up and have to be jarred, ip lan on splitting my breeding tank (just a 15g rrubberamid container) with homemade dividers and put the males in that. That way when i change water i'll just put them all in individual cups, clean out the tank and put them back in. That or i'll divide those 1G plastic shoeboxes for them.

Infurosia is a general term for tiny aquatic organisms that live in your tank. They are almost microsopic so you wouldn't see them, but the fry sure can! they are good food, but should not be relied on becuase they are still very small. But fry can eat infurosia up to a week old. AFter that they "outgrow' it.

Live plants would be good. Try to get javamoss if you can as it does not need a lot of maintence, and is a giood source of infurosia. Fry also loves to hide in them becuase it provides security.

 

[GuppyDude]

no, bbs are the only cultures im goin to be able to get, the lfs wont special order me sum because they've gotta order it in mass quntities and there just isn't a demand for it iv got frozen stuff too but i dont think thats going to be good for them till their older. iv got java fern and some other plants too. im going to cycle the tank and keep it running for probably near a month before adding any fish. i dont know how big the containers are at your walmart but the ones here are accually quite large. still to small for a betta to live happily long term but they do have enogh room for a betta to swim around and be relitivly happy for a while untill their able to be moved to a bigger tank, sold, ect. the 20g is going to haf to do, my male is a newbie father and when i find him a female she'll most likely be new to spawning as well so i dont think the spawn will be to large

thanx for all your help cc, ill pm if i ever need anything else

 

[cutecotton]

i dont' know where you live but if you live around here in canada, i can get you a mw or vin eel culture if you want them. There is a local breeder in my area and he has some mw and vin eels avaiable, for $5 CDN each.

feel free to pm if you need anything. You'll relaly watn to try and get some live food, i tried raising my first spawn on bbs..not good, most of the babies died becuase i couldn't hatch the shrimps fast enough to feed them 3 times a day.

 

[GuppyDude]

this is true, bbs are hard to keep alive and hard to keep a good invintory of, i live in wisconsin, not to far from canada and if u can get me a ell culture or mw cultur ( which ever is easiest to keep alive and multiply ) that would be execlent.

 

[cutecotton]

i don' tknow if i can ship the mw over the border i could try as i got my mw culture cross hte border, how far away from you from toronto, ontario? or the border?

If you want them i'll ask the breeder how big a culture is, i think if you're looking for easy to take care of and multiply i'd go with the microworms. They'll just cost the $5 and shipping (which shouldnt' be too much, i wouldn't have to send priority i don't think).

 

[GuppyDude]

does he have a website? because if i can buy them ofline then u wont half to bother with it or anything, i userally am hesitent to buy anything over th border now since i boght that 50 dollar fish but i guess im going to need one if i plan to do this thing right.

also have u or anyone else seen BL online lately? id like to ask him how his spawn is goin now, i dont think iv seen much of him lately.

 

[GuppyDude]

Hey again folks, iv just placed a bid on a female i plan to breed with one of my males this winter. ill post some pictures as soon as the auction ends.