The Ct Spawn, Update

[fawnmodel]

This has been a strange spawn! First, it was a small spawn, and the female seemed to have retreated early, daddy stuck alot of eggs to only a few bubbles. They took a day longer than normal (in my exp) to hatch, and then, I think dad ate many of the hatchlings. Because he was so spooky it was very hard for me to really monitor how many we had. Once i removed him, I noticed there were ALOT of unhatched eggs. They did not go fuzzy, it was very strange. Many were still stuck to the styrofoam, and some were on the bottom. This is an F1

I took a good poke around the next day etc, and found some weird looking eggs. They had tails, and that was it. It was really strange I don't know how to explain it really. Finally I was able to find the babies, and found about 6 (ACK!). So I transferred them all over to another spawn that is a few days older. Cleaned out the tank....

Now the only things I can think of are:
Dad ate alot and mom did not have many eggs
That one of the parents may have a fertility-type prob (neither has been a parent beyond egg stage before)
That the male did not release alot of milt.
That something made it hard for babies to exit the eggs.

I breed lots of bettas all in the same tanks and same exact conditions - EXCEPT, I had run otu of salt when preparing this spawn, so it is the first time I have ever spawned without it. Since this is the only time, I can't be sure exactly why it turned out sooo strangely!

But, on the upside, the babies are gorgeous and strong swimmers, it was hard to catch them! They already have a tint of red, so it was easy to see them in the tank of blue hm babies)

In the meantime, I had setup and started a spawn of my lovely rare male with the neat pattern..an F2 spawn. the female is still penned so we may release her in the moring

 

[ILM]

I've never bred CTs but have heard it can be difficult--something about the fish being so highly selectively bred to get that gorgeous crowning effect that the fish often turn out to be a bit more high-strung (then other bettas). It sounds like there might have been something wrong with the eggs, which may be why the male ate some of them, the fish often can tell when the eggs or newborns are not healthy or off and they'll just consume them rather than waste time and energy on deformed offspring that won't live long (in the wild at least). I've never used salt in the breeding and baby tanks so I don't think it was a salt issue. How old were the breeders? If hte female was old or if she'd been recently ill and/or medicated, she may have had mature damaged eggs which is why she had such a small clutch this time.

 

[fawnmodel]

It is true the gene that makes for crowning also makes for more agressive fish and unpreditability...

The female is only 5 months and I have bred her three times. The strange thing is the other two times, previously non-egg eating papas ate her eggs...so I wonder if she has a fertility prob.

I am thankful to get even a handful of cuties tho The ones left are healthy and strong, Doing well in my HM grow out with their 'cousins' - a very strong batch of hm I've had not one death with them so far

I'm going to try this male again next month as he has superb finnage and was a very easy spawn and very protective, I think the issue/prob is with the walls of her eggs and I KNOW I have heard something about this prob before but I can't remember where!

The faulty eggs really looked WEIRD - like the end of bean sprouts wtih just a tail emerged. Best I can describe it. I am sure you are right and it was not lack of salt - but I do use it every time, I'm anal lol

 

[Betta_Lovex3]

That's weird...Oh well, at least you got 6 little cuties!!

 

[Joby]

I too never use salt in spawn tanks.

Not sure what is going on there

 

[splashluff]

Aww, I hope the 6 little guys make it! It's a bummer that most didn't hatch, but I don't think it'd be the salt... probably the milt, I would guess.

I have definitely heard that CT's tend to be very aggressive and it's difficult to spawn a CT with a different tail type.

 

[fawnmodel]

Yah they are both CT's tho