My dragon betta

[Zebra 143]

Hello, 

So today while visiting a friend who works at my local fish shop I could help but buy a couple of Bettas they had there, we've been talking lately about Bettas they plan to breed. 

I've got them in they 5-bay I sumped over my shrimp tank till I set them up a better tank, lol.

[jayc 1,844]

Nice betta @Zebra. Good to see pics of fish every once in a while on SKFA.

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by jayc

[Zebra 143]

Thanks mate, 

The female looks like she's about to drop eggs any day now.

For a long time my main focus was plants and I was put right off live stock cause of my hellish nightmare 4ft tank, the fish were just messing stuff up as someone sold me CAE as otos haha, long time ago now.

I think it's always a good idea to go through all the basics with breeding.

He wasn't the biggest of the lot they had but my friend said he would have been her next choice if she didn't get the one she got. 

I'm very curious now to learn what to look for in "good genetics"

So far my small bit of research shows it's not good to breed Bettas with random blue and red as they will likely make off- coloured mutts that will be hard to rehome, And although I'm willing to build proper individual  grow out tanks, I don't want to end up with hundreds of Bettas living permenantly in these small grow out style tanks haha. 

Im in the dog house with the other half as it is haha.

A lot of my wanting to get these Bettas too is that, my first fish was a betta, and with bad advice from the fish shop I didnt buy him a filter or anything, ( I used to do a few decent water changes everyweek though) and I find they make much better actual pets as far as personality etc goes then most fish, they really notice when you do a water change.

But all my tanks have to be for some kind of breeding setup to at the very least offset my hobby costs. Haha

cheers

[KeenShrimp 241]

@jayc, they are gorgeous, but unfortunately not mine?

[jayc 1,844]

1 minute ago, KeenShrimp said:

not mine

Doh!

how did that happen?

editing my post.

[Zebra 143]

Lol. I think you'd better- eh, see what I did there? Haha?

[jayc 1,844]

2 hours ago, Zebra said:

Lol. I think you'd betta

Fixed the spelling for you.

[Zebra 143]

Haha, 

So setting up the spawn tank today, it's an old bowfront aquatopia 50L all in one, the light stopped working and hood always had moisture problems (which probably broke the light) even after I added extra ventilation. 

So it's bin sad watching it lay to waste outside as it was our first proper tank with a filter and heater.

Just removed the hood completely, gave it a nice cleanup and given it a new lease on life. 

I have one 20w led flood for the day lighting, Small low light blue and white leds for the night light, A pre cycled sponge filter, Small pieces of wood and lava rock with plants and moss, And also some floating plants. Got some IAL coming soon, planning to do a barebottom tank and use rainwater from my large tank tds 60ppm.

So how does this sound so far?

 

 

[Zebra 143]

My spawn tank ?

The night light.

The day light.

My girl.

 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Zebra

[Zebra 143]

So after a great introduction and nice bubble nesting. 

The male attacked my girl and I had to get her out. 

A lot of tanks have been sold and bought since then haha, and I've just introduced her to my new male koi betta. So time to start a new thread I guess haha

[jayc 1,844]

On 09/04/2017 at 1:06 PM, Zebra said:

koi betta

???

Picture! Please.

[NoGi 1,368]

Nice Betta.

Good to start seeing some fish photos here too.

[Zebra 143]

He's in a tank with my female now, she jumped over the seperater and said hello yesterday haha.

so far they are getting along well, but I don't leave them alone together too long.

[ineke 945]

Interested to see how you go. My first ever try at breeding Bettas was a huge success after a couple of false starts. Ended up with about 300 fry from the pair - we stopped counting after 270 - I know now it's best to cull some when the numbers are so big but at the time it was super exciting and I also didn't know there were so many babies and being my first attempt I didn't expect them to survive ! Good luck .

[Zebra 143]

Nice, haha I would be the same I think, but Yeah I've also read that culling is kinder in the end.

Do you have any tips or tricks on breeding them Ineke?

Theyre just in a tank with low water level, a bubble filter and heater, and a heap of plants.

Its nice soft water and I use lots of oak leaves in there.

cheers

[ineke 945]

As I only bred mine once - I got scared off with the amount of time it took to look after so many fish- I can't really say I'm very experienced however I did quite a bit of research and it was suggested that a piece of bubble wrap be put in the tank for the boy to build his nest under. Previously his nest kept breaking apart , once the bubble wrap was floating in a corner he built a much more stable nest. 

I used a bare bottomed tank and initially has IAL in there but as it broke down it left a lot of mulm on the floor and made it harder to clean any excess food out. 

I took the male out day 3 .

I had a supply of vinegar eels for the first few days after hatching . As soon as I saw the fry hatching I commenced breeding brine shrimp so that I had a ready supply of newly hatched brine shrimp for day 3. I kept setting up new brine shrimp hatcheries everyday and fed the eels and BBS for a few days then slowly stopped the eels and increased the BBS. As there were so many fry I also introduced powdered fry food about day 7 I think it was but I was still worried that might not be enough so I bought some freeze dried black worms in cubes and stuck them on the glass in various areas around the tank to allow all the fry a chance to get to them. They demolished it in a very short time . I bought some live worms - again black worms - and chopped them up with a razor blade - and feed them in small amounts the fry loved them but the BBS seemed to be the favourite - I started feeding the older brine shrimp too - it was great to see the fry chasing the brine shrimp.

as I was home I was able to feed them at least 4 times a day. Apparently you need to be careful as the fry can get very hungry and gorge on food if they aren't fed often and their little tummies don't do well. You can see the tummies filling up as they catch their food. It was easy to see if they were getting enough as some babies looked empty so I would squirt the brine shrimp around the tank and especially close to the smaller fry. The size difference was quite noticeable so putting the food near to the smaller fry gave them a chance to eat before the big guys came and took the bulk of the food. 

I will say it is better to buy good quality brine shrimp eggs - they hatch much better than some of the cheaper ones. I also tried ocean nutrition pre hatched brine shrimp - they are not alive but they are in a suspension - they are a reasonable standby for the times a batch of eggs don't hatch well but the live brine shrimp are definitely eaten better by the fry. I think the movement of the live brine shrimp keeps the fry interested .

Edited April 27, 2017 by ineke

[Cesar 40]

Great pics @Zebra and @ineke... I never had luck with bubble nesters...

Any more updates?

[ineke 945]

After the huge success with so many fry surviving I never tried breeding again 300 surviving Bettas was just way too much work. I sold the majority off in a bulk lot. @newbreed still has a few of mine I think .