Leaderboard

Try the black worm farm ( search black worms Australia )they sell freeze dried cubes which are great for conditioning , they also sell worm pellets that the shrimp like too and is a good source of protein. The farm does sell live worms but only in larger quantities about 200g i think from memory and that’s about $60.

Thank you so much Ineke! That’s really valuable information. I’m gonna keep a close eye on the shrimp, if I notice anything I’ll put him into a spare tank. It’s easy when you only have one lol. I’ll be ordering a culture of microworms as a food to condition the adults when I order them. Microworms won’t be too small, will they? I’ve had trouble finding other types of cultures. Can’t source any live black worms unfortunately, or a vinegar eel culture, although I know I’ll have to find one before I try to breed. If Melbourne gets another lockdown, I’ll definitely try to breed during that, so I can be home to take care of the fry at the start of their lives. From your ideal tank description, I think mine match up, besides the size of course. I’m pretty good with keeping consistent parameters and temp in those tanks though. Thanks for your help Ineke ?

Consistency is the key i feel. Pick the temperature you are happy with i think the extreme cold is what gets them in small tanks. I have never kept any Bettas in anything smaller than a 30 litre tank but usually they have been in my 60 litre tanks and always with good heaters and good filtration with low flow water movement, plenty of live plants as they Bettas with long fins like to rest on the leaves. It’s quite funny to see them sleeping on a large leaf. . I fed good quality Betta specific dry foods, frozen beef heart and live worms at least once a week or freeze dried black worms will do. Be prepared when you breed them they need vinegar eels or white worms for their first food for about a week and then a daily supply of freshly hatched brine shrimp until they can take larger brine shrimp, chopped up live worms and freeze dried black worms after that. As you can imagine when i had so many fry to feed it was almost an all day process of water changes and hatching brine shrimp daily. If i were to breed them again and have such a large number of fry i think i would cull a lot of them and keep perhaps 30 as that would be much more manageable. I have never lost one -apart from one of the fry - or from old age. Small tanks are harder to maintain they need regular water changes and decent heaters. one word of warning Bettas will play with the shrimp even if they don’t eat them although they can and some will eat them but its the playing that is an issue. They chaser and harass they shrimp and ive seen them take chunks out of them . I had a beautiful well planted tank with a sobriety of female Bettas and my first colony of shrimp until i saw the girls chasing the shrimp and some of the poor shrimp lost legs . I was so devastated i gave the girls away and have never kept shrimp and shrimp together again. Good luck its an amazing experience watching the whole breeding and growing out process. My main word of advice would be be prepared , have brine shrimp hatcheries available - there are many good you tube videos on making hatcheries. I used the very simple hatchery of a takeaway container with black tape leaving a window on one side so the hatched eggs/brine shrimp gather by the light and are easy to siphon out. It is an easy way without air or lighting but slightly more wasteful as the hatch rate is much lower. I tried the way with airline and a coke bottle but i needed too many to get enough food so the takeaway container worked better for me as i could have several on the go each day. The fry did so well because i was home and could feed them every 3-4 hours.

CUTE!!!!!!!! Those babies are adorable! Just read through the whole thread, sounds like great fun (besides the pain that forced you to hand off the fry). I’ve heard you can keep males in with the females as long as you’ve never separated them since birth. I’m pretty sure they’re okay like that until 3 months, as long as the tank is large enough. I’m actually planning on getting a pair of bettas today (well, I’m going to order them today I think, otherwise I’ll have to wait until the weekend to place the order so they ship on Monday). I’ve got two 5 gallon tanks ready for them (one is empty for the male, the other has an endler and an adult shrimp), and I have a feeling they should suit them well. I’m just unsure whether I should key the temperature of the female’s tank toward her or the shrimp. Probably just gonna go somewhere in the middle with 22-23° if I’m being honest. Do you have any big tips for keeping bettas? My first one died of dropsy after a month, which was extraordinarily off putting, especially considering the research and care I put toward him. I’m really worried that I could stuff it up again. I know people say bettas are super hardy and can deal with lots of abuse, yet somehow mine died when I gave him the best care I possibly could… Anyways, I’d really appreciate any help you could offer, as you clearly are quite skilled at keeping and breeding bettas (based on your incredible survival rate of the fry).

This was exactly what I experieced with my first betta and a couple of shrimps, red cherry, in a 8L tank! My current betta is fine with shrimp, but I put tat more down to the fact they are much harder to see being culls, they are brown or clear, and the tank is bigger 25L with a lot of plants etc! Again this was my first experience. Second and third didn't do much better (no pun). The last and current have been plain saiing thanks to JayC assistance which is on here under Betta subject! Good luck with the breeding Crabby, I think I have said before, I bought 3 female (?) betta from a closing store but one must have been male as I ended up with about 50 babies (I did think the fish were quite aggressive but dismissed it, should have been a clue????) - it came to nothing as I am housebound so couldn't deal with it in time, the only good part about it was it made me adament I don't want to breed them ever again.................. I plan to go through this whole thread later, haven't yet, got to do some housewor first, d'oh! Still, something to look forward to later. Simon

Because I used photobucket as my source for pictures before they basically held the pictures hostage unless you paid subscription fees and therefore you can no longer see my pictures I have posted a picture of Dad and then pictures of some of the babies .

When I closed my shrimp room I gave away most of my shrimp apart from a few old ones that I felt it was unfair to move on both for the receivers and for the shrimp themselves and my outdoor shrimp . I kept a 60 litre tank for the shrimp and changed my big tank over to a fish tank. Hubby likes looking at fish so I kept them for a year or so but we both missed the shrimp. So I can understand what you are saying. I eventually gave away the fish and grabbed the best shrimp from the pond plus what I had left in the 60 litre tank and started over. I also bought and was given some very nice “culls” from Marcus. That’s what I’m playing with now. I’m looking forward to seeing what I end up with once they start breeding. My last giant gene female is berried at the moment, she is a very pale red , hopefully she lasts long enough to hatch her eggs . She would be close to 2 now so won’t be around much longer. She probably mated with one of the black boys but is now in the red tank. If she does carry the eggs to term - another week or so - it will be interesting plus I get a few more of the larger shrimp. If she dies before the eggs hatch I will try to rescue them. If I see her tomorrow I will get a picture of her with another shrimp for comparison to show the size difference. If she wasn’t berried I would catch her out but I don’t want to chase her around.

She is very pretty and unusual! The thing I liked about my mixed Taiwan bee tank was that you never knew what you would get for the offspring, I ended up with so many different colours and patterns it was beautiful, I got a few skunk(?) or wishbone as well before the disaster! Your photos almost inspire me to try again, but I have fish in the tank at the moment (with wild cherry shrimp culls) and they are doing well, but when they start dying off I may get friends round to re-try Taiwan bee again, I have the substrate already??? Simon

It will be lovely once the shrimp numbers build up again. I caught all the red Taitibees and black, blue and chocolate Neos out for some easier selective breeding.Having a large tank is great but trying to catch individual shrimp is so hard. By splitting the colony it will be easier, I can leave the black Taitibees and the BlueBolts - they are Taitibees as well- to breed and then the reds can be picked over . I will take out any Red males I don’t particularly think will help improve the quality and keep all the females to build up their numbers . Once I have a reasonable number of females I will buy some males that are more like what I’m after - galaxy types- then the fun can begin. I know I could just buy an existing colony but what’s the fun in that. I’ve played with hybrids from when the first Tibees were introduced by Ninja back in 2013/14 and just love not knowing what you might ge. Nearly all the TB in the picture with the Yellow Neos are Taitibees. It took several years to build up and it was enthralling watching the colony grow. We didn’t have access to the type of shrimp you can get now . Hopefully by the end of the year the numbers will be better and the big tank will be worth looking at again. This picture is one of my very first Tibee, she gave me lots of lovely babies. She also was a “giant”Tibee and for many years people were very surprised by the size of some of my shrimp , they were quite big. The downside to the giant gene was they bred later in their life - if they weren’t sterile- and might only have 2 or 3 clutches of eggs at around 18 months and then promptly died.