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T.S. - These people that have given some
advice are too in to this stuff. I'm not
saying its bad advice its just that you don't
need to do all that junk. Just feed them
about two times a day on any regular
food. Keep the water temp. at room temp.
or a little higher for both. You should, if the
first attempt is a miss, fight the male. Put
some wax paper in a 5 gallon tank with
the female in a seperate container. The
rest is up to the fish.
- May 30, 2001
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siamese_dream2001 - You are experiencing exactly what Betta's do. You can't expect to condition the fish and then BAM they spawn immediately. Fish are like people some fall in love right away some take coaxing. My first suggestion would be that if you've conditioned them, great, turn down the water temp from 84 degrees to about 80...Place the male in the spawn tank, let him stay there by himself for 24-36 hours, then place the female inside a chimney glass, inside the males tank, leave here there for 24 hours in plain view of the male, he will flare, yell, scream and when it settles down a bit, release her. If they don't spawn within 48 hours. Add a little black water extract from Tetra...
- Jan 11, 2001
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JJ - If the male keeps biting and chasing the female away...the males may be very aggressive! Sometimes, if the female is too
small or not ready to breed, this can result. What I did with my spawns of
reds
is this. I place the pair into two 1 foot cube breeding tanks so that they
'can
see cannot touch'. I also place a piece of indian almond tree leaf as a
medium
for the male to blow his bubble nest under. This leaf also makes the water
turn
brown, and may have some other medicinal properties that may be beneficial
to
the spawn. After 1 day in separate tanks, I net the female and put her into
the
male's tank. Then I wait, and observe. So far I've not had over aggression
in
the males, so I've not had the need to pull the female out of the spawning
tank
before she spawned. Usually if you see scales coming off the female, it
means
it's time to pull her out, which is what you and Danny did correctly. After
introducing the pair, I'll wait up to 5 days, sometimes more if the pair
does
not suffer too much aggression problem.
Other than the standard procedure above, I also age the breeding tank water
for
at least 2 days, and try to bubble the water vigorously during this period
of
time. I don't know if it's any different, but my guess is that the oxygen
content will be much richer. Another thing is, you need to cover the tanks
to
prevent draft from destroying the bubblenest. However, I believe that a
little
bit of breathing gap is necessary to keep the air fresh, so I always leave a
small gap on the cover, sufficient for preventing any build-up of mist on
the
glass walls.
I think this is about the entire procedure for my breeding. Just make sure
the
male and female are ready, and you should be fine. Sometimes these hybrid
fish
can be a bit more difficult to spawn, so I wish you guys good luck! : )
- Feb 4, 2001
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betta5 - Do you have any live plants in the tank? My experience is that if you do not have them, the ammonia builds up after a few days and the male will chase the female but not mate even if there is a buble nest. If you can do it without disturbing the nest, you might want to do a partial water change. Or even put a styrofoam cup over the nest and then you should be able to change some water without breaking it up entirely.
- Jan 13, 2001
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Len - I have been conditioning my males and females for the past two weeks. Here is my conditioning regime. Clean water every two days. Water temp 84 degrees. They eat three times a day. Menu includes frozen BS in the morning, dried bloodworms and live tubifex in the afternoon, followed by live BS at night. PH is 7.0.
Now, I understand that while you are conditioning these fish they should be in view of each other. If there is no females around the males blow nests. As soon as the females are visible they neglect the nest and spend ALL day flaring at her. All my females are responding well to the conditioning. All that I have conditioned show their vertical stripes and bellies swell. I am worried about them becoming egg bound. What else can I do to get the boys "in the mood"? I placed one of the conditioned females in the tank and allowed her to become use to the male. She started doing her head stands and the male just flared. I left her in there for two days and what was the start of this guys nest soon dissipated. Can anyone offer some suggestions?
- Jan 11, 2001
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bjve31 - My male that bred this past weekend did not really work on his nest until the female was in the tank with him...loose. She sat nearby while he took turns flaring and working on the nest. Occasionally she helped with the nest. I was worried at first, but within 24 hours the nest was done, and they were spawning. Kept spawning for over 2 hours!
- Jan 11, 2001
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Hans - from my experience, having a bubblenest in place is not a "must" before spawning can take place; during mating process with the eggs falling (and the pair are NOT egg-eaters), the male or/and female WILL somehow pick and blow them up on the edge where water surface and tank wall meets - and usually blow a few bubbles along the way to make them float easier. therefore, don't worry about the nest, i had mine usually destroyed by the female when she swims fanatically away from the bitting male - zapping all over the breeding tank ;)
if the female is not too badly hurt by the male (torn fins are ok, but not stress till she turns pale), i'll place them together for as long as no harm is done. And so far, all my pairs spawn in 3 days time latest - regardless of how uninterested they may seems at first. actually, i think it's more important that the female is "willing".
with that said, i know of some male that JUST won't do it...
- Jan 12, 2001
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