Egg tumblers for Betta Eggs?

B

BrookAshley

New Member
I'm going to try breeding Bettas and I was wondering....
Should I take the male out and put the eggs in a tumbler?, I don't want to take the chance of him eating them.
 
C

Chiisai

New Member
I have only bred about 120ish betta's so I am not an expert. But it has been my experience you should leave the male with the eggs. Betta males USUALLY only eat the eggs when they sense they are infertile or have defects. If You like I can try to find the literature supporting this but cant remember where it is off the top of my head. If the male is eating the eggs its because he is trying to save you from defective fry. We had 1 batch where we caught him eaeting eggs shortly after putting them in his bubble nest. We "rescued" the eggs by removing him. we had 30% hatch rate and discovered when they got a bit bigger many of them had tumors, or mutations.

Either way I wish you the best of luck! Btw if you breed a fancy male with a fancy female... you get bleached out fish as a result. I dont know why but to get impressive colors you want a bland looking female to get gorgeous Betta's
 
B

BrookAshley

New Member
Ok Thank You :)

P.S. My female is just red and my male is very blue with a bit of red on his ventral and anal fins. Bad mix or good mix?
 
C

Chiisai

New Member
Well no matter what you breed you will likely have a few you really like. But in general if you breed a beautiful male with a dull or not so fancy female for some reason you are more likely to get more stunning fry more consistently. Have you ever bred Betta's before? If not then once the fry are born you REALLY have to keep the water clean. 50 lil betta fry can pump out alot of ammonia as well as a enzyme that stunts growth. We found doing a 50% water change 1x-2x a day had decent growth rate and kept the ammonia at or below .25ppm
 
B

BrookAshley

New Member
I've bred alot of fish of but I've never bred bettas lol, it seems interesting so I decided I'd take a swing at it :)
I've heard about having to do freguent water changes and I've been looking at diy filters that are efficient but won't suck up the little swimmers and while I've seen several ideas I have found one that seems like it would work and specifully built for betta fry, I'm going to try and build one and see how effective it really is.
 
C

Chiisai

New Member
honestly your best bet to get them to breed is when the barometer drops. so day of rain or storm seems to have higher chances the pair breeds. but yeah. another idea is breed them in a 10gal with maybe 2 " of water and plants... and instead of filter or water changes ypyou add 1" of water a day. once tank is full your fry should be able to handle a full on water change. make sure any water you add is same temp as the betta fry are unusually sensitive to temp variance. good luck!
 
C

CrazedAce

New Member
I tried breeding bettas and I managed to get a total of like six to survive to adulthood. The male stayed alive for about a dozen spawns, had to get a new female every 3-4 spawns though. Breeding them is very stressful; the male doesn't eat (or he does and its the eggs) and the female has to recover from fin nipping.

In my honest opinion, get an egg tumbler if you want most of them to survive. Or you could go the natural way and hope that your fish have good lines and know how to court well with each other.
 
C

Chiisai

New Member
CrazedAce said:
I tried breeding bettas and I managed to get a total of like six to survive to adulthood. The male stayed alive for about a dozen spawns, had to get a new female every 3-4 spawns though. Breeding them is very stressful; the male doesn't eat (or he does and its the eggs) and the female has to recover from fin nipping.

In my honest opinion, get an egg tumbler if you want most of them to survive. Or you could go the natural way and hope that your fish have good lines and know how to court well with each other.
Click to expand...
Yeah the male wont eat until the fry are free swimming. Usually you want to feed them heavily for a few days prior to your breeding attempt, and then not feed during courtship. It limits the amount of distractions thus limiting the beating the bettas will take(yes the male may get thrashed a bit too)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top