SdJaCK&SaLLy

In order to make this spawn sucessful I suggest you have some experience in breeding bettas and taking care of betta fry ( this is not for begginers or people interested in having large spawns) first I introduced the male in his aquarium that is filled with alot of floating plants (water lettuce and water sprite) I also included a bunble of anacrus held down by a sinker and a small cave that the female betta and the fry can use when they are older. after the male was used to his surroundings I picked out one of my female bettas that looked exra plump and placed her inside a floating see through cup in the breeding tank. When the male saw the female he started to build a huge bubble nest under the floating water lettuce. I left the female in the cup for a couple of days untill I noticed that she was ready to spawn, I waited about 4-5 hrs and the nest was already full or eggs(if you dont see eggs right away don't panic it can sometimes take 2 days) I took out the female and waited. Suprisingly the eggs started hatching later that night and the dad was already showing good parental skills by not eatting them and and he was retrieving the small feefalling fry and returning them to the nest ( If you notice him eating some dont worry he is just culling the weak ones). It's been about 5 weeks and the male has culled mast of his spawn but he has spared about 6 that are bigger than the fry that I breed the regular way. People say fry raised this way seem to be less aggressive, they grow faster, and they become better parents when they grow up.
So if you feel lucky I would definatly recomend this meathod

SdJaCK&SaLLy

And a response from some-one on my forum


I suspect that what you consider to be culling is more likely accidental eating. A normal sporn of 400 eggs will produce an average of 150-200 healthy fry.

I have found that it is better to remove the father after about a week, since there is little chance of him eating the babies before then, but after that time, they are likely to be considered as food! If he is still with the young when you start feeding him again, as good a father as he may be, he will eat the fry by mistake at times.

to be honest, my males lose interest after about a week anyway and go off in search of food, leaving the fry to their own devices. I tend to wait for this to happen, then separate them.

If the tank is big enough, then you could take the chance of leaving him, but in smaller tanks, it's going to cost you healthy fry!

Most breeding manuals will advise this course to protect and raise larger sporns. The aggression factor is created by breeders to a great extent with the forced separation and bottle-rearing of the males, often in bottles that don't allow then to see any other bettas. This increases the aggression when they finally do see each other, whereas if they are bred in view of others, they are much less aggressive.

You managed to raise 6 bettas from a sporn of several hundred eggs. I aim to raise 200 from the same sized sporn, as most serious breeders do. In a home aquarium environment, 6 fry is fine, and will often create enough problems for the average aquarist to handle, but if you wanted to breed for gain, this method would not be acceptable.

To raise bettas on a commercial scale you need a lot of specially designed tanks, dedicated staff and plenty of time. The new fish house is being built for that purpose, with over 200 barracks for males and 100 grow-out tanks for females and others. I have my own breeding system that I have developed to increase the success rate, purely to ensure that we can make a profit from a very difficult area of breeding. I will not only be breeding splendens and the popular species, but also rare and endangered species, imported specifically for the purpose.

I'm not knocking your methods. If it works for you and gives the results you desire, then fine, but if you wanted to breed seriously, you would very quickly realise that you are losing too many!

Tim.

SdJaCK&SaLLy

It's a good method.