Pair in love!

Good luck Nat, sounds like you won't have any probs with the male accepting the female!

Good luck! Dibs on one of the babies

Oh how sweet!!! We'll need step by step pics ^_~

I wanna see her heavy with eggs!!! She sounds like she's glowing with maternity pride, lol.

Thanks everyone still nervous as its my first go properly done!

First betta i had it happened by accident as the lfs told me i could house male and females together, so iv seen the wrapping process but all babies died due to the fact the lfs gave bad advise.

As much thought, effort and the care you give I'm sure you'll do fine!

Yes! More breeding stories to follow! :D

Sounds good. Cant wait to see pics.

Well it'll be in about a week and a half before i even try putting them together, so fingers crossed it'll go okay

Sounds good. Remember to get some live food cultures up and running before you spawn them. You can always use that to condition the parents aswell.

Good point Kiz, that's what I'm doing with my pair. It keeps the culture ticking over until there's fry, and it's much easier scooping up some cultured worms than cutting up frozen cubes of bloodworm three times a day!

kizno1 wrote:Sounds good. Remember to get some live food cultures up and running before you spawn them. You can always use that to condition the parents aswell.

Thanks Kiz, iv just been using the horrible wriggly live bloodworms they are disgusting i think il take a look on ebay or in my lfs.

Ebays a good place to get them. Microworm or vinegar eels would work. Netty did have some vinegar eels for sale but i dont know if she till has any left.

thanks for that kiz

Heres a few photos iv taken of the happy couple!

This is one of the bubblenests he's built, he's got a few i can see under the silk leaves,lol!
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This is him guarding his nest whenever i show my face.
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He also still comes to see what im upto, nosey little so n so!
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His girl is very opposite to him, she's very shy towards me
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They both look stunning. Your going to get some amazing fry from them.

Thanks Kiz really want there fins/tail to grow back from when they'd been at lfs too, the boy looks tatty tailed, lol!

Clean water and it will heal up in no time

kizno1 wrote:Clean water and it will heal up in no time

Thats what iv been doing but maybe a week isnt long enough, lol!!

Haha. Hes probably more interested in the girl than growning his tail lol.

True true,lol!!

Hen hes getting conditioned the extra live foods might help it grow aswell. Jus hope the female doesnt decide to shred it.

I know im a bit worring about that too but hopefully she'll be gentle with him! I tried with the defrosted bloodworms but he kept pulling his nose up and them, she was a little the same but the live worms he flares at them and eats them up she's still very warey of what they are. Im waiting on the pink tub of Ocean Atison pellets but at the mo iv been giving them the Hikari pellets and the live bloodworm. ( i reckon they wouldve turned up today if it wasnt for the bank holiday!!)

Aslong as you keep watching and remove her if theres any fighting it shouldnt be to bad. Maybe she just needs a few more days to settle in. She will eat them ones she gets hungry. I know how you feel ive run out of pellets for my catfish and i should have had 2KG of them coming today but the cats will have to wait to tomorrow.

Well things didnt go the way i wanted them to go, he was very protective over his nest and whenever she went up to the nest having a look he would literally chase her away round the tank...so she went back into hiding!

This was happening on every occasion they where in the tank together i would get excited when he was under his nest wiggling at her and then she'd go up under the nest to see him she'd wait then he'd flare and chase her away...maybe thats part of the process

On the last time of letting her out she was really fat with eggs and she'd been dropping them so let her out and the same things would happen she was really interested in him and he didnt seem to be that interested in her and over protective of HIS bubble nest. He was very aggressive towards her and she was getting nipped quite a lot.

The next day she was very slim so she'd obvisously released her eggs and she seemed stressed to be near him so iv now put her in a floating box in the girls tank she seems very settled at the moment with no stress lines and seems happy to be back with the girls.

Its quite annoying at times even though i know i need patience and i was very patient (not like me ) but wanted it to run as smoothly as possible. Iv not given up on breeding but will have to choose a suitable pair to condition...theres no rush as i want it to go smoothly

Hi Nat.

Sorry it didn't go right. It's frustrating isn't it? I found that the longer you leave the male in the breeding tank, the more territorial he gets about the place, and unwilling to share it with the female when she is released in with him, even if she was only seperated by a divider. I also read up on this theory online, but every fish is different so who knows, lol. But I'm not putting a male in the breeding tank until the day or night before I plan to put the female in/near, so he doesn't get too possessive over the tank. But there will always be some chasing, and it can go on for ages and get ugly (it went on for about 2 days with my dragons before they got too horny and started embracing, and Luna did get a bit battered) and frustrating when one of them seems eager and the other doesn't.

Also, if your breeding tank has gravel in it you may want to take it all out before your next go, because when you do get a sucessful spawn, the male will find it hard to pick up the tiny eggs that drop and fall between the gravel, and he may not be able to get them all into the nest, and then the ones that are lost in the gravel will slowly go bad.

I'm conditioning a pair of CT's at the moment and hope to try again on Monday :-) We'll all get there in the end! x

Sorry it didn't go to plan none of us are having much luck atm it seems!