http://friendly-fishy.com/blog A blog for aquarium enthusiasts, both new and veteran. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:44:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/breeding-betta-fish-essential-guide.html http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/breeding-betta-fish-essential-guide.html#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 05:44:00 +0000 dating tips tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016414321808364160.post-3914738703664801809 When you decide to breed your Betta Fish, the first step is to make sure you are ready. It will take time, money, space for around fifty jars to separate males, a secure pond with no other fish and a good level of experience caring for Bettas already.
Presuming the answer is yes; the next step is to obtain a female. This can be difficult, as few stores sell them. Once you have both, don't leave them in the same tank. Start with cheap Bettas, to avoid wasting lots of money. Later on, after you become an expert, you can try to breed your own masterpieces. Look for fish with some energy to increase the chances of spawning. The chosen fish should be between seven and eighteen months old, and a spare pair just in case is also a wise precaution.
Prepare the mating tank, ten gallons is about right. Don't add much decorations or gravel, but some large leafed plants will help the female hide from the male. The temperature should be around eighty degrees and the depth about six inches until the fry, or baby fish, begin swimming. Normally, you wouldn't worry about air filtration with Bettas, but the fry will require it. However, they cannot handle a powerful filter. The old-fashioned box type, powered by an air pump is best, and the carbon filter that came with the pump is not acceptable. Instead, use floss or sponges. This is to avoid bad reactions between the carbon and an anti-fungal treatment. It is wise to let the pump operate through a complete cycle before fish are exposed to it to allow bacteria to grow.
Begin feeding the fish high quality food. One breeder recommends the following sequence: BettaMin, Freeze Dried Blood Worms, some live or frozen brine shrimp, then a few live Black Worms. Others swear by tubifex worms and other combinations. Do not overfeed, as this will still force you to clean the tank and replace the water more often. Change twenty percent of the water in each tank each day to help prevent this and encourage the fish to get ready to breed. The male should be in the breeding tank, and should be able to see the female in her tank. He should begin to build a bubble nest.
With the high quality food, the female should begin to plump up as eggs are produced. With lighter colored breeds you can sometimes see the eggs, and the fish should produce horizontal stripes when ready. If that isn't showing, look near the anal fin for a white gravid tube. If this is showing, she is ready.
Now comes the key moment. Plan for at least an hour when you can be present to supervise. Put the female in the water with the male. There can be some rough treatment, including some mutual fin nipping or even worse behavior. If it gets too rough, remove the female and plan to wait a few days to let her recover, but if you don't give them a chance, there won't ever be any fry. If all goes well, they will conduct what is called an embrace, and she will produce eggs under the bubble nest. He will fertilize them and begin to care for the eggs. The female should be removed now, lest she become fish food.
For the next two days, the male will keep the eggs cleaned and in the bubble nest, recovering any that fall. Then come the fry. For about thirty-six hours, they'll be unable to move out of the tank. Around two days after hatching, the first fry will begin to swim without help. At this point, remove the male fish lest the fry become fish food. A day after the fry hatch, they need their first feeding, and baby brine shrimp, daphnia, microworms, or liquid fry food for egg layers are good choices. They'll need feeding up to five times a day.
Now comes the hard part. Many experienced breeders say this can only be done in a suitable pond. The temperature must be above at least 68 and preferably 70 degrees. There must be no fish to eat the fry, and a variety of tiny aquatic creatures to eat.
After about ten days, they can take a little powdered food. This is a small amount of very finely crushed flake food. They should be about a quarter of an inch long. At about four weeks, they should be around a half inch long, and should begin to show sexual dimorphism, so you can tell the males from the females. Separate the males from each other before fighting begins.

]]> http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/breeding-betta-fish-essential-guide.html/feed/ 0 http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/discover-how-to-breed-most-astonishing.html http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/discover-how-to-breed-most-astonishing.html#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 05:20:00 +0000 dating tips tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016414321808364160.post-2320091705605335290 Breeding Betta Fish is such a vast topic in itself, and you could write a whole book on the subject - Indeed some people have! However, I'm going to give you a brief overview of the breeding process by answering 2 very important questions...
1. How Do You Know When Your Betta Fish is Ready to Breed?
In my opinion the ideal time to breed your Betta Fish is when they are between 6 to 12 months of age.
You will know when a male is ready to begin breeding because he will begin making his bubble nest, this usually takes 1-2 days until completion of the nest. You can't miss the bubble nest when it starts to happen, it is as its name suggests, a nest that looks like a group of bubbles that floats in the water.
To tell when a female is ready to spawn you will notice vertical stripes appearing on her sides. Don't get vertical stripes mixed up with horizontal ones, because horizontal stripes mean they are stressed. Also, a female will start to become swollen near the white spot on her belly (ovipositor) when she is getting broody! :-)
2. How do you Breed Betta Fish?
Start, by creating a separate breeding tank. The water in the tank should be about 5 to 6 inches deep and at a temperature of (75-80F). You will also want to add some large leaves to aid in the building of the bubble nest and to help the female hide when the male gets aggressive.
You then want to gradually introduce the fish. To do this either put a divider into a tank separating the two fish. obviously, a male and a female Betta! ;-), or keep them in different tanks but so they can see each other.
Whilst introducing them you should begin feeding the Betta live food to prepare them for breeding. Such food could be live brine shrimp, freezed blood worms or black worms (also known as Tubifex worms) - I must admit this isn't my cup of tea but Betta's love this stuff! After 10-14 days of doing this you can place them in the breeding tank together...
However, make sure you supervise when you do this otherwise the male might become too aggressive towards the female. There will obviously be some aggression and nipping as they get to know each other. However, if you think it gets too serious then remove the female and try again in a couple of days.
Once, your Betta's have gotten to know each other and decide to breed the male will wrap himself around the female, often called an "embrace". The female will then release her eggs into the bubble nest or the male will collect them and put them into the bubble nest. The female can release anything from 500-750 eggs so the embrace is usually performed several times.
When the female has finished laying her eggs remove her from the tank shortly afterwards because the male Betta will become very protective of his bubble nest and aggressive, and she could become fish food (kind of like brine shrimp if you know what I mean!?).
After this process has finished the male will takeover fertilizing, cleaning and looking after the eggs by keeping them within the bubble nest. Approx. 2-3 days later the eggs will hatch and the Fry (Baby Betta's) are released.
Another 3-5 days later the Fry will begin swimming. At this stage you should remove the male Betta from the nest to avoid the Fry becoming fish food. You should feed the Fry with baby brine shrimp or daphnia three times a day. After 14 days you can begin feeding them flake or powder food but in small quantities until they are big enough.
Around 4-5 weeks later you will be able to identify the males and the females. Separate the males from each other before the fighting begins because there is always a loser!
This article should have given you a good overview of the breeding process and with this information you will be well on your way to achieving astonishing Betta Fish displaying the most magnificent colour and fin structure that will make your Friends gasp in amazement when they see your tank!

]]> http://bettafish2008.blogspot.com/2008/05/discover-how-to-breed-most-astonishing.html/feed/ 0 http://aquasamit.blogspot.com/2007/03/lily-floaters.html http://aquasamit.blogspot.com/2007/03/lily-floaters.html#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:24:00 +0000 Samit Roy tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7952693481301130405.post-3907269806870321494
Common Mistakes: One - Buying tank and fish, together

This is the most common mistake done by the beginners, as well as some times by experienced hobbyists, too. Never put fishes immediately after setting up a new tank. Ideally, you should put the first fish in your tank, at least after week or two after the installation. You should fill the tank with water, add substrate, place the props like stones or drift woods, keep the air pump and filter running (also the heater, in case of winter season or chiller weather), switch on the light and maintain this 'fish-less tank' for a week or more. In hobbyists circle this phase is known as 'Fish-less tank keeping'. Few experienced aquarists also suggest to add little bit of fish food, regularly in the tank, even though there is no fish in the tank.

Though, apparently it looks ridiculous to keep an empty tank with filter, pump running and add fish food in that, but actually this is one the most critical phase of a new set up. This 'Fish-less tank keeping' ensures that the nitrogen cycle of the tank is running perfectly and you have built enough de-nitrifying bacteria in your tank to take care of the ammonia and nitrite to be produced from excreta of the inhabitants of the tank.

After running this fish-less tank for week (more if you have larger tank and have a plan to keep the little crowded), add fishes slowly. Never put a large number of fishes together in a new tank. This might cause a sudden ammonia spike and could be proved fatal for the livestock. I usually add, one or two very hardy fishes like, Sail fin mollies' and juvenile 'Common Plecos' (nice housekeepers for a planted set up) and wait for few more days before adding the central attractions of the tanks.

The image shows lily floaters in my planted set up.

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