# Bad Daddy, spawn log HMPK x CT



## Jennifer Vazquez (Jul 12, 2013)

My first attempt was CTxCT, but my female did not like the male, so I got a HMPK male, and she immediately started swimming in her jar trying to get out to get to him. I have been feeding all five of my bettas frozen bloodworms, and frozen Brine shrimp, so they are all conditioned and ready when I need them. plus three of them won't eat flakes or pellets anyway. 

My breeding tank is a 10 gal. I added some floating plants and put the male in and the female in a jar in at the same time. I had plastic wrap for the nest and I also added a white coffee mug on the side.

I waited four days for my male to start building a bubblenest, but he woulden't. He was more interested in showing off for the female, so On the fourth night I let her out of the jar and turned it on it's side so she would have a place to hide. Within 20 minutes of letting her out my boy started building his nest inside the coffee mug, he put some bubbles under the plastic wrap but they kept popping so I guess he gave up and just kept up with the nest in the mug. 

The female hid behind the jar and ever so often the male would chase her out to the side of the jar where she could see him building the nest, and she would stay there until he went to flirt with her again, and she would back up behind the jar again.

It took three days for her to start coming out from behind the jar, and finely the male wrapped her, The first couple of times she did not drop any eggs, He wrapped her four more times and all four times she dropped eggs. I was really surprised that there were that many eggs in her. 

So mother was the one who would go down and pick up the eggs and she would take them to the top of the nest and the male kept trying to move her out of the way when she was trying to put the eggs into the nest. he was busy moving eggs around and blowing more bubbles. He finaly chased her from the nest and she darted all around the tank, so I knew they were done and I removed her to a 1 gal vase with clean water, stress coat, and AQ salt, so her fins can heal. Her fins only got damaged in the actual wrapping mateing process. he never tried to bite her while he was flirting, he just chased her a little. She got in a couple bites too. 

So the eggs were finely all in the nest and daddy was staying under the nest. I went to bed, in the morning I woke up to find about half the bubble nest missing and daddy swimming back and forth at the front of the tank, not at all takeing care of the nest, So I removed him to his vase to heal(they normaly live in a 55gal divided tank)

So some fry hatched on the 18th and at first I only saw 2. There were a couple of eggs on the bottom of the tank, but that's it. Today there are 5 fry hanging out at the side corner of the tank. That's why this thread is called bad daddy because he ate all the eggs:-(

I have spent hours staring into the tank and I still only see 5 fry. I'm hopeing it's more, but I think for my first spawn it's ok. If I do something wrong I would rather 5 fry die than 50. 

Some things I learned...

Use a dark coffee mug next time.
don't use plastic wrap, It doesn't work well.
my turkey baster sux! everytime I clean out the tank with it, half the water and debris fall back in before I can get it out of the tank.

I am feeding infusoria, and egg yolk for now. I might use MW once I see ventrals forming to avoid missing ventrals.

Pictures of mom and dad are coming soon. My camera doesn't take macro pics very well so pics of the fry will have to wait.


----------



## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Oh, well. You can use this as a learning experience. Good luck with the few fry you got out of the spawn.


----------



## Jennifer Vazquez (Jul 12, 2013)

So unfortunatly all the fry died. I think maybe the infusoria wasn't enough for them, so I got a MW culture and I am going to try again. This time however I'm takeing the male out as soon as all the eggs are in the nest. I know some eggs will probably fall, but maybe more will survive this time, just by being left alone


----------

