# Cannibalism amongst betta fry?



## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

I have a breeding pair of Betta rutilans who live together in a 10 or so gallon tank and spawn like clockwork every second week or so. My male usually holds the eggs in his mouth for two or three days and then makes a bubble nest and puts the hatched fry in. 

I have one juvenile in there that I found a month or so after it was born. This fry was born after my male brooded for about a week so it was larger than most betta fry when it came out. Since this complex of betta doesn’t eat its own fry, I’ve just been leaving whatever is hatched in with the parents to grow (this is recommended). 

Over the past month around 15-20 fry have been hatched out. However, I haven’t seen any of these fry once the male stops tending the nest. So is my juvenile eating the other fry, or could they just be hiding like my juvenile did for the first month or so of its life. 

I’m half tempted to raise this batch separately, but I don’t have any food for fry and they’re so young I’m worried about any sudden changes killing them off. So does cannibalism exist amongst betta fry? I’m assuming it must, being competition and all that. I think I’m going to make a separate grow-out tank and order some supplies online so next time I can actually monitor them.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

I don't know about this kind of betta but I know betta splendens fry will eat each other.


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Yeah I have this suspicion it's my juvenile snacking on them. I've got a hollow log in there that my male builds his nest inside of, so I'm going to pull that out when my male is done with his parental duties and see if any fry are hiding in it. 

If not I might net my juvenile and set it up in its own tank at least until I get one successful lot of fry.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I have never kept Betta rutilans, but with the Betta splendens the older/larger fry will eat the younger fry from different spawns and smaller sibling fry......

With some of my spawns I leave both the male and female long term and with some I have trios and have not had problems with either male or females eating fry...but lots of problems with larger/older fry eating younger/smaller ones once they leave the nest and free swimming.......so I have to move larger fry on a regular bases....its all food in their eyes...survival of the fittest.......the stunting hormone plays a role in this too...so I would think cannibalism is normal and expected among siblings.....


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Yeah I think I might put the juvenile in one of those floating hatcheries. It's been living solely on all the micro-organisms living in my tank for the past couple of months, so it'll probably be better if I can single it out for feedings. That way I don't have to pull it out of the tank and stress it out too much. It's my first grown fry and is just starting to colour up.

Anyways, thanks for confirming my suspicions. Will be interesting to see if any fry have survived when I take out the log since there are plenty of hiding places in the tank and I assume one or two must still be in there. 

All I can say are these fish are like guppies. I can almost pinpoint the exact time they will spawn, so hopefully even if these ones don't survive there might be some on the way.


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