# growing slowly



## yossarian (Jan 13, 2011)

hello my fry are over 2 1/2 months and they are still under 1 inch. they all show colour and have all survived (100ish). I was worried that they could all be female or stunted. I didnt use a filter until a month or so in. thanks, the biggest is about 20mm (ish).


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the successful spawn....can you post a pic....

Have a few questions...

How big is the grow out aquarium, how much and how often are the water changes, type of filter, live plants, water temp, additives used, appetite....what type and amount of food did you start them out with and what are you feeding them now......


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## yossarian (Jan 13, 2011)

_How big is the grow out aquarium, how much and how often are the water changes, type of filter, live plants, water temp, additives used, appetite....what type and amount of food did you start them out with and what are you feeding them now......
_
thanks.. ok
12g long. I water change 25%-50% weekly, usually 50. stuffed full of elodea which is an easy grow water weed. 28 degrees. no additives, appetite ravenous, they would eat until they exploded.

they came from humble beginings, a 5 gallon bowl. they began on whatever they began on (i kept the algae growing like crazy and this brought little friends, i guess, or egg sacks??. After 2 days and a bit more wriggly, i fed bbs. they only eat bbs, ive tried supplimenting this peachy diet with dusted dry food but they spit anything that isnt peach and squirming. still feeding bbs. ive always fed about 2-3 times a day except when the f-ing shrimps failed.

I have been using indian almond leaves but have stopped after got the filter, which is an external up to 30gallon.

i think your going to tell me to get a bigger tank and do more water changes but to answer that: no and not yet; i dont have time, and i have other babies for about a month. thanks so much for helping. m 

ps no camera sorry


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

yossarian said:


> i think your going to tell me to get a bigger tank and do more water changes but to answer that: no and not yet; i dont have time, and i have other babies for about a month. thanks so much for helping. m
> 
> ps no camera sorry


In that case......not a lot you can do to get them to grow-out better......too small space with lots of stunting hormone along with poor water quality and poor nutrition.....can't help you out.......especially when you don't want or plan to change it......good luck.....


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## Jirothebetta (Jul 15, 2011)

Well, for fry to grow properly the only option is clean, warm(80*) water, and good varied live foods. I know for awhile my little fry lucky was pretty stunted(he was about a month or two and I was still looking at him through a magnifying glass) then I moved him to a smaller, easier to handle container, I put one floating live plant in there, put his container in a room that stayed warm and muggy(the bathroom) and started doing 75% water changes with a syphon very frequently during the week, I also started giving him tiny misquito larva along with his bbs. It took about a week after this, but the change gave him an amazing growth spurt. He went from being only a couple cm to being about half and inch long! So I know, good food, warm water, and frequent water changes make a big difference in their growth...its the only option...


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## bettaloverforever16 (Jan 14, 2011)

28 degrees?! I'm not suprised there. You shouldn't have bred if you weren't gonig to take proper care of them anyway.


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

I'm thinking Jiro means 28 degrees celsius, which equals 82 farenheit. Unless her fry have turned to popsticles. I hate trying to convert since we use celsius here.


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## bettaloverforever16 (Jan 14, 2011)

Oh, I feels stupid XD


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## cajunamy (Apr 28, 2011)

+1 to OFL


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## 1fish2fish (Sep 10, 2009)

Yeah... pretty much agree with OFL.. unless you upgrade or cull you're not going to see much more growth.. especially with that many fish in only a 12 gallon.


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## yossarian (Jan 13, 2011)

alright calm down im not hitler. I had planned it with another 20 gallon but a pair of apistogrammas miraculously bred in another tank- on the same night. ive tried to give away as many as i could but nobody wants them... anyway i will cull them i guess but they are cute and have just put it off. i will do daily water changes as well. thanks for the advice. it was just an accident. i will use an aneasthetic oil to kill them.


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## bby1984 (Jul 18, 2011)

yossarian said:


> alright calm down im not hitler. I had planned it with another 20 gallon but a pair of apistogrammas miraculously bred in another tank- on the same night. ive tried to give away as many as i could but nobody wants them... anyway i will cull them i guess but they are cute and have just put it off. i will do daily water changes as well. thanks for the advice. it was just an accident. i will use an aneasthetic oil to kill them.



........ Lost for words...:|


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## cajunamy (Apr 28, 2011)

why? culling is a part of breeding, and if you aren't willing to cull, you don't breed. simple as that.


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## bby1984 (Jul 18, 2011)

If you aren't willing to breed responsibly you should not breed! Not sure if I could accidently breed my bettas:lol: Pretty sure I would know what I was doing...But I guess everyone is different. 

Please don't condone this type of ignorant, irrisponsible behavior... Mentors on this site do a good job trying to educate others about the right ways to care for bettas. That is one of the reasons I chose to become a member of the community. That includes those that we as humans CHOOSE to bring into the world. There is a place in the hobby for culling. In this case it's like smothering or drowning puppyies you breed for... What reason?.. because you suddenly can't care for them any longer. In this case it most defiantly could have been avoided. At the very least I hope someone has learned something positive here? I'm still trying to figure out what I can take from this. 

*End rant* Sorry...


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## yossarian (Jan 13, 2011)

jeez, i accidently bred apisto's not bettas, they are hard if not impossible to breed in the water conditions i have, how could i accidently breed bettas? and im not against culling they were so small they didnt look squashed in the tank and i had no idea about this hormone thing, you guys are experienced but all i had was the google searches and nothing told me about the hormone thing, i was intending to use my other tanks once i had identified the females, i had no idea they wouldnt grow. my hitler joke was not about culling it was about your over reaction to me not preparing, I WAS PREPARED FOR THE BETTAS NOT FOR THE APISTO'S, THE INFORMATION I RECIEVED SAID THAT A 12GALLON AND A 20 GALLON WOULD BE FINE, BUT THE APISTOS HAD FRY AND I HAD TO USE THE 20 FOR THEM. THAT WAS THE ACCIDENT NOT BREEDING THE BETTAS. im an idiot for being sarcastic through text but its a habit, i didnt mean to get on the wrong side of any of you wonderful people.


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## bby1984 (Jul 18, 2011)

I'm sorry if I came out too harsh. You seemed to know what part of your problem was before asking (grow out tank size and water conditions). If you were not willing to provide these things you should have waited. I feel strongly that if you breed any kind of animal you need to do it right and make sure that you know what is involved before doing so. I also feel that the responsible thing in this case would be to own up and properly care for the life that you helped to create, as simply increasing water changes and feeding them a more nutritious diet at this point would help to alleviate your problem. Although it may be a little early for some, you could also start jarring them to help them all grow except if doing more frequent communal water changes is too much work at the moment I am not sure how you would handle jarring? That said, I get that you bit off more than you could chew with your other fish accidently spawning at the same time.... I am not trying to scare anyone away. =/ I am glad you found this forum and learned that you were/are not properly caring for your spawn. At the very least you will know there is more you need to learn if/before you attempt again. If you do ever choose to try again no one can stop you but I hope that you are prepared, and have contingencies for unexpected life events, as things often find a way to go wrong.

I am curious as to your reason for deciding to breed betta… I am wondering if you found homes for your betta before you decided to spawn them? I also wonder why, if you did your research, you only have BBS and powdered foods available to you to feed them, and how you were planning on weening them off of BBS, as not many people will take betta until they have been weaned off of live food. Again, I am not trying to gang up on you I am just genuinely curious. I encourage you to roam the forums for a little while because answers to many of the questions you have about betta breeding and things you need to learn are answered here in various places. There are several threads in the breeding section that talk about growth hormone and a sticky dedication to proper nutrition and live foods. If you decide to take ownership and properly care for at least some of your betta there are people here to help you. If you decide to keep even one of them alive at the very least you need to give them a better diet as BBS is not very nutritious in and of itself. I hope this all works out for you!


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## Creat (Dec 6, 2010)

This got violent fast...
I agree with OFL as usual but I am slightly curious as I have been thread lurking, I understand if I am correct this breeding was an accident, I get that sometimes we dont plan for these things, but I feel that somehow you could give them a little more attention.... or did you mean these wernt bred by you you are just housing them... In any case, I mean why cant you do any more water changes that would be the cheapest answer with the biggest outcome... All thats being asked is to change the water more to remove the hormones in the water... and my biggest concern would be that once the males grow larger they will become more violent in such a smaller space, I agree jarring would help but they require the same amount of water changes over all...


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## yossarian (Jan 13, 2011)

the reason i bred is because i never see crowntails of the quality i have, in my city. I randomly found a big crowntail, blue black and red and he is really energetic. I then found a combtail female again great personality blue and red, i asked if the lfs would take juveniles and they said as long as they are not deformed so i went ahead.
I have lost £80 trying to ship ct's from thailand with no luck, shipping got lost in germany- no refund. I have bought crowntails here but they are always heavily inbred and deformed. I saw the opportunity to propogate good ct's/combtails into the lfs and took it. 
i have decided to do the waterchanges but im doing lots of tanks now and i have exams. but its quite relaxing anyway i guess i was just being lazy. nothing lead me to believe that a bbs only diet was bad. For my adults i feed, live foods daphnia, fruitflies, then frozen bloodworms and dried snacks but the fry would only accept bbs. they are now beginning to eat the skinniest bloodworms but i know that those can cause bloat so i wont go crazy. I hope that diet is enough to grow them. I have a daphnia culture but it doesnt produce fast enough for the fry.

ps i got the spawn size wrong there was only about 60, i culled down to about 30.


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