# Yellow HM Pair



## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Hi all - I'm afraid to say in advance that this post will probably end up quite image heavy! This is a cross between two yellows, my male Midas:









And the female Dawn:









Note that the female's photo is a better representation of their colour tone, and the male has a bent caudal that occurred during shipping. This is the first time in quite a few years that I've attempted breeding Bettas, so I'm not expecting huge successes, but I will be keeping this updated every now and again as things progress. Any fry that do survive will find homes via my lfs (already have an agreement set up with the manager), or staying with myself for later breeding projects.

The spawn went very gently, had the female floating for 24 hours, the male eventually got around to building a small nest overnight. Half an hour after I released her they were embracing (26th Oct). Had a lot of fun watching their failed attempts, but they worked it out eventually! Managed to get the female out as soon as he started chasing her away, so both fish have come out without a single torn fin.

Today (28th Oct) the eggs are hatching, he's kept a couple of bunches of clearly not-viable eggs in the nest so I've had to use a pipette to get those out. For some reason he's split the nest into two bunches and seems to be focusing mainly on one bunch despite there being hatched fry in both sets - perhaps deciding there were too many for him to focus on?
Not going to attempt to count them just yet as I can spot quite a few that haven't hatched yet.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Awesome!


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## FishMemory (Jul 7, 2015)

GJ!!! on the spawn and good luck !!!


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## Zhylis (Nov 4, 2014)

Yes! We need more breeders for yellow. Curious to see how the fry color up...


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

Best of luck with this spawn, Skarlath. I sincerely hope that they survive. Cambodian-based Yellow has a bad tendency to be very fragile in its early days.

I'm working on Yellow and Orange in the Plakat form, and I'll hopefully be able to get a good line of Brown-bodied Yellows, as well as Cambodian Yellows.


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Thanks all, I have heard that yellows are somewhat more delicate - downside of having to inbreed so much I guess! It's great to hear that there is someone on here that also works with yellows. I've been seeing a lot of yellow cambodians on the uk sales pages recently, they are a lovely soft colour. Brown bodies sound equally stunning!

Unfortunately he's moved the nest again overnight and it's now sat against the back wall where I can't get a decent look at it. I can't decide if I'm being paranoid, or if he may have been munching on the fry whilst he's been moving bubbles as I can't see anything wriggling at the moment... fingers crossed he hasn't, but I guess I will know for sure in a couple of days.


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Typically there would be some sort of catch after how smoothly the spawning went - after thorough observations yesterday and this morning I can only assume that he has eaten the fry. I can see no movement in the tank and he is no longer maintaining the nest, and no pairs of eyeballs sat on the floor as I had been previously. I will be pulling him for now and will give both parents a chance to recover and be reconditioned, and will make a second attempt with them in a few week's time. Next time however I shall remove him as soon as the eggs begin to hatch and drop the water level so they have more chance of swimming back into the nest. Hopefully by that method I may be able to keep a small amount of the fry to the free-swimming stage! I will update via this thread in a few weeks.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

I wish you the best of luck, again. Sometimes, first-time dads will be egg-eaters. It's happened to me before, as well.


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

I believe we posted at the same time! And thank you again - he was excellent with the eggs, I guess that the wriggling fry were just a little too tempting for him.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Did you leave some sort of light on for him? Moonlight or regular light? I found that they have a tendancy to eat eggs to "keep them safe" when they can't see well and think there might be predators around, basically. So the light helps them see that there really aren't any predators around (silly fish!)  That's what happened to my boy the second time around, I forgot the light and he ate them. His first spawn was successful.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Silly fish. 

I also wonder if maybe all the fry were deformed and he could tell sooner than we can see it. Or he could have just forgotten he's supposed to take care of them after they hatch.


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Yes he had full lighting on 24/7 - a clip on LED strip as I'm using a large plastic storage container. I wouldn't want to risk using the blue LEDs overnight, so white bulbs at all times  I used to have sires that ate eggs years ago when working with veiltails, but I've never had a fry-eater before! Still, II'm hoping it will be an easier issue to work around than the egg-eaters were.

He definitely is a little silly, but I will let him off seeing as it's his first try  The few that I managed to get close-up photos of seemed to look healthy, but it would have been a shame for him to cull all of the spawn -the female dropped a huge aamountof eggs (one embrace I counted nearly 50)... Oh well, fingers crossed that for attempt 2 we can at least get to the free-swimming stage. Thank you everybody for the input


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Just a quick update - the pair are currently spawning again, had a moment where I thought I may have to separate them but half an hour after release they were spawning (I love how easy these two are). I think she's grown since last time as he was having a little difficulty holding her in a wrap, but I've finally spotted a few eggs being dropped. May not end up being a large spawn because of that, but hopefully we'll manage to get through without him eating any newly hatched fry this time.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Good luck!


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Final update for this pair - there were a small handful of eggs in the nest yesterday (literally only around 20 or so), however currently - about 46 hours after spawning - I can't see anything at all in the nest and he's let the bubbles spread so they now cover about a half of the tank instead of being nicely together. So I think that would count as the last attempt with these two, between the female having grown so much (she's the largest female in my sorority), and the male's apparent lack of proper nesting/fry care instincts, I won't be able to achieve much with them! So as much as I love this pair to look at, I'll be moving on to focus on a different breeding pair in the future. Here's to hoping that my PK male is a little more focused 
Thanks again everyone for the comments and support!


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## Zhylis (Nov 4, 2014)

Yellow x yellow has never really worked well for me. The spawns are small, rarely fertile, and the fry that do hatch are very weak and prone to velvet. Same with yellow x Cambodian and yellow x cellophane. If you want a yellow line, I'd suggest breeding for red/yellow.


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

My main thing is that the first spawn went really well, until he decided that every fry from the very large spawn of freshly-hatched fry were tasty xD This second try was doomed from the mis-matched sizing so I'm not too surprised that this one didn't work. I may try him with different females later on, but I don't think he has good instincts when it comes to looking after the nest and fry, so for that alone I doubt any spawns by him unfortunately. I do wish it was simply a fact of yellow x yellow being weak fry, but I'm not convinced that's the issue. 

I don't currently have any red females, so my other options for him at the moment arean opaque white, koi cello or blue, none of which are totally ideal (although I am curious as to what I may get him and the cello). So for now I'll see how my metallic blue hmpks instincts are, as I have a dark-bodied samurai girl ready for him. My seller tends to have more oranges & yellows than red girls, however I will keep an eye out and see if a different girl might encourage better nesting from him!


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## FishMemory (Jul 7, 2015)

What will you be feeding the fry when they hatch?


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## Skarlath (Oct 16, 2015)

Insuforia, microworms & bbs, later grindal & white worms with some beefheart - I have bred betta before many years ago so I am aware of cost & care requirements. Unfortunately it was a long time ago when suchiinteresting colours as yellows were near impossible to source, and things like dragon and metallics were nonexistent! So I am experimenting and learning now about all of these new things. Apologies for the slightly late reply, busy new years.


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