# My wild betta breeding journal



## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Well I had wondered where Mr and Mrs rutilan had vanished to after their water change and feed the other night. He'd been attacking her after leaving the previous lot of fry, so I knew it was only a matter of days before they bred again (their courtship is _very_ rough). 

Took a look in their log this morning, and found them wrapping. Should be a few days before I see the fry since the male likes to hold them in his mouth for two or three days and then get started on a nest. 

However, after discovering my juvenile rutilan or 'Cannibal Lecter' was responsible for killing off the newborn fry, I've decided he can go into a floating breeder until the others have grown big enough to not fit in his mouth. 

I did manage to save four fry from their last breeding purely by chance, and at the moment they are living in a tupperware container until my breeder arrives. Then they will be let out into the main tank since their parents don't bother them. I don't feed the fry while they're this small. Instead, they live on all the micro-organisms living in the tank. 

I'm going to get some pictures once they've stopped breeding, and will try and get some of the fry and the juvenile as they grow up. I'm still surprised how often these two breed. It seems like I have fry every second week or so. 










A picture so you know what a rutilan is/looks like


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## bettaloverforever16 (Jan 14, 2011)

I would for sure read it!


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Ok here's my promised pictures. It's hard to get a good, non-blurry shot of bettas that zip around like a danio and live in water the colour of tea.










This one is of my Albi female saying hello.










Here's the male. He's sad now I've broken up his riccia clump. 










My female rutilan coming over to see if I'm feeding her.










You can see all the micro/detritus worms I have on my glass. The fry love eating these.










A full tank shot. It holds around 9 gallons of water, but I don't fill it to the brim. 










Cannibal Lecter. He survived a whole tank clean-out and multiple rough water changes before I realised he was even in there. I thought one of the parents had eaten him.










This guy is about a week old. One of four survivors that Lecter still tries to eat through the plastic. Hopefully my breeder arrives soon.


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## YoshesMom (Mar 15, 2011)

omg I seriously LOL'ED at that first picture shes soooooooooo cute!!


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

I have several updates for those still interested.

Cannibal Lecter escaped out of his floating breeder after I'd introduced the week-old fry into the tank. I managed to net them back out and currently they're still in their temporary tank. 'Cannibal' is now big enough to take frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp so hopefully his growth will speed up with more regular feedings.

The fry are growing rather slowly because of the smaller tank, but are looking more like bettas and less like tadpoles. Will start doing more regular changes with peat-softened tap water soon to get rid of some of those hormones.

My male rutilan was holding all of last week, but I couldn't find anything so I assume that fry got eaten. Luckily, they bred again last night so should have some more fry the same time next week (some of which I should be around to fish out). These fish are fry-making machines.

More excitingly, my Betta albimarginata pair finally spawned! I had been feeding them live blackworms and doing water changes with cooler water to trigger _something_, but all it took was me leaving the light off for two days. 

The male is now holding a mouthful of eggs so I hope he doesn't swallow them like most first time dads. I've been wanting a home-bred colony of these, so hopefully I'm on my way to achieving that.

Here's a photo of Eddie and Khan. They're housemates for the time being since Khan's tank is on order.


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## bettaloverforever16 (Jan 14, 2011)

Cool, I'm still interested!


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## Fabi (May 29, 2013)

Cool fishes you got there!!


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