# Fancy marble HMPK pair



## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Hi peeps! This is the first time I've made a new post in like 3 yrs since I joined this forum ><. Neways, I bred a pair of blue/orange/white marble HMPK in May, and this spawn has proven to be exceptionally successful and now I have more than 400 healthy and beautiful 10 weeks' old fry. This is a picture from the daddy's breeder, he was only 3 months in this pic. Nonetheless, he already showed a nice smooth topline and a well-balanced form with a D-shaped caudal. 










And a bad picture I took 2 months later. I'm quite amazed as how much his form has changed for the better after full growth. And unfortunately, just like most of the marbles out there, the blue patches expanded to cover his whole torso and now he looks just like a MG T.T 










The female has gone through an amazing transformation as well. Here's a picture of her from the breeder and another one taken when she was 5~6 months' old (sorry for potato quality). Note how her tail turned out to be perfectly D-shaped > 



















Having seen how the parents continued to develop a better-shaped finnage and only reached their full capacity as late as they were 5/6 months old, I'm very interested in seeing whether the babies will walk the same path ;D


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Annnnd finally, some pics of the few jarred males! I know you guys love to see this part the most so please enjoy ;D 

A pale orangish/white marble male. He was the first one out of the whole spawn to be jarred, and he's been separated from his siblings for only one week by now. Nonetheless he's quite a furious little warrior  He's showing some crazy form and I think he might turn out to be a rosetail. I can't tell if he actually does not have any deformed scales or his light body color simply covers them up, hopefully he won't turn out to be a bad case of rosetail. 










As you can see in this picture, he actually has some beautiful blue iridescence.










A more unfortunate case of rosetail. This little lad was the third one to be jarred. I got quite a handful of rosetails with deformed scales from this spawn, but I decided to keep them instead of following the convention to cull them. I hope he'll show some marble with pale white patches to cover up some of his scales. Except from this, he's quite some good looker. 










This handsome lad is one of the most pleasant outcomes of this spawn. He was jarred 5 days ago, and apparently jarring greatly increased the speed of him showing marble. He used to be mostly blue when he was first jarred. Also showing some nice form and a very nice smooth topline. And yes, it's his big daddy in the background ;D



















Another beautiful OHM with a broad dorsal. Actually quite a number of fry from this spawn showed more or less broadened dorsal, which is strange since I can't see a trace of it in their parents. Now that I'm complaining  I thought of spawning the same male with a DT female after this spawn just to get this beautiful trait, but this pleasant surprise saves me from the trouble. 










Another pic of him bragging his dorsal.









And an overlook at the current grow-out tank. I didn't expect this number of fry so it seems to be quite crowded inside. I'll be jarring other young males very soon and hopefully this situation will relent. 










If anyone requests, I'll put on some photos of the setup of the breeding tank and earlier pictures of the fry


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, 400 fry! That'll keep you busy.


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## SparklingStarfish (Jun 28, 2015)

Wow, so many beautiful fry! ^-^


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Sadist said:


> Wow, 400 fry! That'll keep you busy.


Haha you bet! I had to do a 1/2 waterchange everyday ever since they hit one month but the water never seemed clean anyways... These sweet little devils produce pillles of fish poop ;u;


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

SparklingStarfish said:


> Wow, so many beautiful fry! ^-^


Thank youu!! <3 <3


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## InStitches (May 26, 2014)

beautiful fish  I love their body shapes, they are so sturdy!


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Since I have nothing better to do I'll just put some of the older photos of this spawn here as well... D 

Firstly, the set up of the spawn tank... although it was just a plastic container =3= 

Daddy and his precious eggs <3









I prefer smaller containers over big tanks, since in the first few days the fry are usually quite immobile and it's way easier for each of them to get enough food in a smaller container. The container I used was no more than 0.8 gal and it proved to be adequate. In the first 20 days the fry fed exclusively on live BBS, and with the small container I was able to keep the feeding small so the 50g BBS eggs I prepared lasted for 2 months  

Daddy and the newly hatched babies (still dangling from the bubbles) 









This was taken on the first day when the fry entered free-swimming stage. My setup was pretty simple... A heater to keep the water temp around 26℃, a sponge filter for future use (which proved to be pretty excessive in the first few days since the bubbles and water flow would exhaust young fry). I also put a few snails and minami ebi (dunno what they are called in English??) to clean out dead BBS. 









A close-up on the babies after their first taste of BBS ><









One week old fry! Much more visible ><









2 weeks old. 









On the 20th day I moved them into a bigger styrofoam box. This is a good time to translocate your fry since they are strong enough to endure the addition of fresh water. Pay extra attention to the temperature of the new water to be added in... One or two degrees higher than the original water from the old container is always recommended, cooler water should be strictly prohibited since this is likely to cause SBD. 

















Looking less crowded in the bigger box... I added new water bit by bit in the following days to reduce the stress, this was not necessary but better safe than sorry... 









Annnnnd yeees finally!! Did a rough count, turned out that I had more than 343 fry at that time (apparently I missed a lot of them back then!).









One month old! Feeding on BBS and crushed fish pellets. Fry at this age can readily accept artificial fish food that does not move. But one downside of crushed pellets is that they pollute the water pretty fast, even with a sponge filter... Time to start daily waterchange! According to IBC official page crowded betta fry are likely to release some hormone into the water to inhibit growth of their smaller siblings. Constant waterchange is a very efficient way to reduce this competition! As a result my fry were all about the same size throughout their growth.









40 days! All of them were over 2cm.









Fearless little warriors 









Changed to another bigger container (70cm) on the 45th day. 









50 days old! Showing some crazy growth rate. Some even started to show colors!

















An overview taken on the same day. I cut out parts of a styrofoam box to make this umm... whatever it should be called.. to restrict the fish pellet particles from floating to near the sponge filter. 









60 days >< Also jarred the first male on this day. I'll show a series of photos showing his change after jarring later 









Annnd... On the 70th day I finally cleaned up my planted tank to host all the fry. If you have a small number of fry there's no problem about keeping them in a planted tank, but 400 fry produce tons of poops everyday and it's apparently much harder to clean the substrate everyday than just sucking out the rubbish from a plain tank.


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

And.. photos of the first jarred male as mentioned. The first one was taken on the 60th day, when he was just jarred, flaring daringly to his old man 









Second day after jarring and he already started to show some amazing changes in his form! Clearly an OHM 









4 days after jarring. 

















One week after jarring









He's yet shown any blue spots or visible marble. Hopefully he could develop more colors in the future.. altho I don't mind him staying as he is either! 

And a series of pics of another marble male.
First day









Second day, visibly more aggresive









Third day and showing some clear white









5 days after jarring! 









One week as I already posted in this thread. The change of his colors is incredibly rapid, he basically looks different everyday. When the blue dots completely fade out it's time for him to start developing solid blue patches  Looking forward to that!









I'll be updating on this spawn and put the focus on the jarred males  Hope you enjoy!!


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## InStitches (May 26, 2014)

very cool progression


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Love their strong bodies and colour! Stunning fish!


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## valerynnxo (Jul 22, 2015)

Good Job! Their all beautiful fry 💕


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## Ganggreenkhan (Jul 15, 2015)

How are you housing 400 fry?


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Update on 2.8 months' old fry! 
Scooped out some females yesterday and took these pics 

Half of the females from this spawn are white/platinum-based, this one shows some faint butterfly as well...









My fav girl so far! Love this color combination



























Rose gold female!


















Most of the females have strong bodies and very well-shaped D caudal :-D Love these girls...


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Annnd some males too. So far I jarred 22 young males, didn't count but seems like there are only 10-ish males left in the grow-out tank. :/ The m/fm ratio is quite weird now to think about it... 30 something males in a spawn of 400+, almost 1/10... I've read somewhere that this is determined by temperature and the relative age of the parents. I spawned a pair of HM last year and got pretty much the same result, very few boys in a whole bunch of girls. I wonder what could have been the cause?? Tap water in Japan is very soft and naturally slightly acidic, so I guess hardness/pH aren't the main cause :s Anyone have any idea???

A true rosetail male, surprisingly he doesn't really have any deformed scale...









The same white male as I posted earlier for comparison. Now he's pretty much mature, and apparently less rosetail-like then the first one.









One moar pic on the rosetail...









A very standard white-ish orangish male..



























A tri-color marble... His form is less satisfying than most of his brothers, but the colorrrrr <3 <3 <3


















One more pic for the previous white male... looks so cool in this pic <3 









Another interesting marble male... He has an obviously smaller caudal compared to his body size and a broad dorsal. 









Dis my favorite boyyy <3 He's also one of the first bunch of males I jarred. Jarred for 2 weeks and he's developed some impressively big finnage, esp his dorsal fin...


















He's too active for me to get a better pic of him...


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

InStitches said:


> very cool progression


Thank youuu <3


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, I love those individual pictures! They're looking great!


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Update on this spawn! Currently I'm selling these F1 fish off on yahoo.auctions in Japan and I managed to find quite a bunch them a new home already  I need to take clear pictures of each individual male/female for the auctions so I'm just gonna copy n paste them over here 

By now they've just hit 4 months!
A messy marble lad with orange base, his blue is spreading too fast and I've only managed to save a few good photos of him before he turns all blue ;n;









A blue/white marble, this boy has some nice form and color! 








A pic of the other side of him. Really love the shimmering azure on his tail!









A faint blue/white marble. This dude just won't flare to any other fish but my finger... ofc not *that* finger hahaha. I think it's most likely due to the iridescence layer covering his eyes that he's got a pretty bad eye sight. He's eating pellets and BW with no prob, but reacts really slowly to a mirror or a neighboring fish... and I'm afraid that he might turns blind or at least partially blind as he ages, since the layer seems to thicken over tim. Some ppl like this type of 'jewel eye' of betta in particular, but judging from its effect on my fish I think the cons still outweigh the pros so better look out for jewel eyes 









A very nice light-colored marble boy! This lad is ALMOST a giant! I think he's about 2.2 inches or so. Quite unexpected from such a spawn... but guess I'll take that! 








From another angle. Dorsal is alright, just angle huehue










This little dude was jarred at around 3.5 months and I'm really surprised that he still shows quite some nice form! Apparently late jarring has bad influence on males, especially the shy ones. They most likely will adopt a form that's similar to a traditional betta with small finnage and tail span because of the lack of practice of flaring during their fast-growing period. I have jarred a few males after the first 3 months and so far SOMEHOW they are all developing very nice form... o.0 








Another boy jarred at 3.5 months








Annnd another one... Pic was taken using a phone so sorry for the derp quality


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, they're all nice! I'm sorry about the jewel-eyed one.


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## InStitches (May 26, 2014)

gorgeous!! as always


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Hi! Sorry for belated response but thank you so much for the kind comment <3 I'm also suuuper happy that they all turn out to be promising ^v^ Nothing is more awarding for a hobbyist breeder! Huehue


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

valerynnxo said:


> Good Job! Their all beautiful fry 💕


Hi! Thank you sooo much for the comment >< I really love them too!


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Ganggreenkhan said:


> How are you housing 400 fry?


Hi. Sorry for super late reply! I've been housing them in a 15 gal tank since 2.5 months, and I also gradually reduced the spawn size by culling undesired fish (some bad traits show slowly as they grow up so you always find 'newly emerged' undesired fish, as well as badly injured fish that are beyond save.)


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

Sadist said:


> Wow, they're all nice! I'm sorry about the jewel-eyed one.


Thank you for the support, as always!   He's quite unfortunate but also unique in his own way...


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## SatsukiYY (Jun 4, 2013)

InStitches said:


> gorgeous!! as always


Thank youuu! <3


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## BettaSplendid (Jul 12, 2015)

Magnificent babies! They are delightful, truly!


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## Lilypad (Oct 15, 2014)

They are all beautiful! I love the pictures of their color progression. What a wonderful spawn, too bad there aren't more males.


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