# Eclipse x Elsa



## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

Yo guys, first time breeder here. This is a trial spawn, so to speak: I'm going to learn with this pair before starting my actual breeding project. 

*Set up:* 15 gallon plastic tub filled with 4 inches of water. Heated to 82 degrees; one corner has some floaters for the male to build his nest, the opposite corner has a clay pot and some live plants (java moss, Java Fern, cabomba) for the female to hide in. 

*Sire*
Eclipse, white, blue and red marble/grizzle VT 











*Dam* 
Elsa, cambodian VT (?)











*7th of May 2015*: Pair were introduced to the spawning tank at the same time (around 9pm). Elsa thought she could be brave and flare and square up to Eclipse but he quickly gave her a few harsh nips on the back and put her in her place. She got his anal fin but no major injuries were sustained by either fish. Eclipse didn't start building a nest until near enough midnight and didn't want Elsa anywhere near it for the time being so I decided to put her in a bottle inside the tank - for her safety as I obviously couldn't monitor them in the early hours of the morning. 

*8th of May 2015*: I have allowed both fish to roam the tank freely and checked on them every couple of hours to make sure nobody was hurt. Eclipse chased Elsa quite a lot and I noticed that he did try to nip her (I'm assuming to make her more submissive) a few times but he didn't injure her. Eclipse proved to be a very gentle lover but a dominant one nonetheless. 










*9th of May 2015*: Woke up to a nice big bubble nests from Eclipse. By 12 in the afternoon they were wrapping every few seconds and after spending an hour not doing it correctly they finally got the hang of it! Lots and lots of eggs came out. It lasted 4-5 hours and after that Elsa was chased away from the nest. I removed her and have her lots of bloodworms for her hard work  










*11th of May 2015*: The eggs have hatched! There's sooo many babies but it's hard to see anything as Eclipse had moved the nest to the back of the tank. He's constantly picking up the fallen babies, mouthing them and placing back into the nest. He's also making sure that the nest itself is in too shape by blowing new bubbles to replace the popped ones. He's such a good father


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*1day old* 

I shook up what was left of the nest a little and all the kids came out. There's way more than I first thought but I'm not going to count them. It's too difficult and I don't see much point in doing so. They're free swimming now although I can clearly see that most have a very visible yolk sack. I tried giving them some microworms but they didn't seem too interested or enthusiastic about food :/ we'll try again tomorrow with vinegar eels, they're a little smaller than microworms so hopefully that'll encourage the kids to eat. 












*2 days old* 

Not much is happening. The fry are all here as far as I can tell; they're exploring the tank and they've migrated to where the plants and the heater are. I drop food where I can see the biggest groups to give as many as possible the chance to eat without moving too much. I gave them some more microworms for breakfast and I think they feasted because when I came back a few hours later there weren't many left on the floor of the tank. Their other meals of the day consisted of vinegar eels. I've set up my BBS hatchery and should have some ready tomorrow for the kids, although I'm not sure if they're big enough to eat hat yet. We'll see how it goes.


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## chipsahoy (May 10, 2015)

Can't wait to see how the fry grow!


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

chipsahoy said:


> Can't wait to see how the fry grow!


I can't wait either! I have to keep reminding myself to be patient as it all takes time...


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I'm interested in their colors, too! They have lots of potential with those parents. Good luck!


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*3 days old* 

AAHHH GUYS I CAN SEE THEIR LITTLE PECTORAL FINS OMGGGGG. 

The children were enjoying the sun today with their bellies full of microworms and vinegar eels. They're moving around much more now and some are actively hunting the little critters instead of just waiting for food to come to them. I've been dripping half a gallon of water into the tank every day and will continue to do so until it's full. After that the fry should be big enough to avoid getting sucked up by the siphon, so we'll start regular water changes then. So exciting! 

One fry had to be culled as it was struggling to swim. It would sink to the bottom and try to get up in jerky movements. Swim in peace little guy. 


*5 days old* 

Babies are still feasting on microworms and vinegar eels as my bbs haven't hatched :roll: I've started another batch, this time inside the fry tank for temperature as my house is pretty cold so that's probably the reason why. With a temperature of 82 degrees I should have some to feed my fry tomorrow afternoon! 

I can actually see that the fry have grown, not much, but it's noticeable. Look at the picture from day two and then at the one below from today! 










The dad of the spawn isn't feeling too great; he's been munching on his fins since I've separated him from the fry. So frustrating! The mother, on the other hand, almost killed my other female on the opposite side of the divider the other day. The new girl must have jumped when I took the lid off and I didn't notice until later at dinner time. Elsa had a go at the younger lady and chewed up her fins. Nasty little bugger!


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## Elleth (Feb 23, 2015)

Subbing! Beautiful little babies!


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## mercedesbenz25 (Oct 29, 2013)

Subbing! I can't wait to see how these guys turn out!


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone


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## MoonShadow (Feb 29, 2012)

As an avid veiltail lover I am very interested to see how these beauties turn out!


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

MoonShadow said:


> As an avid veiltail lover I am very interested to see how these beauties turn out!


Veiltails and plakats are my favourite so these are the ony fish I keep - with the exception of one DeT male. VTs are very under appreciated sometimes! 

I apologise for the lack of updates, I took some pictures that I need to resize and post but I've been pretty busy. Hopefully soon though! Fry are doing well, they're ten days old today and are getting very big  I keep their bellies full all day so that's probably why they're growing so quickly hahha.


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## TerriGtoo (Jul 2, 2013)

Subbing!


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## Asiakp (Oct 25, 2013)

Just wanted to chime in and say I'm almost 100% positive that your female is a little pk girl...I've got a bunch of traditional pk girls that are identical. Still, most fry will probably show vt traits, so I guess it won't matter too much  
Very nicely detailed, will be a good learning experience for new breeders out there!


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## nakito (Oct 11, 2014)

subbing!


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*7 days old* 

Finally they've had their first taste of BBS! They went nuts for it haha. It's much easier to spot them when they have big orange bellies  most are thriving but I did find some dead ones today so I decided to siphon the bottom of the tank and took about 3/4 of a gallon out and replaced it with fresh water. I know that it's expected that some will pass but it's still quite saddening finding little betta bodies  

I took this picture after feeding time today and when I went to edit it (I need to increase the contrast and do colour correction as the plastic tub isn't completely clear) I burst out laughing. Look how chubby and cute this little baby is! 










Zoomed in. This got about 60-70 likes on Facebook haha. 












*11 days old* 

It's scary how at this age there are already size differences between fry. As cruel as this may sound to some, I have no intention of babying the runts. If they're fit enough to survive and compete for good with their siblings, that's fantastic. If they die off, that's just tough luck I guess. Perhaps if this was a smaller spawn of 20-30 fry I could do that but we're dealing with at least a hundred, so yeah. 

Anyway, I've not had many deaths (found 4 yesterday) which is good. The fry are much more active now and they swim around more with each day that passes. I've been doing small (.5 gallon or so) water changes and siphoning the bottom of the tank but it's so difficult as the fry have literally no fear of the siphon and I've accidentally sucked up a few :c 

Here's a few pictures of them munching away on BBS. I'm now using that as their primary food source and supplement it with microworms when we run out or when I'm leaving for a longer period of time as MW seem to survive for much longer than BBS so it gives the children something to snack on when I'm away and not back on time for the next feeding. 



















Who wants to play the "count my fry" game? I certainly don't :rofl:


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

Asiakp said:


> Just wanted to chime in and say I'm almost 100% positive that your female is a little pk girl...I've got a bunch of traditional pk girls that are identical. Still, most fry will probably show vt traits, so I guess it won't matter too much
> Very nicely detailed, will be a good learning experience for new breeders out there!


Yeah, I think you're right :roll: She shares a tank with a HMPK girl and they're very similar, only Elsa has less branching and doesn't have a 180 degree spread. But, since long fins are dominant (or at least I've been told so) most, if not all, fry will still be VT which is what I'd like


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*15 days old*

So they've reached their two week birthday yesterday and are doing fantastic. I'm quite careful as everything is going worryingly well - I mean, something's bound to go wrong at _some_ point! I've lost two fry the other day but I'm not too bothered. Some are getting really big and taking pictures is getting harder as they're now swimming around pretty much all the time. So no picture update today but I promise I'll try to get some soon. Their little dorsal fins are starting to grow in: they're just tiny stubby things at the moment but I'm glad the fry are developing at the right speed.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I really like that little plump fry, too! I'm glad they're doing so well.


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*1 month and 1 day* 

First of all, I'd like to apologise for not updating this sooner - life got the better of me and I've only been popping on BS.com every now and then. But I haven't forgotten about my spawn log and certainly haven't forgotten about my fry! 

They are a month old and are still pretty small (I'll get to that in a second) but they're developing well. In fact, they all have a full set of fins now! Some are darker than others but there's still no definite colours in any of the fry. 

As for them still being pretty small, well, remember when I said things are bound to go bad at some point? Yup... The air pump which I used to hatch BBS broke one night and I was doing 3am shopping on ebay for a new one D: it's all good now, the new air pump arrived safely. Their feedings did have to be reduced to microworms two times a day as opposed to four feedings of BBS with the occasional microworm meal during this unfortunate downtime. 

Surprisingly though, I've not been getting any deaths. At least not any that I've noticed. I did start culling the runts though, they're not thriving and are just using up space and food for the better fry. It's a quick death for them, they get fed to my adult bettas - nothing goes to waste. I think I've culled about 30 so far, but there's still another that many that I want to pull out of the tank. 

Getting pictures is very difficult at this point: the fry now know that when I approach the tank it's feeding time and they all start zooming around when they see me :roll: They all come up to the front where I drop the food and swim around in excitement haha. So cute! They're really fast though, and by the time my phone camera manages to focus on one it's already away. I do manage to shoot a half decent picture every now and then though


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

What a cutie! I'm glad the runts are small enough to be culled like that.


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

*5 weeks and 1 day* 

We've gotten to the point where the half a teaspoon of BBS eggs just isn't enough to keep everyone full for the whole day. I've stopped feeding microworms and had to look for an alternative. TetraMin baby powder and frozen cyclops and daphnia were looked at with disgust so I thought that perhaps it was time to try some bloodworms. After all, what fish would resist that tasty treat? 

Certainly not the fry haha. They loved the bloodworms! I did have to cut them up into little pieces which was disgusting but I'm really glad they liked the new food. I'm going to start weaning them off BBS and onto frozen foods and hopefully by the time they're 6 weeks old I won't need to hatch any more BBS. At the 6 week mark I also want to start jarring the biggest fry due to the fact that they're showing signs of aggression. They're still small, but the biggest (I'm assuming they're males) flare and chase the others. Sometimes two large fry meet and there's a full blown out sparring session! They're not doing any visible harm to each other, but they're getting bigger, stronger and the fights are more frequent: I'd prefer to avoid anyone getting hurt. 

My jarring set up isn't ready yet but I've got almost a week to get it up and running. I'll post a picture when it's done


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## FinnDublynn (Feb 27, 2015)

I can't believe how flipping adorable these babies are... 

I can't wait to watch the grow more!!!


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## smaugthefishy (Jun 15, 2015)

SQUEEEE so cute. <3 Definitely subbing.


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## Kisiel (Jul 30, 2014)

@FinnDublynn & @smaugthefishy thank you so much! The kind comments really mean a lot 



*5 weeks and 4 days*

The fry will be getting their last ever BBS meal tomorrow. They're almost weaned off it and onto frozen foods (mainly bloodworms), but I'm hopefully going to be able to make the trip to Maidenhead Aquatics next saturday to buy some live daphnia and brine shrimp. Once they get used to the taste of the ive critters I'll slowly add in some frozen until they get used to eating that too. 

It's quite funny watching them eat the bloodworms. Sometimes two fry will go after the same one and they'll grab it from opposite ends which triggers a violent wrestling match during which the smaller of the two usually ends up getting dragged about the tank. 

There is one fry which sadlly suffers from minor SBD. He/she has a slightly sinking butt and while I did consider culling it, I think I'll keep it as it's not a severe case and the fry is a little fighter: he/she absolutely doesn't let it's "disability" get in the way and I do want to give it a chance. I will be jarring four fry on monday and this one will probably be one of them, unless I decide otherwise.

Pictures to come later


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Pictures!!!!!! 
Cant wait to see them all grown up  I find that most fry grow out of swimbladder, especially if its not too extreme, hopefully your little guy grows out of it too


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## SiameseFightingArt (Jun 17, 2014)

Subbing ^^


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