# Red white and Blue HMCT X HMCT Mascots



## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

This is my first breeding, so I am going with this pair. Shouldn't be any real surprises as they are siblings. Been conditioning them with a variety of frozen foods and giving them eyesight contact once or twice a day. The female has been showing signs the last week of being interested. Challenging then swimming away with a few pauses with tail posturing. Going to move the male into the breeder tank mid next week, and put the female in a day or two later. Going to attempt video of the breeder tank with a small digital video camera on a tripod. Hopefully with a 16GB card on low res, I should be able to just let it run.


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## Alaura123 (Jul 4, 2014)

Their patterns are amazing xD
I can't wait to see the patriotic babies!


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## Elleth (Feb 23, 2015)

They're gorgeous! Following.


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## GadisCupang (Apr 29, 2015)

*Update*

Fourthwind: can you post a picture of the babies?


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

GadisCupang said:


> Fourthwind: can you post a picture of the babies?


When I have them! As stated above I am just getting started. The male goes into the tank today, and the female tomorrow.


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

So phase 1 is complete. Male is in the breeder tank. I am always amazed at the instincts in fish and animals. I have had this male about 2 months, and he has never nested. Even after repeated exposure to his female in the next tank. Two hours into being in his breeder tank with no female present and he is already loading up the bubble wrap! Not sure if it is helping or not, but I have been running an external filter on the tank today with a UV sterilizer that is dripping on the top of the tank like a rain storm. Figured it wouldn't hurt to sterilize the water a bit before going into the breeding and hopefully egg laying stage.

Got the old video camera going in low resolution and took this short clip of him throwing a couple bubbles into the nest.

Bubble Nesting

Tomorrow morning begins introductions


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

Well no luck today. Male was doing everything a male should, but the female just did not want to get near the nest. Fortunately the male after 6 hours together only created one small split in the caudal of the female. Decided to put her back in the clear breeder box for the night and let her rest, and let her loose in the morning again. Might try putting another female in the tank next to them to see if that will promote some action as well.


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## Bamb00stix (Apr 25, 2015)

Ouch! D: Seems like your stereotypical married couple behind closed doors. xD I hope you get some action soon.


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## NYorkieBetta (Apr 21, 2015)

Hope they get together - I was looking for red white and blue baby... hoping you will have lots!
Nice fish room BTW... ;-)


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

*Success!!!!!!!!!!!*

Today at about 12:45 PM MDT my pair successfully spawned. Egg numbers look to be in the hundreds. I got 51 minutes of awesome spawn footage before the batteries died :roll:

Here is 4 minutes of the spawn. <---- click for video

I am on cloud nine. Now just praying my boy does a good job of taking care of them! Thanks be to God for the miracle I got to witness.


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

lol excuse the audio. Didn't have my sound on the PC when I clipped the video. I was out when they spawned. Glad my wife caught them.


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## Alaura123 (Jul 4, 2014)

WHOOP!!!! Congrats on the success!!
Cant wait to see what these babies will look like, also hoping they do alright


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## Bamb00stix (Apr 25, 2015)

Yesss. Just in time for some 4th of July full-grown babehsss. Congratulations! Can't wait till they get to be in a grow-out tank. That's my favorite part.


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

It is certainly nerve racking while they are hatching. So far the male seems to be doing a good job, but I think his babies are driving him nuts already. Took a short video of the fry jumping around. Fry at 43 hours old <---- Click for video


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Woot woot! :blueyay:


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

Watched the whole video this morning trying to do an egg count. They were at it for about an hour and a half according to my wife, but the camera batteries only lasted 51 minutes. In that 51 minutes however they successfully wrapped 26 times and dropped 381 eggs. Average of just under 15 eggs per wrap. Likely means the whole spawn was about 5 to 600 eggs. Amazing to watch and learn. Took me awhile to figure out that they were controlling their buoyancy by taking air right before they tried to wrap.

As a side note, there is no doubt that one of the contributing factors to the spawn was barometric pressure. The first two days of attempted spawn we had a high pressure of 30.10" here. On day three the pressure dropped to 29.94 and they spawned. We are also at a full moon cycle, but I don't think the moon cycle has as much to do with it other than in the wild the male wants the light at night to tend eggs. Always possible they can feel slight gravitational difference, but I doubt it.


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

*Fry Pic*

Here are the fry at 4 days. A few are free swimming and, the rest should be free swimming by end of day 5. Plan to take daddy out on day 6.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Oh wow! I'm loving it! I just love CTs!!


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## Alaura123 (Jul 4, 2014)

Ahh!! Yay lil babies! Seems like you have plenty of them too!
Cant wait to see em grow


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

Post spawn day 11 progress. Fry are doing well. I estimate right now I have between 150 and 200 fry. Hard to count with the hornwort in the tank, but the fry do like it. I am sure they enjoy the cover, infusoria snacks, and that it helps calm any water disturbances from the sponge filter even if it is very slow right now. I have been feeding BBS in the morning & lunch, and walter or banana worms in the evening. I can certainly see why there are ventral issue's when feeding worms as the fry will hover over the bottom when you feed worms. Any bacteria down there from waste will certainly have an affect when the fins start to grow. When you feed BBS the fry tend to stay up higher in the water column. I have no doubt that snails and water changes using airline for removal and drip fill, will help this. Also found out that there is a size difference between SFO BBS and Salt Lake strains of BBS. The SFO are smaller and easier for the small fry to eat. Going to continue using sfo for another week and then switch to salt lake. Here is a pic of the front quarter of the tank. About the only clear area where I can get a pic of the fry outside of the hornwort.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, look at them all! I'm glad you got some videos, too. I really enjoyed seeing how things work. Your boy sure does have a huge beard!


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

Fry continue to do real well. This is what the tank looks like without the hornwort. Lots and lots of little boys and girls! Had found some Hydra when I took the Hornwort out and could see in the tank. They killed about 8 fry  Hydra all gone now :twisted:

My rough count is 200 in the pic.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, that's a lot of fry! I'm glad you got rid of the hydra before they killed too many.


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## Fourthwind (Jan 28, 2015)

Well it deeply saddens and depresses me to update this spawn. In less than three days I have lost the entire tank of fry/ 

Water quality was spot on, could not identify any parasites under magnification, could not see any fungus. They just stopped eating and died in large batches no matter what I did. Absolutely heart breaking.

I nuked the tank today, and am trying to move on. It would be so much easier if I could have seen a problem. Even other local breeders couldn't put their finger on it. :frustrated:


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## NYorkieBetta (Apr 21, 2015)

How upsetting and disappointing for you. Sorry :-(


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## Alaura123 (Jul 4, 2014)

Aw man thats terrible  So sorry to hear about it.
At least you tried hard to raise them, these things seem to happen way more often than not :/


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