# PLATINUM WHITE MHMPK(asymmetrical) x STEELBLUE FHMPK (symmetrical)



## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

*Spawning Log: Alejandro Castro Miami,FL* _"please forgive any gramatical errors. I tried to spell check and correct my first draft as much as possible"_

*SPAWN DATE:3/11/2016*

*Male Thailand Sunate1992 on aquabid https://www.facebook.com/Toomtamfanclub

Good fins asymmetrical. Good body, peduncle has slight upward curve when flaring. Has slight color flaws on dorsal and caudal fins. I like the ventrals. Only have aquabid picture and a screen capture from the video.*

















*Female Thailand Zid_betta aquabid Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Page facebook: www.facebook.com/wholesalebetta Personal Facebook: www.facebook.com/gnsbetta
Really balance body. Has some nice metallic scales. I feel in love with the fins. Symmetrical. I believe it could have Marble gene. Last picture is most recent and taken by me.(terrible) First 2 are aquabid.*




























Natural Betta spawn trial #1

My experience as a Betta breeder would be categorized as novice. I breed pet store bettas
in 6th grade just for fun. About 2 years ago I breed a line of Koi bettas and had 10 successful
spawns. Compared to many of you I am still a beginner. That being said I do consider myself
an experience fish keeper. I have kept fish for many years, fresh and marine. Just wanted to give a share
my background. My current goal is to get into show breeding, as well as other minor details that I’m
going to state.


Since starting to breed bettas 2 years ago I was obsessed with the natural enviornment/eco system of the betta.
Having little experience I did not go forward with my original idea which was create and environment the mimic the natural state of the betta and have them breed and raise fry as they do in the wild. I also refrained from doing this after reading all the warnings online. In my experience the betta community is very "if it ain't broke don't fix it". But heck most of the Thai breeder breed in buckets….

To many the idea of breeding without the basic bare bottom tank and all the do dabs we have grown to love is taboo. The eggs will rot, your fry will die, ect ect. My ultimate goal would be to create a self-sustaining betta ecosystem pond in my backyard. But I think I am lightyears away from that. This is on top of my show goals (form/color ect)
As far as breeding. With this batch I would be breeding for form. Mainly since I had to sacrifice color being unable to pair the 2 bettas I wanted to (fem was not eggy and male showed aggression towards her and not courting) and did not want to miss this opportunity to test my natural breeding environment. Even though that I think the 2nd female I paired him with had much better finnage than the first.

I believe I got a little bit lucky on this one to be honest.

I have 2 planted 5 gallon tanks that I use to house my male bettas. The tank consist of a Ehiem MiniUP powerfilter, heater set to 80 degree. I think 5 gallon mimics natural habitat more than 10 gallon._ REF https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MptPVaipI7Y_ I know it’s not Betta Splendid but I believe that habitat can’t be much different.
4 inches of gravel/dirt, assorted plants, and some driftwood. Let just say it’s not your typical set up that many of us have grown to love.

3/10/2016 11:43PM
I began to condition the males and one of the males went on a tangent and began to build a huge bubble nest just from basic conditioning and viewing of female for about 2 -4 hours per day. The position of the bubble nest was just over on the top of leafy plants I have and opposite side of the filter. I took notice of this and saw and opportunity to breed using my natural planted tank. I put a Styrofoam cup over the nest that was already there (I know I shouldn't have added this to stay true to the natural theme. Next time I will use an almond leaf).
I also plugged my ehiem filter with an aquarium sponge to control the flow, even though he did not seem to mind it. Overnight he had created a huge bubble nest.

3/11/2016 7:36AM
I released my first intended female(giant). He show many signs of aggression towards her darting at her and attempting to bite her, not dancing and flaring in a courting way. She also did not pay attention to his bubble nest and just started hiding. She was clearly not ready
I then released my 2nd female which was really eggy but had not been conditioned to this male. Observed for aggression and once I saw that he was not behaving aggressively I went to work. She was also very impressed with his nest immediately swimming under it to check it out.

3/11/2016 3:39PM
After about 8 hours I came back to find them both in perfect condition. Not one nip or any signs of aggression towards each other. They began embracing.
Many of the eggs fell on to the leaves of the plant. The male was able to pick up 80% of them before they hit the floor. He would then spend most of the time between embraces sorting gravel and plants in the area and putting them in the nest. The female also helped a lot with this.






*PLEASE NOTE ALL THE WHITE SPECS ARE NOT EGGS. I HAVE WHITE SAND MIXED IN THE SUBSTRATE AS WELL*

3/11/2016 7:14PM
Female Removed. I think over 23 embraces occurred.

Observations - The bettas didn't seem to have that hard of a time picking eggs of the gravel. Many of the resources
online said that gravel is horrible to breed in since egg will get stuck in it and be wasted. I did not have this issue.
I believe about 90% of the eggs were brought back up to the nest. I did observe and analyze every embrace. I also think this was do to my gravel/dirt mixture. I do not use large gravel but smaller sized black gravel mixed with seachem dirt, so that lead to there being a lot less space to which eggs can get stuck on.

My hypothesis and one of the reasons I think breeding with gravel/dirt is something that has been overlooked is because in my opinion, I think gravel contains 80% of the good bacteria needed to maintain a nitrogen cycle. Even if you lose 25% of your eggs initially. I believe that having a properly cycled planted tank will lead to easier time raising fry. I have had many a tank nitrites spike on me causing me to lose many fry before. Sometimes even leaving me with only 5 fry from 130. In the long run this is beneficial. It also helps with maintenance. I have also read many breeding logs in which they have a constant battle to keep ammonia down. Having to add Prime every day ect. I had no need for this.

3/12/2016 10:23AM
Male continues to maintain eggs and resort them. He is a beast.





 

3/13/2016 8:34PM
Started to notice vertical swimming and eggs hatching. I completely removed my ehiem minup power filter. Algae build up in the tank is growing. Luckily is good algae and not the nasty BlueGreen stuff that I have struggled with in the past.

3/15/2016 7:02PM
All fry are now swimming horizontally. Male has not shown aggression towards fry. I now removed my male. I have done it this way in all of my spawnings prior to this; but unfortunately this time was a bit tragic. I fed my fry 2ML of watered egg yolk. The egg stuck to the algae which I think facilitate the fry to eat it.

3/16/2016 6:02AM
Male specimen #1 AKA Adam... (I got attached since he was such a good papa and gave him a name. Big mistake) has died. Apparently he regurgitated fry before passing and did not eat any of his food. No signs of disease in post mortem. Cause of death is unknown. I moved the surviving fry into the tank and fed another 2ML of eggyolk water.
Looking back, I think in nature the father stays with the fry for longer than we breeders have been taught. If I were to redo this, I will leave the father in until 5 weeks and keep him well fed in order to suppress appetite. Or unless he starts showing aggressive behavior towards fry. The natural tank did provide many natural hiding spots. I regret my decision and feel really guilty....RIP ADAM
_REF http://www.bettysplendens.com/leaving-father-with-fry-method.html_

3/18/2016 4:34PM
Fry are doing well. I am motivated to make sure I get a successor to Adam. I have added a 20Gallon sponge filter as the algae is getting a bit out of control. I put some of the cycled media from the Ehiem power filter in order to boost the sponge filters natural bacteria load. Have it at 1 bubble per second. I have been feeding 2ML of eggyolk everyday twice a day. And I will give first feeding of BBS tonight.
3/25/2016
Doing first Water change since spawning. As able to get a somewhat accurate count of fry. I have a total of 68 fry in my 5 gallon tank.
Not as much as I had hoped for and much less than the bare bottom method. But there are a lot less fry with deformities than my other spawns.

3/29/2016
Did another water change today. Fry are growing very well. They are on schedule with _http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/bettagrowth.html_ I plan on changing the water once every 2-3 days. I believe for now they just need to survive to week 3-4 or until i transfer them to my grow out tank where I can really grow them out and give them daily water changes.

I'm having a problem with algae. It is booming but I don't think the fry mind to be honest. I think the algae may be a blessing in disguise though. It is doing a very good job of gather the lose BBS legs that get mixed up during feeding. ( i try my best to strain them out but its very hard) Not sure if anyone can confirm if fry eat algae or not. But it did also help me earlier when I was feeding egg yolk.


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Congrats on the spawn! The parents are beautiful fish so cant wait to see how the fry turn out

Algae is a blessing in a fry tank, infusoria eats the algae and the fry will eat the infursoria, it also keeps nitrates down. The only downside is it just looks a bit ugly lol


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## liamthen (Dec 18, 2015)

nice spawn, male is beautiful


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

For some reason I cannot find the "edit post" bottom and fix the broken images. Google Photo is a terrible service. Google lets me down yet again....

Anyways Week 3!!!! Fry are looking great. I think I missed my growth rate for week 3. They still look like week 2 fry in my opinion(http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/bettagrowth.html). Here are some pictures of the bunch! Please note that it is not BLUE GREEN ALGAE its just me boosting the colors and contrast so you can see the little ones 

Here is one comparison between a Larger one and a Runt 









Not not BLUE GREEN ALGAE I swear lol








The algea doesn't seem to bother them very much. I'm trying to control it, but since they enjoy hanging out there so much I can't suck any out without taking 2 or 3 fry along for a ride.... lol

Feeding


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## Witchipoo (Dec 13, 2015)

I'm jealous! Too bad your giant girl didn't work out but the pair is lovely.


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## liamthen (Dec 18, 2015)

there be one time i'll have spawn in a glass tank full of plants too lol


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

Week 4 update.



> _*On some computers the pictures of the pair is showing up as a grey minus sign. Since I am unable to fix this I will repost the pictures of the pair so it can at least be on the first page of the log.
> *_
> Male
> Aquabid Picture
> ...





WEEK 4 update for REALSEES 4/12/2016

So I have much more fry than I expected. The planted tank did a great job with hiding them. My average growth rate is a bit under par, but I do have some big ones. After speaking with DCG (growth guru) He suggested I switch them to grow out tank ASAP ( I usually wait till week 5, don't know why it's just how I've done it). 

I did so and boy let me tell you.... Catching these buggers in a planted tank was not easy!! It was very interesting to see them behave this way because I can imagine this is how they avoid getting eaten in by larger predators in the wild. They would swim/dig into the soil while I was trying to catch them only to later come out and mock me. They also have great camouflage! But you can tell that the lighter "platinum white" fry wouldn't last a day in the wild. I could spot them from a mile away, as apposed to some of the siblings in which I had to stay still as if I was spear fishing LOL.:lol:

In total it took from 6:45PM to 9:58PM (I logged it in my private messages with DCG). So 3 hours of picking through algae and all that good stuff for 200 fry lol. I did not take any breaks either... It was right after work and I forgot to take of my new dress shoes I was breaking in... So needless to say my feet HURT SO BADDDD.

I hope I can increase my average growth rate of the complete spawn by week 5. Anyways here some pictures. Forgive me for the quality. Iphone 5 isn't the best and all my photography equipment was... well... lost to a witchy women.... lol

All pictures have contrast boosted so we can see the fry better.

_*Planted tank (when you turn of the power filter for 4 weeks)*_










*Gotta catchem' all (really rough estimate, I use the ~ to show variance don't know if that is the proper symbol though)*









*New Home*

















*The Alpha*


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## dcg (Nov 5, 2015)

alecmerkel, I don't know if they will take frozen food just yet. When I first introduced my last fry to frozen food they were like that. A few days later they could eat frozen artemia without me cutting it into little pieces first and the fry looked like that.

220 fry sounds like a lot. They will be soon crowded even in that 20 gallons tank so you will need to keep a tight water changes schedule sooner rather than later.  

Keep up the good work.


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

Yes you are right, this mourning I did a 50/50 feed. I did 50% portion of live BBS and 50% frozen Artemia. Only a few of them only went for the Artemia. I was hoping the associate feeding time with other food besides BBS. I chopped up the Artemia very good too. I am going to try frozen Blood Worms chopped up good just to see if they take it.

I'm thinking of splitting the spawn up into another grow out tank. Just have to get my current stock out of it first.


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## dcg (Nov 5, 2015)

That will be a great ideea but you can save it for later, when they will be a bit bigger.


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

The started taking Frozen Brine Shrimp today and even some blood worms.

It funny the smaller one take the bloodworms more than the other guys. You would think the bigger ones would like the bloodworms more. I'm very happy, I see major improvement in growth from. The rest of the fry have seem to caught up.

My technique for feeding was to mix the BBS with the bloodworms and Frozen Brine shrimp. I would then mix and chop endlessly to make sure the blood worms and Brine Shrimp(I use more brineshrimp, I just add the bloodworms for spice you know lol) where small enough. I figured even if they didn't eat the other food at least the BBS will taste like the new food I'm trying to switch them over to. It worked rather well.

Average size is now 1 CM for the whole spawn, I am very happy with that since 3 days ago many of them were under size according to the growth chart.


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## Witchipoo (Dec 13, 2015)

I just now really read this whole log and looked at the videos. 
Gosh that male was breathtaking. I'm so sorry you lost him. 
I love searching pictures for fry, you have to almost unfocus to see them in there. Little freeswimming eyes. 
Interesting feeding method. I am looking forward to seeing how they develop.


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

Thank you witchi. I appreciate your comment a whole lot. Hope I can get a new camera soon and get you guys some good pictures. 

Can't take all the credit. DCG really pushed me to really start growing them. I just got all crazy and found a weird way to do so. 

Gotta start looking for some shows in Florida. I know one just passed not to long ago and I wasn't able to make it. Plus they didn't have a KOI division and back then that's all I had.


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## Witchipoo (Dec 13, 2015)

I really think you'll get some spectacular fish, hopefully one as gorgeous as daddy.


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## Witchipoo (Dec 13, 2015)

Yeah, I just missed one in March in Denver. I really wanted to go look around, see what was in the area and such. But, next time. The female betta competition is in November. Who knows, maybe I'll have a giant to auction off {Pearl}. Just kidding. Anyway. Can't wait to see more pics.


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

Witchi I love you because you love Platinum White/Opaque betta's just as much as me!!!

All my friends keep telling me what happened to all the colorful ones you had?...

Lol I told them Whites are more beautiful. I'm worried about 2 things. The male 2 major color flaws, one in his dorsal fin and on in his caudal, you can't tell in the aquabid picture. Either I got bait and switched or he photoshoped the flaws out. The next is the extend of the females marble gene. Don't really know how it will effect the spawn. 

I'm not worried about the color difference because introducing a Steel blue line actually helps the white I read since the white betta actually comes from the Irid. Correct me if I'm wrong here, maybe I misinterpreted.


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## alecmerkel (Sep 17, 2015)

Week 5 Update

The overall size of the spawn has leveled out. Still have a few runts that try to eat but I guess they can't fit as much in there. 

They are starting to show irids was well as getting aggressive with each other. I've seen so many stand offs for BBS lol.. Kinda funny actually considering that there's so many BBS and they just have to fight over that ONE PIECE....

I've been doing a mix feed of BBS/Frozenbrine shrimp. Many of them have started to prefer the larger frozen brine shrimp pieces. I mainly use the BBS so the smaller guys can catch up. I always think its the little ones that grow to be the pretty ones for some reason. Here's some pictures. Getting better with my phone camera, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that they are bigger and easier to photograph now.

I changed the water 5 times this week. Twice per days sounds way to much for me to handle right now. Not to mention work just gut busy... But the little bastards seem to be doing good. Not as much growth as I'd like though.


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## liamthen (Dec 18, 2015)

lovely fry and looks they got a very promising form to show later


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