# First Time Spawn



## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Currently have 2 CT's spawning in our tank: red and purple marble male with cambodian female. We released her at about 10:30 PM and they started _trying_ to embrace about five minutes later. I say "trying" because it took the male two hours and 13 recoveries from having stunned himself before he finally got it right. We were having fun inserting our own commentaries from the fish (OW! No, not there!), but now they're going at it like crazy. It took them a while to figure out that the eggs were supposed to go into the nest, but now they get it. 

They're both surprisingly gentle on each other: all of the research we did suggested that the breeding process would be quite rough, but they have barely torn at each other. The female only has one major rip in her anal fin--everything else seems pretty minor.

Before spawning the female looked like she swallowed a marble; now she seems to be returning to normal proportions. I'm glad we have homes for all of these if they survive :shock: Special thanks goes out to the Animal Behaviour class at TRU for this one!

Pictures coming soon!


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Just removed Rosalind; a couple rips on her anal fin and one on her dorsal. Exhausted, but otherwise unharmed.

Oberon is still hunting around the tank for any eggs he may have missed.


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

Congrats..... now comes the fun part - raising the fry! 
Good Luck.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Congrats on your spawn.


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## turtle10 (Dec 30, 2010)

Congratulations!


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Oberon has now taken up about a sixth of the tank with bubble nest and only (barely) leaves the nest to eat. Eggs are mostly in the back corner.

Rosalind is happy, healthy, and hungry. Not to mention already healing very rapidly.


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

*Picspam!*

As promised, pictures from the spawn! It was so amazing to watch them and I'm so glad we were there to see it -and even happier that they didn't seem to mind the photo-shoot (I took about 125 pictures and video! LOL).
Here's some of the better shots going through the process.








The Dance








"I better make myself look big!"








To the Nest!








Success!!








"Honey, I think that snail is watching us..."








Oberon's impressive nest the morning after spawning.








You can see some of the eggs near the back of the tank by the leaf.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Yeah. I think "Um, honey...that's my tail" should be my new Avatar.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

I love the captions. lol Especially "honey I think the snail is watching us". lol Nice pics.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Yay! The eggs hatched a couple hours ago. Some of the babies try to be free swimming already (they fall a little before they try to go up on their own), but Oberon doesn't let them get very far. He's such an adorable dad!


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

They're so cute already! I wish I could see how many wigglers we have in there, but the silly fish has moved them all to the very back of the tank and kind of behind the leaf of one of the live plants. I will still try to take pictures of them later this evening once the battery for the camera has charged(apparently I took too many spawning pictures lol).


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## NIB BETTA (Apr 21, 2010)

Congrats, I look forward to your updates.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

They're very active and keep him busy.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

A lot of the babies are trying to test their free-swimming abilities today...not to mention their father's patience. He keeps herding them back into the nest.


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

*Swim Swim Swim!*

All our little babies are free swimming now. We finally got our BBS hatching so all the fry have cute tiny round bellies full of shrimp.
So far their father is still in with them. We have been watching him carefully and he hasn't tried to eat any of them yet. *knocks on desk* This could be because they have a ton of hornwort and other plants to hide in. He seems interesting in "herding" them back towards the nest at times, but doesn't seem too concerned when they swim away from him either.
I'm not sure how many we have -the hornwort keeps them well hidden from us too, but I've counted more than two dozen swimming around the top at times.


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## FlareThis (Jan 24, 2011)

Congrats on the spawn!! Can't wait to see pictures of the little ones!!


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

They're very voracious eaters.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

lol! I bet they are.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

They much non-stop. You can see their bellies and their eyes without looking for them now. You can even see their mouths open as they sneak up on hapless brine shrimp...


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Oberon has now killed two of the three Nerite snails we had in there. He seems to think they are the origin of all things evil and wrong.

We can now see the fry swimming about without looking to hard for them, yet they're only a week old.


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

*2 Weeks*

So we've hit the two week mark. The babies all seem healthy and happy. They have begun to develop their caudals and pectorals. It is just adorable. Some of them are still very tiny and others are just huge. They all seem well though. 

Papa Oberon, who is still in the tank with them, is also doing well and has yet to be seen munching a single baby. *knocks on desk* He mostly contents himself with patroling the tank and threatening the one remaining snail he hasn't yet managed to kill.

I'm hoping the larger fry are big enough for the camera to focus on. So later I may come back and post the however fuzzy results.


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## YoshesMom (Mar 15, 2011)

so cute i cant wait for my first spawn!


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

Yay! What are you going to work with?


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

*Fuzzy Fry Pictures!*

The babies are three weeks old now and doing very well. They are eating like little tiny vaccuumcleaners. It's adorable. I though I'd post some pics. They're a little fuzzy because our camera hates focusing on tiny moving things. lol








They LOVE that Java Moss -still no idea how many are in there because they hide in that stuff all the time!








Yay! Kinda focused! lol








Look at them all!! :-D








Papa Oberon still living happily with his little spawn.








Happy swimming babies with Papa watching in the background.


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## MrVampire181 (May 12, 2009)

I might try leaving the father with his fry


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Nice pics!


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

There are more than we thought.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

*Bittersweet Babies*

The fry are continuing to grow at an amazing rate.

Sadly, their father, Oberon passed away last night.


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## Silverfang (Mar 25, 2011)

sorry to hear about papa
hope the babies keep growing good


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## BettaBetty (May 1, 2011)

Oh no... I was reading the thread happily smiling about the success and how cute the proud poppa looked and then... that. 

So sorry to hear that happend. Do you know why?  Poor thing.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

We don't know. We went out for a couple of hours and he was perfectly fine, then when I went to feed the fry a few hours later and he was gone. It looked like he just dropped. For all I know he may have choked on a baby snail.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Oh, no! I'm so sorry about Oberon.


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## TheKingsFish (Jan 8, 2011)

So far we've only lost a few fry.

I do have one question: anybody know how to treat swim bladder issues in small fry?


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

Swim bladder symptoms in fry are usually related to-poor water quality, poor nutrition/lack of HUFA in the diet, over feeding, eating BBS shells, too cool/dry air over the water that effect the labyrinth organ during development, too cool water temp and genetic related.....

I would start Epsom salt 1tsp/gal..add this to the fry tank to treat the whole tank, cover the top with plastic veggie wrap to keep the air above the water warm and humid for labyrinth development....start making 50% daily water changes if you are not already doing this..be sure and add the Epsom salt back that you removed, water temp needs to be at least 80-81F......if you are feeding BBS-only feed newly hatched that are less than 30 hour old, limit or cut back on the amount and make sure you are rinsing them good under running water and try to limit the amount of shells...look at their tummies-they should be round and pink/orange in color....if after a week they continue to have swim bladder problems they need to be culled it could be genetic or damage that can't be repaired.......
If you have tannins from IAL or oak leaf add this too...

Good luck and keep us posted...and sorry about daddy......was he in the tank with them when he died......


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

We have been doing the regular water changes and the tank is nice and toasty warm with IAL in the water. We have been feeding an alternating diet of BBS and microworms (I think it is the mostly likely option that a few shells got into their food by mistake). What is this HUFA though, and where can we find it(keeping in mind that we do live in Canada where many of the products you use are not available and we have neither a Petsmart nor a Petco)?

Thank you for the help, we will try the salt. Hopefully it helps the few that seem to be having troubles. And, no, Oberon was not with them when he died -he was floating in a small QT container in their tank while we got his home ready for him to go back to.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I use a product called Selcon....I get it from Dr Foster and Smith..but just about any fish shop that deals with saltwater fish/supplies may have it...its a common saltwater fish supplement...and BBS are saltwater critters....


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## mernincrazy8525 (Feb 28, 2011)

how are the fry?!?!? how many approximately?


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

We've lost a couple fairly little ones, but the others all seem to be doing well and swimming more like healthy fishies. Hopefully after the slightly salty week everyone will be back to normal.

I would guess (they like to hide a lot and we have much hornwort and java moss) that we have about 40ish fry still in the tank.


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

They're probably feeding off of the micro organisms produced by the live plants.


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## StarvingPoet (Dec 28, 2010)

This [ http://www.oceannutrition.eu/products.aspx?Product=nano-reef-fish-food ] was the only thing we could find at our pet store that contained HUFA. We asked the employees and they had no idea what we were looking for (they had to look it up on the internet). Do you think this will work for now? The ingredients look pretty tasty (if I were a fish, that is).

Looking it up online now I see that it is made by the same company that makes the Atison's Betta products, so I'm going to see if the pet store can order some in. Though this was the only product I saw that they had in stock by the manufacturer and it was on clearance... so we'll see how this idea pans out.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

This is what I use to supplement the BBS once the BBS absorb the yolk sac
http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=5009


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