# First Time Marble Spawn



## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

Since I'm going to be at home taking care of my father for the foreseeable future, I thought this would be the best time to try my hand at breeding. Neither of them have perfect form, I'm really breeding for color, my LFS rarely gets in bettas that aren't blue or red and they already expressed interest in buying fry.

The male is "James Pond", I love his coloration and personality. The female, "Georgia O'Reef", is also super placid and lords over my 20g community tank. I don't have any complete flaring photos of either of them, before breeding I'd never really seen either of them flare for long enough to take a picture.

Knock on wood, but everything so far has gone brilliantly. The 10g spawn tank was set up last week and I introduced them on the 4th. Shady flared and built a spectacularly tiny bubble nest that first day. I put in a piece of bubble wrap and he seemed to get the idea then. I released the female on the 6th and woke up to them spawning this morning. 

They have both been very courteous this entire process, there haven't been any ripped fins or anything. They seem to take turns chasing each other and wait for the other one to finish before the next starts.

They're still embracing and she is doing a good job of picking up the eggs he misses. 

Forgive my awful pictures, I didn't want to turn on the lights and interrupt them


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

We've got movement! JP does NOT appreciate me sticking my big 'ol face anywhere near his nest so I've been doing my snooping from around the corner. He's busy chasing all the hatching babies, he seems to be better at catching them mid-drop than finding them on the ground, but I don't see too many on the bottom so I'm assuming he's either eating them or putting them back up when I'm not watching (hopefully the latter). There's plenty of plants in the tank so the babies should be able to find something to nom on when they need it. I've got BBS set up and have a back-up plan of egg yolk and "instant" BBS, just in case. 

Side note: anyone used the "instant bbs" with any success? I'm hoping I won't need it and can just return it when they're grown. 

I'm happy he seems to be a good father so far, fingers crossed it all keeps working out! I'll try to get some pictures with my good camera once it's charged (I'm a photographer, I should be more prepared than this haha).


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

Minor emergency: my sponge filter "burped" (no idea how, it wasn't even on) and spewed crud all over the tank so I used the air tubing as a siphon to clean most of it up, I'll do the rest tomorrow, I don't want to have to change too much water or stress out dad more than usual, I just made sure under the nest was clear so he can see the fallen fry.

On a brighter note: here's pictures of him catching fry and being "Mr. Grumpy Gills" as usual.


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

JP has been doing a good job picking up his wayward offspring. Here's a clip, you can see several of them drop down and swim back in the background and JP coming over to investigate. It's so hard to get good pictures/videos when they're this small!


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

So I think JP had himself a feast last night, at the expense of the fry. I can only find around 5 today. So he's back in his normal tank and sulking. I'm hoping there's more hiding in the hornwort :/


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## BlackSapphire (Dec 3, 2016)

Both male and female colors are very pretty! Hopefully he didn't eat all the babies  Looking forward to hearing more progress!


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

I haven't seen any fry today, I hope they're just hiding in the plants, but I'm afraid he got all of them.


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## AmyFrancis96 (Jan 24, 2017)

Nature can be a little cruel. You should try them again sometime 

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


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## MysticSky22301 (Apr 16, 2016)

Oh my he's pretty! Don't give up just yet ^^ they may still be hiding I thought I had 5 fry at first and have 20-25 coloring up they are microscopic the first week x.x it's why I feed vinager eels and they stay alive for a day or two so you don't have to bother the babies as much ( still feed twice a day). If you did lose fry it might actually be the same way I lost my first spawn, ammonia spike. I have my fry in a 3g tote this time and change 1-2 gallons every day I've been super diligent because I didn't want to make the same mistake again


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## halleyana (May 25, 2016)

It's official, he ate them all. I went through the entire tank this afternoon, no bodies, but no babies either. I tested the water and there weren't any problems. I love him, but he's on my poop list right now haha. Guess I'll just have to try again later, I think I'll do a smaller tank next time, he kind of got distracted with all the space.


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## MysticSky22301 (Apr 16, 2016)

Aww poor babies  yes please try again he's so pretty <3


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