# Breeding Pair: Cambodian-based Yellow HMPK x Cambodian-based Orange Dalmatian HMPK



## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

Currently in the spawn tank, I have a pair of beautiful HMPK fish.

The male is Limon, my Yellow HMPK (Asymmetrical) bred by Senate (Aquabid). The female is Tangelo, my Orange Dalmatian HMPK (Symmetrical) bred by TMTBettas (Aquabid).

The purposes of this spawn are three-fold: to study how the inheritance of Yellow vs Orange; to gain first-hand experience with the inheritance of the Orange Dalmatian trait; and to produce some very lovely Yellows and Oranges.

The male is an Asymmetrical Show Plakat, and the female is a Symmetrical Show Plakat. This was not an intentional cross, but merely a coincidence. This spawn will also allow me to study the inheritance of the different types of Plakat form.

Sire:










Dame:









According to many sources, I should witness almost all of the fry expressing the Dalmatian gene to some degree; with red spotting appearing on the fins of any Yellow or Orange fry. 

If the pair cooperates, this should be an interesting spawn to watch grow. Wish me luck.


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## SplashyBetta (Jul 28, 2014)

The dame is gorgeous! And of course the sire too. I love dalmatian bettas, so I'll be following this spawn for sure. Good luck!!


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## JayM (Aug 4, 2013)

So pretty & handsome. Good luck.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, you get awesome fish and get to study things at the same time! I really hope they cooperate!


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## HTageant (May 27, 2015)

Subbing  Your pair is absolutely gorgeous!


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## Isabella15 (Feb 23, 2015)

Subbing


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

Good news!

We have eggs. I woke up this morning (more like noon) to find the pair wrapping and dropping eggs. This continued until about 3pm, and probably started around 11am, considering the number of eggs I saw in the nest when I woke.

Best estimates are about 200 eggs, but since this is a virgin pair, I'm guessing about half will be infertile. I'm hoping I didn't bite off more than I can chew with this, but I am VERY excited to see them develop.


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## JayM (Aug 4, 2013)

Nimble said:


> Best estimates are about 200 eggs, but since this is a virgin pair, I'm guessing about half will be infertile. I'm hoping I didn't bite off more than I can chew with this, but I am VERY excited to see them develop.


Dont bet on it. ;-) I've just had a virgin pair spawn & egg count is 250+ at 1week old. :shock:


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

There was probably closer to three-hundred eggs... and Dad's eaten about half of them for being infertile, it seems.

I'm gonna go out for a little while, and hopefully they'll hatch before the end of the day. I'm just hoping Limon doesn't eat all of the eggs. It's a first-time spawn, so I'm gonna be careful and let the father take care of things... but I also don't want to have to spend the time and energy re-spawning them to get fry from this pair, as it's very annoying.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

Eggs are hatching, and the male is doing his best to take care of all the falling fry. It also seems his tummy has gone down, so he probably pooped pretty massively, and I can't find it.


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## JayM (Aug 4, 2013)

Good Dad.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I'm glad he's taking care of them!


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

He's doing pretty well today, and I'm very proud of him. I was worried he was going to be an egg-eater... but it turns out there were just A LOT of unfertilized eggs, and he was munching on them to get rid of them.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

That's good to read! Maybe next time, he'll remember to fertilize more of them.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

The babies are munching on Vinegar eels very readily... and there's a bunch of them, all swarmed around the heater and other areas.

I'd wager I'm looking at around 60+, but I can't be sure.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

The babies are all doing very well... I still have no idea how many there are, but it's more than 30.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Wow, that's great for a first spawn! I'm glad they're eating well.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

I noticed some little decayed corpses on the floor of the tank this morning. I added some prime to the tank, just in case. It's been hot lately, and my room is the most susceptible to outside temperatures in the whole house... so the tank might be a little warm for their liking. Not sure.

There's still many little babies swimming along the surface and near the bottom and middle as well... Just gotta get 'em to where I can feed them BBS.


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## kittenfish (Dec 1, 2013)

Have you tried feeding BBS? Most of my fry are able to eat them a day or two after they become free-swimming.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

I gave them their first feedings of BBS today, actually. They've taken very well to it, as the Red x Marble spawn did.

As a rule, from now on, I'm going to start feeding BBS at 1 week from hatching, as it seems they're capable of eating it then.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

So, I don't know why, but this batch of fry has just not been hardy. There are probably less than a dozen survivors in the tank.

The water parameters are fine, and there's no suspicion of disease... so I wanna say that it's just the fact that the ones who passed were delicate. I've been told that some strains of yellow can be pretty inbred, so you can get delicate fry.

I'll probably re-spawn the parents in a month... or re-spawn Limon to Cranberry, my Super Red.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I'm guessing that there were a lot of delicate ones in the mix, too. The dalmation ones might have a lot of problems, too. Good luck with your next batch!


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## Zhylis (Nov 4, 2014)

I'm having the same problems with my yellow females. Small or infertile spawns, unexplainable fry deaths... it's a mess. I've tried 6 crosses now; the only healthy spawn was outcrossing to a cambo-based extended red. Cello x yellow, cambo x yellow, gold x yellow all failed. BSE doesn't seem to help; I'm about to start looking for dark-bodied yellows (i.e. "chocolates").


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

I've got a Chocolate Yellow HMPK (Asym) Male, but I got him pretty young, and he's somewhat runty. I'm not sure he'll get much bigger.

Once he's gotten over whatever's bugging him(he rubbed some of the scales on his face off, flaring at his neighbor and trying to get him through the plastic craft mesh), I want to try to breed him, eventually... but I've got other fish to breed, so he's gonna get bumped down the line.

Not to mention that he's got a decent strip of steel irids along the upper part of his torso, so that adds demerits to his usefulness.

He might get paired up with one of the good-quality females from my Marble x Super Red spawn, and we'll see what happens there... but that's at least four months down the line, and I'll have a sibling(or father/daughter) cross to deal with at that time.


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## Nimble (Aug 31, 2014)

Spawn Log is in the Spawn Logs section: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=608073

Go read it. It's got a tasty recipe.


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