Betta Fry Log! What Will They Look Like?

I've been thinking about posting this for a while, but I keep getting side-tracked. Anyway, I recently bred my two plakat bettas, the female being a calico plakat and the male being a dragonscale plakat (I'm not certain on this, it's just what the store had him labeled as - if you have a different idea, I'd love to know!). I got both from a great LFS that keeps all their bettas in divided, heated and filtered tanks and only stocks from reputable breeders.

I'm not specifically breeding for anything, this was just an interesting experiment-type breeding to see what I'd get and I have plenty of college friends who would be more than willing to take a betta just as a pet once the fry are ready to find homes.

Both of the parents are ridiculously active so I have a very hard time getting good, clear pictures of them.
Here's the female (who has a lot of bright blue specs and lines in her tail that aren't very visible here), and I took this picture well before I started conditioning her so I understand that she doesn't look eggy here:



And here's the male:



The setup for the fry is a 20 gallon tank currently about half-full with a couple oak leaves and some live plants along with a sponge filter. I've been working on slowly raising the water level since they were two weeks old (they are three weeks old, as of today). I believe I currently have somewhere between 10 and 15 fry, which is right around the amount I had when I removed the male, so the low count is probably due to him being very inexperienced and possibly mishandling some eggs accidentally.

I've been feeding the fry with microworms since they were free-swimming. Interestingly, all the plant material in the tank (combined with the very low amount of fry) has grown quite a bit of visible tiny living organisms and I've watched them all snack on these, so I'm only feeding them microworms once every two-three days and they're eating very, very well off of these microorganisms with nice round bellies and regular growth. Here's a couple pictures of them taken today, at three weeks:





What do you guys think they'll turn out looking like? I know the genetics of the parents don't exactly match, so I'm really curious as to what turns out to be recessive, what turns out to be dominant, etc. For all I know, these could all end up being solid! I'd like to keep this post running until they start showing their colors so we can find out!

 

Be careful with feeding microworms and nematodes in general, breeders noticed that some in their spawn fed with it will have no ventral fins while other spawns not fed with it still had their ventrals.

 

Be careful with feeding microworms and nematodes in general, breeders noticed that some in their spawn fed with it will have no ventral fins while other spawns not fed with it still had their ventrals.

Thanks for your concern. I've heard some people swear by microworms and say BBS will cause belly sliders, and I've heard an equal amount of people swear by BBS and say microworms will cause missing ventrals. Either way, I get 50% of people disagreeing with me, so I figured I'd just start somewhere and figure out what works for me. It's also not the end of the world if this small batch don't end up with ventrals since I'm not planning on regularly breeding bettas or breeding them for profit or showing them, and all will get good homes either way. I'm also very infrequently feeding microworms at this point, as said in the post. I'll keep this post updated so I'll let everyone know how it turns out with their ventrals.

 

Update: Everyone is doing well and growing! Six weeks old now. Some are showing little bits of dark pigment in their analfins and along their sides. I added a couple baby rabbit snails that are just about as big as they are (I don't want them getting eaten in my bigger tanks).

 

Can't wait to see the progress on these little guys!

 

Can't wait to see the progress on these little guys!

I saw your comment and figured it's about time for an update! I just took some pictures of them a couple minutes ago. They should be seven and a half weeks old now. I feel like they're progressing slowly, but I'm okay with that, since this is my first go at it and I don't have a need to power-grow them.

The ones that are large enough to see clearly definitely have ventrals intact, so no concern there. They're taking some high-quality crushed pellets, and getting live foods as a snack here and there. I'm going to see soon if I can get them to take some crushed flake food so I can diversify their diets. More pigment is showing! They are zipping around so fast that it makes it hard to photograph them. A lot are scaling the whole water column against the relatively gentle flow of an oversized sponge filter. The water has been at full level in the 20 gallon for a couple weeks now. The temp has stayed very consistent at 79 degrees. It's really hard to count them with so many hiding spaces and so much movement, but I have for sure counted a minimum of 10 multiple times.

One of them has always been significantly larger than the rest. I don't quite know why, but I think it has something to do with him (don't know why I'm saying him, could be her) sticking around the heaters (while the others stayed more towards where the bubble nest was) before I had the sponge filter moving the water, and temperature definitely helps growth. Anyway, he was the first to start developing pigment, the first to have visible ventrals, the first to eat dry food... etc. He's always been the biggest eater out of everyone, too. None of the others even compare to his current size and he has, by far, the most pigment. Strangely, though, in the past couple days, it seems like he has had slight difficulty with swim posture. He gets around great, scales the water column, will hang out in different places, and still has a huge appetite, but if he rests for a few seconds, the front of him lifts slightly and the bottom of him drops slightly. If he's really chilling out, his whole body can turn vertical, especially at the surface. It's really strange, and none of the others have this issue. I'm thinking it might have something to do with him eating SO much and creating too much buoyancy in his front end. Regardless, he seems to be doing fine otherwise, and I'm hoping he'll phase out of it. If anyone knows anything about this, don't hesitate to tell me!

Here's the big recently-horizontally-troubled fry:




And here's a more average representative fry of the group:

 

oh my god theyre so cute xD I love tiny baby fish, theyre just so adorable.
I have no clue what could be causing the buoyancy but the food thing makes sense I suppose, so could possibly be that! hopefully someone offers an explanation or decent confirmation that that's all it is. s/hes the king/queen of the bunch I suppose! can't wait to see them get coloring!

 

Another update:

I did some research and found a lot of breeders who say that this swim bladder issue happens quite often as a result of fry eating too much (as I thought). Everyone said they eventually get over it and their swim bladders stabilize sooner or later. Some said it took a couple weeks, others said it wasn't sorted out until they were jarred, but regardless it's almost always just a food issue that works its way out. What I did is put the one with the swimming issue in his own large water bottle with the top cut off and holes cut all through it submerged in the tank, so there's water exchange but he's not allowed to access the food that goes into the tank for everyone else. I'm doing some portion control to see if he'll come around after a while, lol. I'm probably going to hatch out some baby brine shrimp (finally) so they have more dietary variety since they've refused to accept crushed flake so far (but they're still loving the crushed pellets).

 

We hit two months old this weekend! Unfortunately I don't have pics because this has been a busy week, but I wanted to do a quick update anyway.

I started feeding bbs (along with other foods I had already been using) three or four days ago, and everyone is so happy about it! They're all even more active than they were before, actively swimming in the water column and playing with each other. I think the increased energy has to do with the higher protein levels in bbs, and now I'm kicking myself for not starting with microworms and bbs, since they probably would be growing a bit faster. I had microworms on hand at the time and I knew they would be sufficient and was just a tad too lazy/busy to get into making up a new batch of bbs every day.

The one big guy who had some swim bladder trouble stabilized after a few days of "dietary management" so I released him back with the others and he's been doing great ever since! I did a clean-out of the tank since there was a bit too much organic debris for my liking from having plants in there. This has made it a lot easier to see/count them too. I'm 95% sure I currently have 8. Two or three died from unknown causes - I know a few always do in every spawn just from general genetic weakness. I culled two (aka fed to the gouramis - sorry for the people who don't like talking about culling) that were half the size of all the others, struggling to get around, and looking miserable/not eating. There is just one I still have that is considerably smaller than the others, but he's very lively with a full belly so I'll leave him be and see what happens.

I saw a little bit of red coming into the analfin of one of them and some red in the ventrals of another, so I'm hoping some permanent color is finally starting to show!

 

Any updates?

 

Any updates?

Yes! I'm at college right now so I can't take pictures right this minute, but colors are definitely coming through. All eight have been doing fantastic, and all of them have the natural black edging to their fins like their dad has. The original giant one that was bigger than all the rest by almost double is now matched in size by a different one, and a few others are right behind them. Some have bold red fins (must have been recessive in the parents?) while most of them have orange-red/peachy fins like their dad. One or two have very pale fins (besides the black edging) but with shiny blue highlights through all the fins when they're in the right light. All the others also have shiny blue highlights, but mostly just between their fin color and the black edging. I have about half with dark baby stripes and spots, and the other half never developed them. I'm not sure if this relates to light bodied versus dark bodied since they haven't grown into their adult body colors yet, but the ones with bold red fins didn't develop baby stripes/spots and are starting to show red bodies. The ones with peachy fins have baby stripes/spots with no sign of other colors coming through yet. I'm not sure if any of them will have a calico pattern like their mom - I originally thought the ones without baby stripes/spots might develop a light bodied base and some of the calico patterns on top, but now that a couple of the light bodied ones are showing solid red, I'm not so sure anymore.

I'll try to take pictures of them when I get the chance, probably tomorrow since I'm not getting home until late tonight. I tried to take pictures of them last week and sat there for half an hour snapping pictures over and over again (with my "fancy" camera, even) and they're just so darn fast, I can't ever seem to get more than a couple semi-clear pictures. Oh well, I'll post whatever I get!

 

Yes! I'm at college right now so I can't take pictures right this minute, but colors are definitely coming through. All eight have been doing fantastic, and all of them have the natural black edging to their fins like their dad has. The original giant one that was bigger than all the rest by almost double is now matched in size by a different one, and a few others are right behind them. Some have bold red fins (must have been recessive in the parents?) while most of them have orange-red/peachy fins like their dad. One or two have very pale fins (besides the black edging) but with shiny blue highlights through all the fins when they're in the right light. All the others also have shiny blue highlights, but mostly just between their fin color and the black edging. I have about half with dark baby stripes and spots, and the other half never developed them. I'm not sure if this relates to light bodied versus dark bodied since they haven't grown into their adult body colors yet, but the ones with bold red fins didn't develop baby stripes/spots and are starting to show red bodies. The ones with peachy fins have baby stripes/spots with no sign of other colors coming through yet. I'm not sure if any of them will have a calico pattern like their mom - I originally thought the ones without baby stripes/spots might develop a light bodied base and some of the calico patterns on top, but now that a couple of the light bodied ones are showing solid red, I'm not so sure anymore.

I'll try to take pictures of them when I get the chance, probably tomorrow since I'm not getting home until late tonight. I tried to take pictures of them last week and sat there for half an hour snapping pictures over and over again (with my "fancy" camera, even) and they're just so darn fast, I can't ever seem to get more than a couple semi-clear pictures. Oh well, I'll post whatever I get!

Darn babies, being difficult xD

 

Finally, some pictures!

In this pic, the one in the top left is one of the peachy colored (the one that was originally 2x the size of all the others), and the ones in the bottom right are some of the bold red finned ones. Easier to see if you click on the to make it full size.



Here's another pic of the one in the top left of the above picture, except where the light is hitting him/her enough to show the blue highlights. For some reason the blue highlights are way more bold on my camera than they are on the computer.



And finally, the one in the top right of this pic is one of the ones with very pale fins that has a lot of blue when the light hits him/her right (not in this pic, unfortunately). The others are the red-finned ones again.

 

They're gorgeous!

 

How old are they? Can't seem to see any dates or anything in the thread and I currently have 27 day old fry and I'm trying to compare the sizes of my fry with other breeders (around the same age just to monitor they're growth and see if they're growing at a good rate) (my biggest 2 fry are at 1.9cm right now)

 

How old are they? Can't seem to see any dates or anything in the thread and I currently have 27 day old fry and I'm trying to compare the sizes of my fry with other breeders (around the same age just to monitor they're growth and see if they're growing at a good rate) (my biggest 2 fry are at 1.9cm right now)

They were born early February I believe but idk about down to the day
Edit: they put them at 7.5 weeks on March 6th

 

How old are they? Can't seem to see any dates or anything in the thread and I currently have 27 day old fry and I'm trying to compare the sizes of my fry with other breeders (around the same age just to monitor they're growth and see if they're growing at a good rate) (my biggest 2 fry are at 1.9cm right now)

My guys grew slow because this is my first spawn and could have taken better measures to up the growth rate. The pics in the original post are at 3 weeks (about 21 days), second post with one fry pic is at 6 weeks (about 42 days). ZaI is correct (thanks Zai!), my March 6th (3rd post) they're about 7.5 weeks (about 52 days). Most recent pics are at about 15 weeks (about 105 days). Hope this helps!

 

Someone decided to change colors a few days ago! This is the same one as the one with all-red fins in the 3rd picture of my last post, all the way to the left. It was a dramatic shift from one to the other and now the pattern has stayed exactly the same since the change. He/she is now the only one that resembles their mom - in fact, this one has a big red splotch right behind the head on his/her back just like mom does.

All the others are still the same, including the other all-red finned ones. I moved everyone into the 55 community (right now just guppies and otos) in the hopes they might be more community-friendly in their future homes - so far so good.



Fun news, a few days ago I moved dad into my 10 gallon with CPDs, cherry shrimp, and a few adolescent killifish. I felt so bad for him living in his 3 gal when he's so active, so I thought I'd at least try it out to see if he gets along with everyone. Amazingly, he does! He is so curious about all his tank mates and thoroughly inspects the shrimp and tiny killifish, but doesn't touch them. No casualties or even nips. Another big reason I did this was because my housing plan has changed (moving in about a month and a half) and I'll unfortunately be limited to just one 10 gallon tank, which means everything that doesn't fit in the 10 gallon needs to go. Which also means I can only keep one of the two adult bettas, and it's a really hard decision to make since they're both so important to me, but I made the decision to keep the male and him getting along in my 10 gallon confirms this. I'll have to find a home for mom some time soon.

Here he is, being a total pushover during dinner and letting the little killis steal the food: