Spawning Betta albimarginata video

[raymond82]

These are obviously not cichlids but I'm so delighted with this video I'm happy I found a section where I can post it anyway!! It's a video of our pair of B. albimarginata that were spawning this morning.

Make sure to watch (or skip to) around 2 minutes into the video, the female is playing with an egg while the male tries to catch it.

I've been observing them and they do the typical Betta embrace but then the female takes the eggs in her mouth first. After that she keeps them in her mouth for a while until at some point the male takes them over. He does seem to have to put some effort in getting them of her though. It was very interesting to watch!

 

[slimbolen99]

Great fish and a great video. I've tried them a couple of times when they were HOT on aquabid, but never had success breeding them. Congrats!

 

[raymond82]

Thanks! It's a really beautiful species and somehow we managed to breed them without too much problems. We also have a pair of Betta channoides and they've also bred twice already. The first time we bred the albimarginata it was in tapwater (KH8, pH8) and 10 fry grew up to adults. The channoides bred twice in soft acidic water and I think we have more than 30 fry growing up. This time the albimarginata is also in softer and more acidic water, hopefully a bit more fry will make it.

 

[uberape]

that was a great video

 

[raymond82]

Thank you! A lot has happened since I shot this video. The F0 female unfortunately died, along with around 8 F1 juveniles. The good news is that the fry from the nest being made in this video is doing well, there are around 20 growing up. And the male from the video is incubating eggs again, from an unrelated F1 female!

 

[wethumbs]

Since there are wild betta enthusiasts here, maybe I should share some pictures of the F1 Betta macrostoma juvilles. I have been experimenting with manipulating the sex ratio on them for some time now.

 

[raymond82]

You definitely should!!

We also bought a pair of these recently, they are really spectacular fish!
Can you also tell me how you keep them?

 

[gerald]

That video is hilarious, it looks like she's teasing/testing him to make sure he's really committed to carrying her eggs. I wonder - just for experimental sake - if you removed the male at that point while most of the eggs are in the female's mouth, would SHE hold them until until hatching?

Raymond-- of those 10 albimarg fry that grew up in hard high-pH water, was the sex ratio pretty even?
Wethumbs -- with mouthbrooding Bettas is sex determined more by temp, pH, hardness or what? Would like to hear more about your sex manipulation experiments.

When I was breeding channoides I usually got a decent mix of both sexes (soft water, pH varied from 7.2 to 5.5) but i'd like to know more about it, in case I start getting skewed ratios at some point.

 

[raymond82]

It did remind me of teasing a lot when I shot the video! There are some great videos on youtube where you can see B. macrostoma doing the same thing, it's the female that takes the eggs in the mouth first. It would be interesting to see what happens if you take the male away!

The sex ratio of the fry that grew up was pretty much 50/50, we also keep the fish at room temperature. Maybe when we have really setup different breeding groups I can experiment, no I'm just happy with every nest we get! We also have some channoides growing up, I think they should be sexable too soon.

 

[wethumbs]

Dont mess with the water temperature to adjust sex ratio. I killed off a few batches of Betta macrotoma fry doing the temperature spread. Keep the fish at room temp and experiment with other water parameters instead. Even though the albimarginata and channoides are very easy to spawn, there is still no need to 'waste' them like I did.

 

[raymond82]

I totally agree, I don't want to experiment too much with them. The first nest that grew up had quite good sex ratios, but after moving them to another tank they all died. That made me realize they are somewhat sensitive fish, even though I dIdn't have any problems with them before.

wethumbs, I thought you promised us some pictures of macrostoma?
I would also love to know what kind of water you keep them in, what size tank etc.