mistymu05

unfortunately all females from this spawn gone and i havent been able to breed any more spawns cos i lost my last adult breeding female...... waiting on a new one to come in thru pet store.....

unfortunately i am not one to do alot of ph testing on my water until something goes wrong....or i move house...... generally as long as the water is not too acidic or alkaline then they will be fine - i keep mine in with pleco, cory, barbs (female fighters that is), platy etc and they all fine...... i dont test often cos if i start to worry about the water then i start to loose fish cos im always trying to fix it.........

yes in most cases a male may eat the babies once they are free swimming so taking him out prevents loss of life but also means the babies have the run of the tank and u dont have to keep an eye on dad = tho there have been some cases where dad didnt eat them but most people will take him out to give him some rest and relaxation

repetition for emphasis aye Mystic.......

Just cos they get kept in small tanks does not mean they should be..... that would be like keeping a pleco in a tank that only allows him room to turn around..... fighters will swim about if given the space and i wouldnt let the space be any smaller than 12L.....defintely keep them away from fin nippers.....and as to having all ur females and male together just keep an eye on them cos there mite end up being territory disputes esp as the females vie for the males attention later on when wanting to breed. if ur short on space a divider is always a good idea - kinda like a two in one.....i used this when i had two males and my second heater died making the second tank unusable

anyways how about those fighters.....pretty little things aye.... As mentioned earlier most people find only one male per tank tho dividers are fine and usually a good option if u are short on space and want more than one male. sometimes if the males are from the same spawn and have been raised together with no seperation then u may get away with them being in the same tank. i have had a group of them in my tanks together since birth and only had to seperate one so far for agression. there can definitely be more than one female per tank but make sure you have plenty of hiding places just in case cos as with the males there will sometimes be one female who is more dominant than the others and will pick on the others in the tank. other than that it is all dependant on the individual fish and all i can say is enjoy them they are gorgeous fish and any questions dont hesitate to ask.

definitely a very bright male there.....congrats on the find

very pretty (in a manly sense of course :lol: )

no sadly it wasnt just after a water change - i had been plannin on doin that nite wen the fish was discovered...... oh well no more deaths yet and i have changed water and cleaned up algae in the smaller tanks (caused by the lighting i hav 2 use at present.....

i lost one of my Dwarf gourami the other day - not sure y cos it was alrite wen i went to bed and it was floating on its side when i got up....oh well - it was the half orange half blue one - i still have a blue one so mite get it a mate (depends if dad decides to take wen he gets his tank set up)

thanks for ur replies guys - i lifted the lid on my large tank this morning and look no deaths and nothing dead or dying (yet) in my other two tanks but the large tanks water did have a funny smell so gonna do a real good vacuum 2nite and a water change and c if that helps any........ perhaps i can get this under control.... i think maybe i just in one of those "if anything else goes wrong" moods (also i dont think the change in weather has done a great deal for my moods either)......once the tank at dads is set up and ready to take his fish i will then b able to focus on my breeding of fighters which always cheers me up a bit

well i think i mite retire from tank keeping after losing fish left right and centre at the moment = recently(within the week) lost 1 barb, 1 glowlight, 1f betta and woke up this morning to a floating gourami = my pretty gold and blue dwarf......... and these guys are not all in the same tank either so i not sure wats happening........ the sooner my dad gets his tank set up the sooner the poor fishies are moved to a hopefully better life.......... and here i was thinking of breeding some more bettas.......

good luck with the bbs and the babies - hope everything goes to plan and im sure the moving will be fine - just lots of pre planning is always good which im sure you have done

on sunday nite i lost my breeding female fighter - she was fine one moment and then i noticed her rubbing herself against the stones on the bottom of the tank and swimming upside down and generally acting strange = she went down hill so quickly that there was nothing i could do for her and within 15 min was dead - scales fine - not pineconeing or anything like that = the other fish in the tank are fine and so far doin a-ok i was a little annoyed as i was plannin on breeding from her in the next few weeks and had started the process of getting her all ready now i have to wait for either my females to mature or for an adult to come in at the LFS

wat i did with my spawn was to find a way to tilt the tank so that at one end i had a sponge filter and normal plants and at the lesser end (of water) i had a small airbubble make and java moss wat this did was allow the weaker ones some where to hide and also live while the stronger ones tended to swim down to the deeper end and the filter......it also meant that with the filter in there feeding them liquidfry was alot cleaner and easier.....i have such trouble in getting bbs to develop that i gave up and just feed L/Fry and then as they got bigger got them onto flake food and then even later tried them on blood worms - now that was funny to watch - one in particular used to just swim round the tank with a worm hangin out his mouth - so cute........ good luck with the raising of the fry and trying to count them.......

i feed by bettas the betta flakes - its supposed to help bring out their colours - not sure if it truly works that way but they like it and i treat them blood worms but usually keep these for when i wanting to prep the fish for breeding

hey i'll grow out the babies if u want and if u get that many survive - happily.........:lol: i loved watching them grow and start to develop into males - (esp when i thought i had given all males away and only had females left):oops:

i have fighters and have found them so much fun to keep - they each have their own little personalities etc........ I have got one male and a heap of young ones in a 182L filtered tank along with gourami, platy, tetras, pleco and cory. they dont mind the flowing water in fact i have watched some of them swimming against the current on a regular basis. while they were still little i had them in a tank with a sponge filter but as they got older and bigger (so that a normal filter couldnt absorb them) i moved them from the little 20L into a 50L+ with a normal filter and they didnt even seem to notice the difference. and in your case just having females in the tank should be fine with a normal filter as they dont have the same amount of weight to drag them down as a male does. i have kept both male and female together in a large tank and didnt really have much problem with them but did keep an eye out and when trouble looked to be brewing was able to xfer the male to his own little realm. for breeding dont put them in a breeding net - they need a tank area of their own to breed in as there is generally a large number of eggs and if all goes well u will have upto 100+ babies and keeping them in a net or breeding tank is not a good idea as the father stays with them til they are free swimming. I kept the babies in a 20L tank with a sponge filter, plants and air bubble thingee......this did great work until they were too big for the little tank and i moved them to the 50L and then gradually seperated the larger ones for grow out and selling. other than that and keeping males seperate they are an easy fish to keep good luck

good luck and looking forward to seeing lots of piccies of gorgeous looking babies - i stil think they look like tiny tadpoles til they grow up a bit :lol: (of course wont put wat the "darling" bro thought they looked like)...:oops:

i kept my female in with known (and seen) fin nippers (BARBS) and because a female's fins are alot shorter than the average male she could be quite alrite in the other tank if u get worried about having the two of them together......i know that it only takes a matter of a few minutes when ur back is turned for the girl to turn the boys beautiful tail into a holey mess....... congrats on the new acquisition.....

u need to make sure the female is ready for breeding as well and not just cos she's full of eggs - she needs to be displaying vertical stripes and when the boy comes near her jar she goes into submission mode - head down tail up.........if none of these signs are showing then u could be in for a fight between the two of them......

i still have one or two....... have given a few away to friends and sold a few to the pet shops....... and some have been slow developers and are now boys :oops: am going to do amother spawn shortly......just getting everything set up for it........

Hi guys.... i am looking at doing another spawn (different male and female this time) and was wondering if there were any breeders in chch that would be willing to let me check out any of their recent spawns or that would want to do a swap of the babies......

i had six to begin with in our tank and even tho they kept to themselves towards all other fish once i put in a fighter they would leave its tail alone so in went the divider and then a friend gave me her goldfish so we put him in the large tank as well and the barbs had a nip at his tail so he went in with the fighter on the other side of the divider..... i love havin the barbs in my tank tho cos they just provide that difference in size, personality, colours, and shape. so as said early its just a case of watching them and making sure to you definitely have the 6+ to keep them all occupied with each other.....in fact when i got them they were of course quite small and i had problems keeping my platy pairs alive (one always seemed to pass on) and on of the platys attached itself to the group of barbs and they just accepted into there little clique.....platy with an identity disorder - :lol:

the poor worm!!!!!!! nature is very cruel!!!