Male Betta Eating Female Eggs
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This question comes from Tim (Good name).
hi there,
I have been trying to breed two crown tail bettas i have. I had the male and female in the same tank with a clear divider and kept them seperated until he made his bubble nest and she was full of eggs. I got them to mate and after i put her back into her side of the tank away from him. At first it seemed like he was guarding the nest but after a while i thought i saw him eating the eggs out of the nest. I thought i was wrong until i looked today and didnt see any eggs left in the nest, however he still guards it lik there are. Did i do something wrong? I was feeding him so i know hes not hungry, is the presence of the female in the other half of the tank have something to do with it? I want to try again but i dont want my female to get beat up for no reason. oh yeah…. will her fins grow back where they were tattered?- thanks, tim
Sounds like you a doing pretty good with breeding. Your betta may just be a bad father. Are you sure he is actually eating the eggs though? Because eggs are constantly falling from the bubble nest and the male has to bring the back to the nest in his mouth. Sometimes it just looks like he is eating them. This is what I recommend: Try again with the same pair. Try not to feed the male so much. And Take the female out of sight.
As for them getting torn up: It is very common and I have had betta’s lose eyes and fins and everything you can imagine when breeding. They are very agressive and it just happens. The fins usually don’t grow back as nice as they were. They might have a different coloration.
Betta Fish are what I blog about.
October 7th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
yep for sure he ate all the eggs. When you say dont feed him as much do you just mean in general or only during the time of breeding. And should i leave him in after he has placed the eggs in the nest or should i mark him untrustworthy?
October 7th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I don’t feed the male from the time they spawn until I take him out. Some people believe it encourages him to eat the eggs when you feed him.
Some people leave the male in for a couple days, I leave him in for about 1 week, others will leave him up to a month. So YES he must stay in the tank for at least a couple days.
Also, some males are just bad fathers and will eat all the eggs.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:01 am
sweet, one more question…. i read that if you have a pond that jus scooping out some water from their provides them with enough infusora (not sure if thats right). Is that true? if not what do u recomend feeding the fry? thanks again for all your help
October 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
infusora is a good idea. That is what I use… but I dont get it from a lake. I don’t think using lake water is a good idea, but I do know people that use it. I make my own infusora (read about it elsewhere online).
Some people use microworms… but I’m too lazy to deal with live cultures or worms.
I also usually will have a pothos cutting in the water before breeding begins. So this might actually be adding some kind of food to the water for the little guys.
This is what pothos is if you want to try it (by the way, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this besides me). - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epipremnum_aureum
October 18th, 2008 at 12:25 am
hello again, well i have bigger problems than breeding right now. So after the failed breeding both fish seemed fine, and i turned the filter back on since i didnt have to worry about destroying a bubble nest or eggs. However, my fish have become very lathargic, all they do is float at the top of the tank. They still eat, but not as vigorously as they once did. Her eyes look a little large but it may be my imagination. I changed about 25% of the water in the tank and added some additional plants to try and perk them up but still nothing. I even tried bringing down the temperature a few degrees. I have no idea what is wrong with them. If you have any ideas please help me out.
Thanks - Tim