Betta uberis

[Emokidz]

Finally after 2 months or so of waiting, moving around and retries, I've gotten lucky with my uberis pair.







The latest tank setup has produced successful results to my surprise, read on to see why.

The following are specifications of my setup:

After conditioning them with live and frozen foods for 2 weeks in a tank with a sponge filter, I placed them in a 1 ft Gex into (which was partitioned into 2, using a typical black mounting board cut out). So the pair only had about half a 1 ft Gex tank with the following specifications:

pH: 5
Temperature: 26-29 degrees
No filter
No Ketapang
Some loose Windelov ferns
Floated a black 35mm film cannister

The absence of a filter makes it possible for the male to build his bubblenest. I'm guessing that the small tank space is enough for the pair to move freely, yet bump into each other often enough. The pair was conditioned on Tubifex, BBS, Daphnia and frozen foods (BBS, Daphnia, BW and Mysis shrimp). Within a week, the bubblenest was built and the female showed signs of eagerness to spawn, fanning and wagging her tail. White eggs were observed in the bubblenest with the male guarding the canister over the past 2 days, finally hatching this morning.

Some pictures of the male and his hanging fry. Enjoy!




















Thanks for reading! Will update soon.

[lucasjiang]

Congrats! Good to hear about the successful spawning of this not-so-common species

[Mudskipper]

Congrats, Bernard! Time to start looking into that farm space, bro. LOL! I'm glad to know your fishes are all doing great!!!

[griffinkid]

Congratulations! Wow looking good!

[Emokidz]

Congrats! Good to hear about the successful spawning of this not-so-common species

Thanks! Yea, we don't see these guys around often, the pair was from Indonesia, Hermanu's stock.

[Emokidz]

Congrats, Bernard! Time to start looking into that farm space, bro. LOL! I'm glad to know your fishes are all doing great!!!

Haha, farm space would be great. Or just another shelf - but my mom will kill me!

[Emokidz]

Congratulations! Wow looking good!

Thanks! Hope they stay healthy and happy!

[Mudskipper]

Haha, farm space would be great. Or just another shelf - but my mom will kill me!

Buy her a nice Christmas present, and make sure your new shelf is delivered at the same time. Sure to work, bro. Sure to work.

[kenny]

how are the fry now ?

[Emokidz]

The fry are doing well. Yolk sacs are gone and should be free swimming (and leave the nest) by tomorrow or the day after. I'm leaving them in with the parents to see what happens since most reports state that it whould be fine. Dropped a drop of liquifry 1 in to generate more infusoria for the fry.

On a side note, my one of my channoides just released today! Separated the fry from the father. The other male is still brooding, I'm guessing that he's set to release either tomorrow or the day after.

[kenny]

Yay ~~ Baby season !

so what would their first foods be, after infusoria ?

[Emokidz]

After infusoria, I'll feed daphnia for about 1-2 weeks till they get big enough to take hikari first bites. This has worked for me previously when rearing persephone fry. Once they are large enough, I move them on to hikari micropellets and then to a combination of micropellets/Atison's Betta Pro/frozen foods and live foods as treats.

THe hard part is always getting them big enough to be stable and able to eat daphnia. As for taking flakes, I think it depends on luck. Some fish take it readily while others never seem to care about dry foods (eg. my channoides never take flakes) but all my persephone F1 take flakes readily, which is really convenient on my busy days. But I do try to balance their diets by feeding them a wide range of foods.

[Emokidz]

As anticipated, the fry have become free-swimming. Will update with pictures once they get big enough for me to capture decenty on Camera. Haha.

[kenny]

Woot! That's another step towards success ~~

That's some great info there

Any reason why you feed them daphnia, instead of say, brine shrimp? I find their supply rather scarce and only 1 or 2 shops will have them. Or do you culture them? And they don't come from the cleanest waters, do they?

[Emokidz]

Haha! Thats a good observation! You're right when you say that they don't come from absolutely clean water. I buy daphnia from y618 or aqua star. Prior to feeding, i strain the daphnia i need using one of those fine nets from polyart and rinse then under tap water before feeding. The benefit of using daphnia over bbs is that they stay alive for a much longer period in the tank. Bbs dies off quickly in fresh water and may foul the water. This is useful as i dit do water changes for the first 2 weeks until the fry are stronger and more robust.

[kenny]

Oh icic... I bet it will be a big pain to siphon out the dead bbs from the tanks .... -_-
I'm curious where the daphnia really come from. I only read in forum saying they come from dirty places, but where? From sg ??

Touchwood, but have u had any disease problem that you think MIGHT be related to feeding daphnia?

[Emokidz]

Never. I've had no problems with daphnia or tubifex. Just wash them thoroughly. You may get diseases if you use the water that comes with the daphnia though.

Daphnia are cultured in farms if I'm not wrong. In nature they are naturally occurring in all water bodies.

[Emokidz]

In my opinion, so long as you diligently do partial water changes, don't over feed and over stock tanks, fish should not get diseases from daphnia. Most diseases people experience such as ich, velvet or fungal infection arise from deteriorating water quality. Especially in fungal infections whereby the fish are already injured or have open sores. Tubifex is a different story as they may come with parasites.

I do add some ketapang and salt from time to time, but aerate the water when doing so. I'd caution against adding too much salt though as some fish may be very sensitive. For example, I lost my 3 peacock gudgeons recently after adding a bit of salt. t.t

[kenny]

Ouch... sorry about the lost of your peacock gudgeons...
Even substances meant to be beneficial can be harmful...

I'm gonna get some freshwater rotifers, I think they should be small enough for free swimming fry. That's an option before they are big enough to feed on daphnia. When you culture infusoria, do u physically see them or you just know they are there?

[Emokidz]

Eh, you can see them if you look closely. Stuff like seed shrimps, small daphnia looking stuff and other white dots that move around. Haha!
I don't culture it separately, I just add a drop of liquifry 1 into the tank every day and let them multiply naturally. And if you feel that there's enough, cut down on dosing liquifry - this will avoid some planaria outbreak or something. Haha.