My Betta sp. apiapi fry have become free-swimming and left the nest. Now I can only hope that the female doesn't decide to cannibalise them as she spends a lot of her time at the surface hunting for food. The pair did spawn a second time while this batch of fry were still in the nest. However, I'm not certain if the male ate this last lot of eggs or just moved them elsewhere. Unfortunately, he was disturbed by one of the cats while in the canister and he was out of it this morning when I checked in on them. I still cannot believe how small both the male and female are. It's rather astonishing that at their present size, this pair managed to successfully spawn. Particularly when I saw how big the eggs themselves were!
It will be interesting to track the growth rate of the fry, as based on past experiences, it can vary greatly between species from this complex. Since this is supposedly the smallest of the coccina complex species with an adult size around one inch, I look forward to seeing whether they mature at a faster or slower rate than the fry of other species I have raised. I just wanted to update my update by saying that the male has in actual fact moved the eggs to a rather unorthodox location. Rather than the other film canister, he decided to build a second nest in the space between the light clamp and the glass. Comments are closed.
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AuthorLocated in Melbourne, Australia, I currently keep and breed a number of species from the coccina complex. Archives
November 2017
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