The results from my previous attempt to breed Betta livida were disappointing to say the least. Only five fry survived, and the sex ratio was heavily skewed towards males, with only one of these five being female. This meant I had a paltry two females to six males. These are definitely not the sort of results you are after when long-term species maintenance is your goal!
My interest in working with this species waned, and for many months now, there has been no spawning activity. Which is not surprising considering that the breeding pair are living not only alongside an unrelated adult male, but also their five offspring, all of which are rapidly reaching sexual maturity. However, in recent weeks, my interest has been renwed. Betta livida is listed as 'endangered' on the IUCN Red List, and I've always been of the belief that if you are to take a rare species of fish from the wild, you had better do your best to breed and distribute it to fellow hobbyists. At present I know of one other hobbyist in Australia that has this species. There may be others quietly working behind the scenes, but if not, it won't take much for this species to disappear from Australia. Therefore, my current 'breeding project', is going to be Betta livida. In preparation I've set-up two new tanks. The smaller of these tanks will not only house the breeding pair, but will also act as a temporary grow-out for fry. The larger of the tanks will house the rest of the group, none of which I will be using for this project. Because my aim is to produce a large number of fish (between 50-100 individuals), I am going to be utilising a grow-out tank to maximise survival rates. It's important that as many fry as possible survive, because I need to have a larger pool of females to draw from. If I can avoid it, I don't like to inbreed too heavily. Unfortunately, in this case, my options are limited. However, I'm hoping that out-crossing my young females onto the unrelated adult male (this male is from the same locality as my pair), will increase genetic diversity, even if only by a little. I may also try a breeding with m I shared these photos on the 'Wild Betta World' FB group, but thought I would also share them here, along with some commentary from me. These are just several of my wild betta tanks. Obviously, all of these tanks hold species from the coccina complex. These tanks range in size from 27 litres (approx. 7 gallons) and 40 litres (approx. 10 gallons). In the beginning, each of these tanks would have contained a single breeding pair. However, as I don't remove any of the fry my pairs produce, the end result is tanks housing mixed groups of adult and immature fish. I personally feel that coccina complex wilds show their best colours and more natural behaviour in heavily planted tanks. However, as I don't want to be doing a great deal of maintenance on my tanks, any plants I use have to be very undemanding in terms of lighting and nutrient requirement. Some of my favourites include Watersprite (often known as 'lace fern' here in Australia), Mayaca fluviatilis, Asian water grass, Java moss, Java fern, Duckweed, and Anubias. I use IAL in my tanks to not only keep the water dark, but also to provide extra hiding spots for my fish, and to encourage the growth of infusoria, which are an important food source for my fry. I also have a stocking filled with peat moss in each of my tanks. I'm not sure how much of an effect this has on the water chemistry, but hopefully it's helping to keep the pH low. Perhaps most importantly, is that I cover each of my wild betta tanks with cling wrap. This tends to fall apart over time so I have to regularly replace it, and it can be extremely frustrating to apply. However, before I started using cling wrap, I lost a great many rare and valuable fish to jumping. Since I started using cling wrap, I haven't lost a single fish, which makes the extra effort of replacing it, well worth it.
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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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