Love or Genetics?

[liama138]

So, I'm pretty new to this board and to bettas as well, having been a guppy girl for most of my life, but last spring I fell in love with bettas and after a disastrous fish sitting incident involving my mother, 30+ beautiful Purple Moscow guppies and a 5 month span of time, I found myself with many empty tanks to fill. So,I started cruising aquabid until I found the little guy who made me frantic at the thought of losing his auction.
His name is Mikhail Gorbachev.
www.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=18687480/PictureID=407237836/t_=9256477
I soon found myself bidding on various other auctions by this seller in an effort to combine shipping costs and get more bang for my buck. I sucessfully won the auction for Bill as well.
www.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=18687481/PictureID=407235344/t_=9256477
I also purchases Rasia and Beril, their sibling females.
My delima is this, Bill, who was even more beautiful in person, died shortly after arriving at my house.
I then put Snowflake (my niece & nephew's betta from Petsmart) in my divided tank with Beril to keep her company while she grieved for her lover/brother. This is where it gets tricky. Snowflake, having laid eyes on the lovely lady across the plexiglass wall, immediately builds a bubble nest and starts prancing around to win his lady love's affections. Well, in the fragile state of having recently lost not only her family, but her lover/brother as well, Beril was quickly swept off her fins.
Anyone who doubts that fish have emotions should meet these two. Its Romeo and Juliet underwater or, more accurately, Pyramus and Thisbe whose forbidden love bloomed through a crack in a wall.
Sorry, I'm getting dramatic, I work in theatre.
Snowflake is a striking fish, despite being a genetic mutt, but Beril is a gorgeous turquoise half moon with speckled fins and some CT traits.
Anyway, the breeder offered to send a replacement for Bill if I want, but the question is this, do I want to separate the lovers or let love reign?
I think I may be too much of a softie.
What do I do?
Sarah

[twoluvcats]

i may be showing my "breeding ignorance" but can't you end up with an egg-bound female if she's excitiendly residing next to a male and not allowed to breed?

[starlight]

twoluvcats said:

i may be showing my "breeding ignorance" but can't you end up with an egg-bound female if she's excitiendly residing next to a male and not allowed to breed?

Some are ok, (smaller younger, smaller ones?) Others will become eggbound. Breeding bettas is not like breeding guppies. There's a real steep learning curve, unfortunately along the way you lose some fish that you really love.

I never let my pairs see each other for any length of time before they are in the tank. There's really no percentage in that. I had a run with eggbound females about a year ago. It was caused by failed spawn attempts. First I'd notice they seem to be bigger. Next thing I knew they were eggbound. I treated with various meds, usually Kanacyn. They dropsied up and quickly died.

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liama138...how a pair act & react when they are side by side in their tanks is no indication of how they will act when released in the spawning tank. Rather than go into a long discussion on this. Suffice to say it's a whole different ballgame in the tank. I put my female in a glass chimney when I introduce the pair. The next day I release the female. The first thing the female does is swim under the nest to check out the male's handywork. What happens after her inspection is all up to her. In a sense all bets are off. What you observed the day before in your livingroom is no longer relevant. The female may like the male at first but he might not have built a good enough bubblenest for her. She can quickly change and even attack the male. The females are usually much faster than the males. So she can get away from him or lure him into a planted area where she can take on the stronger male. The male may decide to be too aggressive and chase her repeatedly while he should be building his nest. Some females get stressed out by the chase. They will come out repeatedly and check his progress, meantime he could be attacking her.
The fight is part of their courship. It's tough to observe but this is why they are called fighting fish.

plakat = biting fish

To answer your question its genetics.

The pair must be conditioned, read up on it before your decide to proceed. You'll need infusoria and cultures to feed the fry and live food to condition the breeders. Many breeder's websites have good info on breeding bettas. It's easy to learn what you need to spawn there.

[akestler]

This website has some wonderful information on breeding bettas, from selecting good stock to raising the fry. It's really great. I don't breed them myself, but I was thinking about it, then realized how much money and time it involved and decided it was more than I wanted to get into at the moment. But I did do A LOT of research on it, and this site was the best I found by far.
www.bettatalk.com/breeding_bettas.htm

[Bettaman]

I lost a Betta because I made the mistake of putting his tank too close to the tank of a female and he went head overheels for her. He blew the biggest bubble nest I ever saw but in time he became stressed out from not being able to mate with that female he wanted so bad. The sad news is that he got so stressed he just died. No symptoms of any kind. He was healthy as can be one day and he died the next day. So I don't think it's a god idea to keep a male and female teased by the continuos sight of each other.
But that's just from my observations.