My Male Crowntail ate his eggs

[SFF1]

Hi all just joined the Forum.

I started breeding Bettas earlier this year. I'm after some opinions of about males eating their eggs. A week ago I spawned two crowntails. The courtship and spawn went well but about 24 hours after spawning there were eggs lying on the bottom of the tank under the bubblenest. The male didn't seem interested at all in replacing them back in the BN and his interest in the BN was negligible. The BN slowly started to break up but the following day he started to tend to it and rebuild it but after day 4 he'd lost interest and it finally broke up completely. I'm assuming the eggs on the bottom were probably what was left over from him feasting on them as when the BN broke up there wasn't any signs of eggs of hatched fry.

Therefore I'm left wondering if I could put it down to an inexperienced male who hadn't spawned before or if there was another problem and the eggs went off for some reason and he was just removing the "rotten eggs", so to speak.

I've tested the Ph, Nitrates, Nitites and Ammonia levels and they all can back ok.

Anyway I've decided to try again in about a week? but I don't want to try until the female is ready. The courtship and spawning were fairly tame and there weren't any visual injuries so I suppose it's just a case of waiting for her develop more eggs. I'm conditioning them both at the moment but was wondering how long to wait before I try a second time.

Any comments, opinions and advice would be appreciated.

[Bettarazzi]

Hi Mike. Welcome to the forum. If the eggs weren't properly fertilised during the spawning he would have abandoned them. Maybe let the female rest for a couple of weeks then try again.

[sunrose217]

Hello Mike

Sometimes the girl helps out with the picking up of the eggs and encourages the male to keep going with the nest building,..I have my bettas in 5L bowls(1 in each) and have the bowls touching each other so I have girl/boy/girl/boy;-the potential couple can form a relationship before the girl is put in the jar in the aquarium where you have the male circling for the week and then try releasing the girl,...I am told its best when the couple is a young one. What I am getting at Mike is if the couple can build a relationship long before they get together-they bond quicker and the trust comes in,the male tends to "listen " to the girl if she proves herself good and working with him to achieve the same goal,..:)Anne

Its late but I forgot to say Bettarazzi I agree 2 weeks it is said for the female to rest so she can build up her eggs but also the male is partly paralised and weak during the spawn and needs to rest up as he is the one doing most of the work and a lot of them refuse to eat,..you could lose him-I give my male a month to recuperate and I suppose three months after that. If not they can get too weak get sick and fungal infection can set in and at the worst die on you.

Anne

[SFF1]

Thank for the feed back especially on the male. I didn't consider this and I will leave the reintroduction until he has recovered. He is still in the breeding tank so I might section part of it off and introduce the female so they can bond. I actually filmed most of the courtship and spawning and interestingly they got on fairly well despite male CTs having a reputation for being a bit more aggressive?

Interesting about the eggs not being fetilized as I considered this as well. In my video footage I could see him seperate quite early and then go and retrieves eggs before they got to the bottom while she was still releasing eggs. I wondered if many of the eggs weren't fertilised but during my previous spawn with some HMs the male did exactly the same but I still ended up with over 200 hatched fry. I have been searching the internet for info on how close the male needs to be to fertilize the eggs but the best info I could come up with was the male releases quite a bit of sperm into the water that can fertilize eggs that are close by but then again this may not always be the case either?

I will try again soon when they have both recovered and thanks for the feed back.