Egg eaters - is is our fault?

[paul]

Hey all, just a theory. Please share your thoughts/experiences.

I've tried to get a successful spawn many times with my TSTB male (usually with my CT fem) - I've lost count but he's probably had more than six or seven attempts. I do this because he's my only male that's not sick, and I figure he gets some interaction, fun, and he's not too rough on the CT female I have for him. It also increases his experience, and hopefully he'll finally figure it out. The last attempt, I witnessed only one successful wrap - I saw him wrap with the female, they laid eggs, and just gobbled them up with no attempt to put them in the nest.

I gave it another go this weekend. Put them together friday night - just dropped both into the spawntank - no hurricane jar etc. In addition: new moon coming in Sunday, raining+++. The two were at it at breakfast time yesterday. I sheltered the tank from out-side disturbances this time so that he wouldn't be bothered by us walking past his tank. I didn't go near the tank during courship/wrapping. I wasn't home until early evening..i.e. no disturbing the fish while at their business.

I inspected the nest without getting too close, and trying to make sure that he wouldn't notice me...to my surprise he was caring for a clutch of eggs. He even plucked a couple out of the nest, cleaned them in his mouth then spat them back into the nest. Finally... he's got it!!!!

I decide to remove the female. BAD MOVE! As soon as I caused a distraction/interfered, he started ravenously gobbling up eggs. Almost all of them within afew seconds. I've managed to remove him, leaving a couple of eggs in the nest... fatherless spawn???

Anyway, my theory is that its all our fault. Anxious dad gets freaked out by big-nosed predator type so he eats the eggs. It's either him or the predator that gets the feed I guess.... Or it has something to do with a genetic throw back/forward to the closely related mouth-brooders. I've noticed comments on this forum about others who had their boys start eating eggs while being observed, photographed or after exposing the male to another male/mirror. The spawning process as we conduct it is quite un-natural... Is the egg eating our fault???

[Fergus]

That's a very interesting theory! And one that sounds to me like it has some merit. Maybe for my next spawn i'll try wrapping a towel around the spawn tank to give them some privacy, but there's got to be a fine line between leaving them to it and keeping our breeding stock whole and healthy. :)

[paul]

It also means the girl and boy stay in the breeding tank... I guess in the wild the girl would bugger off once the boy chases her away, and the fry would either swim away grazing for food, and/or dad would get disinterested or move on. Unfortunately the tank means there is nowhere else to go.

In my boy's case, I think if I choose to give him a fighting chance, I'd have to put him in with this same girl (I know he's gentle enough with her), give her plenty of hiding space, leave them completely alone for about a week - no food/no interruptions/no sneak peeks - until the fry (if successful) are free swimming, then remove dad and mum at the same time. Each male is likely to be different I guess, but does a habitual egg eater remain a habitual egg eater if we change OUR habits/behaviour?

[Rainy]

Could you try covering the sides and when it comes time to seperate the female just get a large soft drink bottle and cut the bottom off then use that to slpip over her to keep them seperate untill you remove them both that will also give her a safe place to feed by dropping food down the neck of the bottle

[paul]

Clever! However, I think that with the amount of plant matter I have in the tank, I would have disturbed him either way.

[paulyeo]

That sounds very plausible...

I have heard and read about it but never encountered a father that eat eggs. Having said that, I once saw the opposite where the female helped with placing the eggs in the bubble nest.

Another thing was I had two males spawning in the 1 aquarium (with a perspex divider between them) and the first male spawned a few days earlier, fry were free swimming and they went to the other male's nest (this male has already spawned at the time and his fry were newly hatched). My initial thought was that the fry is doomed, but the funny thing was this male took the fry in his mouth and placed them into his nest as if their his own.

[paul]

Just a side note... I've been really excited/anxious about this last spawn attempt, even though I'm pretty sure there's nothing there. After I took out this male, there were about 5 eggs left in the nest tgat he hadn't eaten. At 24 hrs, with the temp increased from 28 to 30 deg, all but one egg were still in the nest. The egg that fell out was treated with a multicure bath (as an experiment) and placed near the surface in the plants. Since then, I've been away from home and I've had mum feeding my fish each day. Her eyesight is not great for fine detail (she uses a magnifying glass to read the newspaper while wearing glasses) but she reckons she may have seen something move in the tank...perhaps..maybe? So she's feeding an empty tank vinegar eels until I get back home next weekend so that I can see if any fry are in there. The tank is heavily planted with floating plants, so even I might not be able to see if any fry are in there, but, I can't wait to have a look. Maybe a small fatherless spawn raised by folks that have no knowledge about raising betta fry can be achieved?????

[Peta]

haha I've done that - just kept feeding an empty tank in the hopes that something is in there... I now have 12 very big blue fishies from that tank lol