Marine Betta

[Ardeus]

Thank you. I have read a report of a trio (male and female altivelis and one extra smaller argus).

At one point the male killed its partner (another altivelis) and partnered with the smaller argus.

Could it be because the larger female was transitioning to a male?

I have noticed that my altivellis doubled in size and the argus has remained pretty much the same and I fear that the altivellis may also turn into a male. If she keeps growing like this, she will be larger than the argus in less than an year.

 

[ThRoewer]

During the night the male of pair/harem #1 must have eaten the eggs, they were no longer there in the morning and he had a visibly full belly.
Now the hope is on pair #2...
Next time I'm gonna take the eggs out early and see if it works to incubate them in the larvae tank. I might just go ahead and do that with pair #2 tonight.

 

[ThRoewer]

I took the eggs of pair #2 out tonight. Before putting them into the tumbler in the larvae tank I looked at them under the microscope. A few eggs are well developed and should hatch with some luck on the weekend, the majority of the eggs looked like they were only a day or two old, almost as if they were from two spawns but the way they are all mixed makes that highly unlikely.

 

[Ardeus]

Are they the kind of fish that if 1 or 2 reach the refugium they can survive?

 

[ThRoewer]

Are they the kind of fish that if 1 or 2 reach the refugium they can survive?

As post settlement juveniles yes. I actually had one who escaped the grow out tank and ended up in a tank with another pair.
But as freshly hatched larvae it is highly unlikely for them to make it.

 

[Ardeus]

At what age do they reach sexual maturity?

 

[rhdoug]

I just read all 6 pages of this, thank you ThRoewer for posting this. I bought one of those Sustainable Aquatics bettas thru Diver's Den in January of 2013. If he was 3/4 of an inch long I would be surprised. I never thought he would make it in my 58 gallon tank but I still have him (or her). Definitely one of my favorite fish. Since my tank is on the small side all my other fish are small and he shows no interest in them, but does have a love/hate relationship with the scopas tang. I would guess he is no more than 5 inches long, which is great considering the size of my tank. Such a great fish and also great insight into them in this thread. The first picture of betta was taken in 2015, and one taken in April 2020 (with the firefish). The last one is of the full tank, both pics were taken in the lower right front, the entrance to a cave system which allows the fish to swim behind the entire reef, which I suspect is one of the reasons the betta has done well in the tank. Thank you again for all the info here. I just realised that if you click on the pics the last shot is an animated GIF of the reef.

 

[ThRoewer]

At what age do they reach sexual maturity?

I would say somewhere between 4 and 5 inches total length.

 

[Ardeus]

Thanks a lot for all this information, it's not easy to find it.

 

[LadyMac]

I want one soo bad. I fee like a letdown of a crazy betta lady without a marine betta lol.

 

[tag62001]

Thanks for all the amazing information, marine Bettas are one of my favorite fish and I'm hoping to find a tank raised or captive bred one at some point. Good luck, I'll definitely be following closely.

 

[Y2kong]

Thanks for sharing

 

[ThRoewer]

Pair #2 in my 100 gallon reef tank spawned today - let's hope this time the eggs are fertilized and develop normally - and don't get eaten.
Pair/Harem #1 should also lay eggs any day now...
Unfortunately, my Apocyclops cultures got infested with rotifers which might make harvesting enough nauplii a bit tricky.

 

[tag62001]

Pair #2 in my 100 gallon reef tank spawned today - let's hope this time the eggs are fertilized and develop normally - and don't get eaten.
Pair/Harem #1 should also lay eggs any day now...
Unfortunately, my Apocyclops cultures got infested with rotifers which might make harvesting enough nauplii a bit tricky.

 

[ThRoewer]

Eggs were gone prematurely again today.
Based on the findings with their last clutch I removed early it seems their eggs are either not fertilized or don't develop properly. The female is still young and maybe that is one possible reason but if this continues I may have to swap her out for a larger female. The other possibility would be that the issue is with the male...

 

[ThRoewer]

On Wednesday pair (harem) #1 laid eggs again. I hope this time they are fertilized, develop properly, and the male doesn't eat them...

 

[ThRoewer]

And just hours later I found a hermit munching on the eggs. They must have come loose and fell to the ground without the male noticing.
But it wouldn't have mattered much had he kept them. An inspection of the eggs under the microscope revealed that only in very few a larva had developed. Either most were not fertilized or something else went wrong.
The curious thing is that I have this issue with both of my pairs despite them being in separate systems.

This image shows one egg in which a larva had developed. It is at the stage where it should have been on day 3:

 

[TriggerFinger]

Oh no I wonder what the hang up is. Interesting that the one egg showed “over” developed at just a few hours old. Have you tried to swap the males to see if it makes a difference?

 

[ThRoewer]

Oh no I wonder what the hang up is. Interesting that the one egg showed “over” developed at just a few hours old. Have you tried to swap the males to see if it makes a difference?

No, that egg developed normally. This clutch was 3 days old and that is how all eggs should have looked like at this point.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Ahh, didn’t see that you said the eggs were laid Wednesday.