Help for a newbie!!!

[treenab]

Hi there, my problem is probably pretty silly actually. I purchased a male Siamese fighter (beta) and two females to keep him company on friday. Today I noticed a bit of activity between one of the females and the male.. I went out and voila... bubble nest filled with eggs.... Auugghh I am in a panic now, what do I do???? this is a community tank, besides my beta's I have 1 dwarf flame gourami, 5 neon tetras, 3 white clouds, 2 1"angel fish, 1 sword tail (causing trouble with the male fighter so he is about to be sold off) 2 head and tail light tetras and 3 harlequin tetras. I have no idea of the gal size of my tank, it is 2.5ft by 1ft wide and a bit over 1ft tall. I have the temp set at 26 deg cel. and trying to keep the ph at 7 all the time.... Is there anyting I should do to help these fish??? I don't have another tank to seperate them into but I do have a floating hatchery thingy (not quite up to technical terms yet LOL)

this is a first for me. I have only had fishy inhabitants in the tank for 3 weeks... I was going to change some of the water today but don't think I will be doing that for a while... Oh and what should I correct the ph to?? At the moment it needs something, it is sitting on 7.2 and I am itching to get it back to ph7...

So many thing to think of now... can anyone help or point me in the right direction??? My LFS is closed until monday so feeling rather helpless at the moment.. Oh BTW I live in tasmania Aust and am yet to work out what some of the terminology being used here is about...

thanks in advance for you help...

 

[Terry]

Hiya treenab
welcome to Aquarium Advice.

What great news, your betta's have bred. Firstly you need to keep the female away from the male as he is the one that will look after everything now. The problem you have is the fact that it has happened in a community tank. Is there anyway that you could move the nest & eggs to a tank on there own.
I don't think you need to worry about your ph it's fine. You need to try and move the nest and eggs as the other fish in your community tank will over power the male betta and eat the eggs.
The other idea i have is to get yourself a plastic container and bring it up under the bubble nest trying not to break it up, and then just let it float in your main tank. I think you need something a little bigger that a breeding trap, but if that is all you have then use that.

HTH

Good luck

 

[treenab]

thanks Terry I will try the plastic container trick. the male is doing a good job at the moment keeping all the other fish away... even the swordtail is leaving him alone at the moment. The female has re-aquainted herself with the other betta female and they are settled under a bushy plant for the time being... I have just been searching for info on spawning bettas and everything I find mentions special food/live foods to feed the fry... would a pet shop have those things??? Or do i start preparing something now (should any fry survive that is...trying not to be too hopeful!!)

 

[Terry]

Hiya treenab,
No problem, glad to help.
There was one thing i forgot to say, your male betta is fine looking after the eggs but when they hatch he will eat the young the same as any other fish would. when your eggs hatch the fry will be very small, you said your lfs opens again on monday well that will be fine. The fry will be useing there egg sacks to feed when there first born and that will give you time to go to your lfs. A friend of mine has just bred some betta's and what he does to feed the young is he gets the food that he is useing to feed the other fish and grounds it up into a fine dust, and feed the young with that.
But your lfs should be able to advise you on that, there are some liquid foods that you can buy as well.

HTH

 

[treenab]

Thankyou everyone who has helped me with my "problem" I have found a handy kitchen container that is relatively opaque and more importantly floats. It still gives my "daddy" about 5-6 inches of water depth and is approx 4 by 5 inches square. I was also able to scoop up the dad and bubble nest with no loss that I could see (yaayyy!!) It isn't a traditional nest as I ahve seen on my web searches... mostly eggs with a couple of bubbles around them and they are stuck to some plants that refused to stay in the gravel (I think the shop called it wisteria) I am going to try and get a decent pic of the parent fishies tomorrow.. mum is a definate purple and dad is turquoise/aqua body with a black head.. sooo beautiful! If only the sword tail had left his fins and tail intact

Now to keep my fingers crossed that I will have some good news in a few days that we have some fry

 

[Terry]

Good luck treenab keep us posted,

Don't forget to remove dad when eggs hatch.

 

[treenab]

Thanks Terry,
I wont forget I will be doing my utmost to raise these little fry.. I already have one male tourquise on it's way to Queensland if he emerges (thanks for everything Zoe ) we just have to hold our tongues the right way and cross our fingers and evrything else we can think of to help... hehehe