# Sexing fry...



## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Hey guys, me again!!! Ok my fry are almost 2 weeks old and are getting bigger daily it seems. I'm positive they're all eating coz I've seen them pooing!! I have noticed a difference in size between them though so what I am wondering is that at this age can they be sexed purely by their size? There are about 5 of them that are most deffinitly ALOT bigger than the others but the size isn't in their length it's in their body shape if that makes sense. 

I've been watching them and they don't seem to be fighting yet so I don't think I need to seperate them. I'm just curious as to how many males versus females I've ended up with.

If anyone can help me it would be appreciated


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

2 weeks is too young to accurately sex most spawns. Wait till 4+ weeks. Seperate agressive ones at any time. This is not a sure sign of males either.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

You will find that bettas have a HUGE range of size in their spawns. Some grow VERY slow while a few will grow very fast. Taking out the biggest can help the smaller ones catch up sometimes... but sometimes there are ones that just don't grow as much.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Thanks, Well none of them seem agressive towards each other at all. They all hang out seperatly anyway (a few congregate aroung the same area but still pretty far apart) I'm expecting some money from my Mum for xmas and am thinking about getting another tank (a 10-15ga), heater, pump and sponge filter and setting it up as another fry tank. Will the spawn of 12 I have now fight with a spawn of a younger age or try and eat them as they grow? They probably wont be with the new spawn until they are about 4-6weeks old (if i do get another set up and if they're not already agressive themselves that is).


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Its best to have 2-3 10 gallon tanks to seperate the larger from the smaller. At that point, you will star jarring them and moving the smaller ones up and so on.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Yes a 6 week old spawn would definitely eat a new spawn imo.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

ok well I'll keep the 12 in the tank their in now. It's the perfect size for them untilt hey get bigger and I need to seperate them.

Here's a photo I managed to take of the largest one. He's still pretty small but compared to the others he's the largest.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Fair warning - the smaller the tank they are in, the slower they grow. At least that has been my experience. Even with doing daily water changes, there is still a difference.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Yeah, I've heard that too but there really isn't any other option at the moment. They're already in the largest empty tank I have empty at the moment. I do have a plastic storage tub I could set up I suppose. It would be at least a 5-10ga size. Actually I think I might organise that tomorrow. It really won't be any different to what they're in now other than the obvious added water and space.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Storage tubs work great, just be sure they are sturdy. I use several 18-20g tubs at my place. They arent so hot for fish you want to observe, but they work great for smaller fish grow outs or for outdoors when its warm.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Quick question.. is 80F too hot for the fry tank or too cool? I've read that 80F is a good temp for the fry tank but I'm not sure If it's hot enough. This spawn is growing at the same rate my last spawn did and they didn't have a heater. Someone told me that they'll grow faster with the heater in but I'm not finding that they are at all!


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## Lupin (Aug 1, 2006)

anasfire23 said:


> Quick question.. is 80F too hot for the fry tank or too cool? I've read that 80F is a good temp for the fry tank but I'm not sure If it's hot enough. This spawn is growing at the same rate my last spawn did and they didn't have a heater. Someone told me that they'll grow faster with the heater in but I'm not finding that they are at all!


It's not too hot at all. As for growth rate, it is true that the high temps often make them grow fast. This is because the high temperature often increases their metabolism allowing them to eat a lot more than usual. The downside is that fish tend to age quickly and may die earlier than their normal lifespan.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

I keep my betta spawns around 82. This is considered by many to be the optimal temperature for betta spawns. There is definitely a difference. You really cant compare one spawn to another to determine this (unless the same parents.. perhaps) because different spawns grow at different rates. If you want to see the difference, take some from this spawn and move them to a different temperature. My first spawn after about 8 weeks, I was still seeing no aggression. Some of the fry were much larger than the others so I decided to jar the biggest in hopes the others would catch up. The only thing was I didnt heat my jars. The ones in the tank outgrew the ones that were jarred already, even tho most breeders will tell you they grow faster when jarred. IMO, it was due to temperature as the jars had 100% daily water changes.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Ok, thanks for your opinions. I think I might up the temp a little. It's sitting roughly at 80 now. I think tomorrow after I clean the tank out I'll raise it to 82 I did see it get up to 86 the other day when it was a little warmer weather and they actually seemed more active and alot hungrier. I'll leave the heater set so that at night it sits at a comfortable 82 but with the weather that's bound to flutuate.

Ta


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Well my first spawn of fry are now 6 weeks old and are developing colours and look more like fish than tadpoles. I have 8 left from the 12 I originally posted I had. There are 4 of them that I can clearly see their tails forking nicely ( like crowntail rays) but their colouring is still a little transparent. They got a little blue colour along the bottom fins about a week ago and today I noticed some red seeping in. Looks like they're going to be the same colours as their dad (pic in avatar). I still can't sex them though. I've had a really good look at them and I can't see an ovipositor in any of them to indicate females and it seems other than their rate of growth all their tails and finniage is the same. I really doubt I've managed to be left with 8 males, so at least a few have to be female. Either way they've all be jarred for about a week. I'll attach a picture to this post of the largest one. It's not a great pic, I need a new digital camera and it was taken through a plastic drinking cup, but you can see they really have an actual fish body shape now. It's excellent. If anyone can give me a little advice on sexing them it would be appreciated. I do realise though that I might have to wait a few weeks to a month to sex them because of the rate at which they are growing, it's pretty slow.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Seeing what appears to be an ovipositor doesn't necessarily mean female unfortunately. Sometimes males appear to have the same thing. Sometimes in females you can see the egg sack mark inside their bodies if you shine a light on them from behind. This has sort of a triangular shape to it. Even people that have been raising bettas a long time still mess up sexing from time to time. Since you spawned CT to VT (I think thats what it was?), I think your fry will be long fin so it will be easier on you as they mature. When you start having short finned in the mix, ow it can be hard.. particularly if you have docile males & wild girls LOL. Once they start showing some aggression you can get a better idea of who *might* be male. Lots of betta spawns have very skewed sex ratios so its definitely not unheard of to have 8 males and 0 females or the other way around.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

oh ok, well as I said I'm sure It's going to be a few months before I can tell. Although they do seem to be growing alot faster since I seperated them. I have 3 of them at the moment situated near to their dad and my CT male so they can see each other. Come to think of it, maybe that's the reason those 3 are getting their colour in sooner. Perhaps they can see the adults (and are male themselves) and trying to show off their fins, causing them to gain colour faster...ok maybe that sounds a little obsurd (it's 3 am give me a break!! lol) but it is strange that it's those 3 that are showing the most colour and are the biggest and the other 5 have very minimal colour, if any at all. 

And yeah Christine they were spawned by a male CT and a female VT (We are assuming as she doesn't display any CT characteristics herself) And from the look of the fry they all seem to have extending individual rays from the end of their webbed tails, man I have to look really close and squint, but it's there. I know they will grow their tails alot more before I can tell their final breeding but I will be very surprised if any of them are VT's. They picked off the weaker fry, which I see as an act of agression and characteristic of CT's but they never faught amongst themselves. The bigger ones just stayed out of each others way and ate any smaller, slower ones that happened by. Once they all got to a certial size though it seemed to stop. I've only lost one in the last 3 weeks so I'm counting that as a victory!

Wish me luck!!!


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## (RC) (Jan 18, 2005)

Here are two pictures of the same fish from a metallic line I had.



RC


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

The mother of the fish in my avatar is from your lines RC. I got her from **************** Houston.


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## (RC) (Jan 18, 2005)

The fish that Richard Houston(funny you can right d i c k ) got from me were a pair from that same spawn as the one pictured. He got them as part of the IBC Betta Pals program when I was chairman of the program.


RC


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

I had a feeling they might be related  Mom was a platinum marble that popped up in his spawn. He wasn't interested in working platinum so, I was fortunate enough to obtain her. My favorite thing about her - her dorsal. I spawned her to a copper marble that had a small dorsal in hopes that she might help out in that department. I guess she did because none of them had noticeably small dorsals. Still needs improvement but its moving in the right direction! So... thanks for sending those fish to D i c k  I'm glad you did!!!


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## (RC) (Jan 18, 2005)

Glad to see the the fish were put to good use. I think I hand carried the pairs to D.ick at the IBC Jacksonville Convention 2 years ago.


RC


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Ok my fry are still too small for me to accuratly sex but they've started to attack each other. I went to feed them last night and found, to my horror, quite a few of the smaller ones missing the middle sections of their fins and looking more like they had sword tail fins!! So I frantically got together the cups I had put aside for when just such an occurance happened and got stuck into the task of seperating them. I fed the ones that had been attacked to my tropical fish and they were quickly caught and eaten by my black serpae's! I kept only the large ones and fed all the small ones to my other fish. I just don't have the room to try and get the smaller ones to grow so decided to keep just the strongest. Now i've got about 30 fry, and I'm hoping all these will grow to maturity. This new spawn has an irridesant line in them (from their mother) which I can see already, it's awesome!


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

I'm 90% sure that this 7 weeks old fry that I'm keeping next to my CT female is male. He's made a tiny little bubblenest and she's barred up!!! I'd like to see them try and spawn though hahaha he's like a 3rd of her size, he wouldn't be able to squeeze the eggs out of her let alone have them fit in his nest, the bubbles are smaller than what the eggs would be.. but it's soooo cute! I think keeping him next to her has made him grow and develop his colours a little faster. He's growing WAY faster than any of the others in his spawn.


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