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Hi all! I’m wanting to have a go at breeding bettas for the first time this weekend (there’s bad weather and a full moon, and I think they’re both ready)! Forenote: my bettas are both young HMPK that are of breeding age. I got the male online, and the female from a breeder (he was already successfully using females from her batch as breeders). I’ve been conditioning for maybe a week or two now, with live and frozen foods. I’ve consumed pretty much all the betta breeding content on the entire internet, from breeding logs on forums and blogs to YouTube to guides to podcasts, and spent probably up to 50 hours learning as much as I can about bettas and how to keep and breed them. But I want to run through my setup with some experienced betta breeders first, so I’ve got the highest chance of success. So first off, I live in Melbourne, Australia, which means I’m currently in a lockdown said to last until next Tuesday. I’m hoping for it to go longer if I do successfully spawn my bettas, because I want to be able to have a good shot at raising the fry well. I’ve heard the first few weeks can be very delicate. Thanks to the lockdown I can carefully monitor my fish when I introduce them to each other. I’m planning on starting an infusoria culture today, and introducing the bettas to each other tomorrow by way of putting the male in the female’s tank with a divider (female will go on the side with more line-of-sight blocks). I’ve been feeding them both a good combination of live and frozen foods over the last couple weeks, and they look very healthy. The female has a massive egg-spot, is very plump, and is showing her ovipositor clearly. She’s a light colour so I can’t see any barring yet. I’m hoping it will develop a little once the male is introduced. From there my hope is to make my way out to the LFS tomorrow or on Friday to pick up some IAL, and to find somewhere to get a styrofoam cup. I’m going to try the somewhat classic setup in a shallow 2.5 gallon tub with an IAL or two, a turned off sponge filter, some moss, a cave and another sort of line of sight block, and half of a styrofoam cup for the bubble nest. I’ll do the usual method of keeping the female in a bottle with holes in it, and then release her when the male has a decent bubble nest. So I would probably introduce them to this container on Friday night, with the hopes of putting them together midday on Saturday and of them breeding on Saturday night during the full moon, with the option of leaving them a couple more days if they don’t breed immediately and aren’t showing any problems. I’m gonna go with kind of neutral parameters, and pump the temperature up to about 80°F (26ish Celsius). Does this sound okay? Is there anything I’m missing? Any extra tips or recommendations from anyone? Let me know if it would be helpful for me to share images of the fish and setup/s. Cheers!

Hello all, I have a colony of cherry barbs that I'm looking to breed. I am starting an infusoria culture in preparation for potential fry. My LFS said cherry barbs can be conditioned with just dry foods - can anyone confirm that? Can anyone offer advice on frozen foods? I'm looking for one type of frozen food that would be appropriate for both conditioning and for raising fry as well. I've read about how great live baby brine shrimp are but I'm not in a position to invest the time and equipment to hatch them on a regular basis. Thanks in advance!