Keeping Betta Mandor

[JE47]

Placed my newest female with my male three days ago in an attempt to breed. I observed that after being released from the breeder box, in which she was placed to get used to the breeder tank and allow the male to see her without touching her, that the male and female began to fin nip each other. I am not sure if this regular courtship behavior for this species but this is what I observed. The male and female remained together for three days I saw the female little those days she was mostly hiding but the male would come and stare at me. This morning the female was swimming at the front of the tank her fins had holes. Carefully taking her out I returned her to her other tank. The male then swam to the front and he was puffing up his mouth and contracting it. I presume he might be caring eggs. I will keep an eye on him for the next week but hopefully this breeding attempt has been successful. 

As a side note that while he also tore the fins of my other female when she was placed with him she never tried to interact with him my newest female did. Also there breeding colors are so beautiful truly a worthwhile fish to keep.

[JE47]

Quick update all the Betta Mandors are doing well the females will often chase each other and definitely the newest female seems to be the dominate female not really allowing the other female to swim around so I am going to have do something about that. Also it seems that the male was carrying eggs because he eventually stopped puffing his cheeks about four days after I removed the female. I did not see any fry so I am assuming he swallowed the eggs. I am not sure exactly why he did this but I have ideas for the next breeding attempt.

[JE47]

Well it has been a minute since I have posted any info about these guys so here is the recent update.

1. Females are doing alright they eat well and seem to enjoy the space of the twenty nine gallon. As I said in my last post that there is an dominate female who does not let the other female explore the tank even chasing her when she comes out to eat. The female still seems to be well fed meaning she is catching the live baby brine that swim into her hiding spot in the java moss jungle or she is munching on critters that are growing in the biofilm and mulm. Still I have an idea of setting up a twenty-gallon long and plant it with lots of tall plants that will provide more breakage in their line of sight.

2. Unfortunately I have lost my beautiful male he jumped out of his tank when I had the lid open which I didn't realize until far to late. So I will have to buy another male to have any more luck at breeding these fish. I do hope to get another male but not right away I want to build a more plant heavy set up before I do that.

Because of recent events I probably won't have much to offer for the journal but I do hope to keep it updated from time to time about the status of the female bettas. Thanks for reading.