Reply To: Males not fertilizing eggs?

[Anonymous]

#22962

I can’t give you an answer to your question directly, but I had a similar experience recently. I’ve had two EE HMPK bettas in the past month that failed to spawn. In both cases the female was very willing, but the male seemed like he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to do. In the second case they were together for five days before the female seemed to get frustrated and began attacking the male and I had to separate them. In the first case, the female was so fat with eggs she looked like she had swallowed some whole peas! I checked the nest after the third day and it was full of eggs. The female was hiding, so I removed her to a jar. She proceeded to release about a hundred eggs and eat them (of course). The male then ate the vast majority of the eggs in the nest. I removed him with about 20 eggs remaining. The next day I inspected the remaining eggs and they were clearly unfertilized, as I suspect ALL the eggs were.

My best guess was that she was so full of eggs and unable to get him to spawn with her, so she released the eggs into the tank. The male likely picked them up and put them in the nest (although hearing your experience I wonder if this isn’t what happened to me). He then ate them for whatever reason – perhaps because I disturbed him when netting the female? Or he simply realized they were unfertilized.

I’ve had a few HMs that seemed incapable of breeding as well. It’s been suggested that bettas who are separated and jarred too early never develop “proper” betta behaviour, and I suspect that could have something to do with the problem I’m having. Although interestingly, I dewormed my fish shortly after and one of the impossible males was most definitely infested with tapeworms. Perhaps this was the issue? I will be respawning him in a few weeks to test my theory.

Anyways, that’s my experience. I don’t believe it’s a case of age, I think it’s a behaviour issue although the exact cause is a mystery. Perhaps others can share their experiences and have a better hypothesis. I’d definitely suggest a parasite treatment in the meantime, if it’s not something you do regularly. Certainly can’t hurt.

Did you attempt a repeat spawning? If so, did you have any success?

(I hope that these forums get more use than they have so far, participation is the key to making a forum effective)

Happy spawning! 🙂