So, Monday was an accomplishment. While I was studying for exams, I released our female betta fish from the display tank, and right away she mated with the male. It was interesting to watch, she would swim to the bubblenest, stay around it for a while admiring it. Then she would swim towards HeDucky (the male), and rub herself against him, and swim back to the test. Eventually he joined her, and they rubbed each other quite a bit and were very friendly. I had a strong feeling at that point they would probably finally start breeding. And they did. He wrapped his body around her and did the whole “u-shape” thing, squeezing the eggs out of her. I wanted to surprise Megan, because she has been waiting a long time for them to breed, so I picked her up from work without telling her the fish were breeding. But sadly, when we walked into the room, I guess they got a bit embarrassed and stopped. Oh well.
Megan and I have been trying to get the bettas to breed for the past month or two. After we bought HeDucky, I believe we read on a website about breeding bettas, and thought it would be interesting to see if we could breed them ourselves. Then the pet shops in town got a few female bettas in stock, so we bought a few of them, four in total. Every time we tried to release the female they would just start attacking each other. It got pretty frustrating, but eventually we had success. I guess it’s all just a matter of patience. The rewarding thing is that we learned quite a bit about breeding bettas in the process, and we learned a lot together. I guess breeding beta fish is our weird unique thing that we do together as a couple.
So now, step one is done, the fish are breeding, the eggs are in the nest. Now, we have the challenge of caring and raising the fry. I realized this morning that I am a bit less optimistic than Megan, and lean more towards pessimism. I’m not quite sure if the fry will actually hatch, if the eggs were fertilized, and not eaten by the female. But as pessimistic as I am, I’m determined not to give up on the whole betta fish breeding thing. If we don’t succeed, patience will be our friend, and we shall always be learning. As long as we don’t give up, success is guaranteed.
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