Betta Livida, breeding and its problem.

 I was caught up with Betta Livida by chance. Wild betta has been about Imbellis for decades. It was childhood pastime, wandering around nearby ditches looking for betta imbellis. We kept them for fun in those days. Interest in breeding wild betta comes much later.  

Razib, a neighborhood friend shares the interest in betta breeding. We ventured into wetlands around Seri Iskandar together, and brought home wild betta imbellis. On the sixth trip 29 August 2020, we caught what's later identified as betta livida. He took one male, and the rest with me, 2 males and a female.

Understanding that inbreeding may not be too good, so I bought two more Livida pairs (sp Tg Malim or t.m.) from A' Aquatic Hauz Pahang to kickstart the breeding project.  I tagged my Livida as LM1s.i. , LM2s.i. and LF1s.i and those purchased as LM3t.m., LM4t.m., LF2t.m., and LF3t.m. 

Betta Livida Breeding Project 1

Pair 1:    LM1si vs LF2tm. 
Pair 2:    LM3tm. vs  LF1si.  
Pair 3:    LM2si vs LF3tm

Mating Date:  16/10/2020

Free swimming fry: 23/10/2020

Pair 1 produced 16 fries (estimate), Pair 2 , 15 fries (estimate) and sadly Pair 3 failed altogether, no bubbles, nothing.  The saddest part is ,  betta livida purchased all died within 2 weeks after bouts of spawning activities . LF2tm, LM3tm, LF3tm were gone. I wonder if they were used to different environment and food with the breeder/seller, or bouts of spawning too much to handle, or they were too young at the verge of maturity or they were not well fed weeks before breeding. I guess conditioning them with good food for a week or two before breeding would solve it, for fish purchased best if we allow a month to pass first.  But wild caught livida from seri iskandar, survived. 

Nest of Pair 1

Nest of Pair 2, 

the male can be seen guarding its nest

On their 13th day, the fries look quite healthy, living on infusoria and a bit of other live food like artemia and moina macrocopa. 

Bangchik. 
Seri Iskandar