When to ween?

[orange leader]

Hi all,

My neighbor gave us a betta fish, because her 8 year old daughter wasn't feeding it. I bought it a girlfriend, then within a week, we had a bubble nest, which I thought was cool, but the female was ripping it up, which wasn't cool, so I took her out of the tank, and back to her cup she came in. Then the babies hatched. About 50 little baby bettas in the little 1 gallon tank. I honestly wasn't anticipating this, so I wasn't really prepared for the little ones. I had bettas make nests before as a kid (I was a kid, not the fish), but NOTHING ever hatched.

Luckily I work at an entomology lab, where we raise mosquitoes. I was able to get a few egg sheets, and got the newly hatched mosquito larvae into the tank in time to save most from starvation, although I think some of the fry were too small to eat even the newly hatched larvae.

Any how, the real question:
How old do the fish need to be before they will try store bought food? I currently have quite a few mosquito cups spread around our dining room and my wife is sort of getting sick of all the little cups with various stages of larvae. currently the fish are eating the fish food indirectly; I feed the mosquito larvae the fish food, the fish eat the larvae, Pinata anyone??

[kimmers318]

To get rid of the larva you could probably feed BBS....baby brine shrimp, it comes in the freezer at most LFS and is small enough for platy fry. There is also a type of food I have only noticed at petsmart that is considered fry food, sorry, can't remember the name.
Good luck with your babies....sounds like you are going to need loads of tanks and spend time finding homes for them!
Can you give us a color and tail type description of mom and dad....there may be a few people intererested depending on what you may have.:1luvu:

[Betta_noob]

I'm not entirely sure what you should be feeding it but I came in here slightly concerned because you make it seem as if you were keeping a boy and a girl betta both in a one gallon bowl and then put the female back in one of those little cups?

[orange leader]

I'm not entirely sure what you should be feeding it but I came in here slightly concerned because you make it seem as if you were keeping a boy and a girl betta both in a one gallon bowl and then put the female back in one of those little cups?

They're no longer together, the female is in a 2 gallon bowl, and the male commited suicide (jumped), but he was in a seperate bowl too, but I had the water level too close to the top. the cups were just for a day or 2 until I got some more bowls, as I hadn't thought that far in advance (i'm very blonde sometimes).

The male was blue, with red pectoral fins, and the female is red.

I actually started with about 30 to 40, but I had to go on vacation and the next door neighbor took care of them and when I came back there were only about 20. Then my ballast burnt out (which was also my heater), and by the time I dismantled it, and repaired it, I was down to a hardy 14.

I think I have homes lined up for about 8 so far. But If I don't (or any fall through) I'll post it here.

2 of the babies are showing some red. the rest have NO color yet, other than pale creamy beige, of an uncolored fish.