Copper Spawn bring on the Shine

young Copper Male Betta

The first spawn I did [Copper x Copper] is also coming along nicely. This bunch, though older by a few weeks, took longer to show some maturity. A week or so ago I though I had a tank full of females. I started to jar up the bigger fish and also started doing ever other day water changes and here we now have some very nice males. This one is a solid Copper and his fins are very nice. He is my current favorite solid colored male.

A very pleasant suprise has been the marbles and Butterflies I have gotten from this spawn. Check this guy out. He is a Copper Marble with a very nice Butterfly patter developing.

Here’s another picture of him showing the marbling a bit better. I love everything about this fish and will probably end up keeping him.

In addition to the Marbled Copper Butterfly I got two really nice Copper Butterflies out of this spawn so far. This guy is patterened pretty and the edges are a nice white.. not quite what the picture is showing. I’m hoping he will be showable down the road.

And here is the other Copper Butterfly. He too is developing into a real nice fish and should also be a show fish for us. The hard part is going to be letting some of these guys go.

We have several nice females now as well. This is one of the girls. They are getting large and some are starting to show verticle bars and flaring back at the Juvie Males. This girl is one I am watching right now.

The Marble pattern is starting to show up in the females now as well. This was one of the first to loose some color. Not the best picture but we are showing some nice fins as well.

 

Highlights of Second Spawn

My second spawn has thrown lots of colors. I have both dark and light bodied fish, various iridescence and quite a few marbles. This guy I pulled out of the grow out about a week ago and he was muddy looking and splotchy. But now.. WOW! I love him. He is emerald green and marbled. Live, there is better contrast between his body color and the green. And the icing on the cake is his butterfly pattern is really nice too. He has a lot of fire and is definitely a keeper for future breeding for me.

This guy was the opposite. Very light bodied and again quite boring when I jarred him. But look how nice he is turning out. Again, he is a nice emerald green marble and his tail and the rest of the fins appear to be developing rather nicely.

This male was one of the first jarred in this spawn. He is dark [black] underneath with a greenish shimmer over the top. I will watch him a bit more but he will probably be one I will get rid of. He just isn’t a color I want to persue.

I have also gotten some nice blues with creamy colored fns out of this spawn. That was the color I was interested in when I bought the female. The male I  had gotten for her was not interested so I crossed her with Fred, the male pictured for my blog. It is nice to have a few the color I originally wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do need to get some decent pictures of everybody. All these are taken with whatever sunlight is coming through the window and really does not do the fish justice.

First Half Moons

The largest boys have been in their own containers for almost a week now and are still getting used to the idea. The two biggest males don’t seem to mind being alone and being checked out.. the other three are still a bit shy. But they do all enjoy a bit of flaring.

This guy is maturing very nicely. Look at the tail.. really turning out.. he’s going 180.  Remember him a week ago??

The week in solitary has done him good. We are feeding the guys lots of live food and changing water every other day. I’m trying to get things around to change water every day.

And how about BB? He has also blossomed a bit this week with the extra room and attention. He also is going 180 in his tail. He still has that whitish spot on his top.. kinda a bummer in that pretty blue he has all over. But he is very bold and has a delightful personality.

More Juvies

Another male that got jarred. Being back lit by the sun is not doing much to show any color.. but it does show the fins nicely. This one appears to have some darker areas on the anal fin and the growth does not appear very even.

 

And this it the last guy separated out. Time to feed well and grow them up.

Bubba

The largest fish in this spawn also has a large dorsal. Somewhere there is some Double Tail in his linage. He has been fun to watch grow. The father of the males I have jarred is the Copper male that I have pictured as the blog photo. Most of the spawn have a bit of a shimmer to them. But I expected blues/greens/steels so a shimmer was also expected with those colors. This fish is dark bodied with this bit of green over the top. It is a shame he lost his ventrals.. it would really add this cool little fish.

And here is Bubba today. Nice fin growth in the last 10 days. Color is still a bit boring.. will have to see what develops. Bubba has taken to flaring at his neighbors.. and they are actually flaring a bit back.

Going to try to get some better pictures now that these boys are jarred. These guys now are going to daily water changes and lots of live foods. Hopefully we will have something show-able in a few months.

Butterfly out of Cacoon

Here is my little Butterfly about 10 days ago. I could see a hint of a decent pattern beginning. I kept my fingers crossed that as he grew it would continue to improve.

And here we are now. The fish is back lit by a bright window so it is showing off a nice little butterfly pattern. His fins appear to be red/white. I’m not sure what color his body is going to be.. maybe a black with greeen irridescents over the top?

I need to get some good overhead lighting to get some better pictures. This one might be real purty with better lighting.

Brilliant Blue.. BB

Here we were a little over a week ago…

 

 

 

And here we are now. This is the brilliant blue in the spawn. He colored up early and had the richest color. His tail is coming along real nice too. I’m amazed at the growth of the fins in the last 10 days or so.

I wish the anal fin was solid or the yellow was in the other two fins more.. not patterned like I’d like.. but still turning out to be a nice fellow.

Time for Solitary

The boys finally got too big for their fins..

I pulled 5 males from the second spawn. They were pretty much still getting along.. until they got their bellies full. Then they started squabbling. Since I want to keep fins nice, better safe then ripped fins.

 

 

 

 

 

I had been saving 2 liter Pepsi bottles so my son and I cut the tops off and got them all washed out. Then we pulled the 5 bigger males out and they went upstairs and are sitting on the windowsill. They get some sun and it warms up their containers. When it gets warmer we will probably move them.

So far, nobody is really happy about the move. They were moved in the morning and finally, by afternoon, they seemed to be swimming around a bit. We even had some flaring at neighbors by the largest one of the group. Walking across the floor vibrated enough to make them head for the bottom. But a dinner of white worms got them feeling a bit better.