FISH TALES 3

Some success with rubra and macrostoma. From my experience betta's are not generally a hard fish to get to breed, but it's afterword that is sometimes difficult.

Ocellata is a great starter for a betta breeder. They can be kept in a group, and even breed that way, but success is beter with a single pair. Hold well in my experience.

Rubra is very small for a mouth brooder so the challenge is getting babies from a spawn. Mine seem to spawn fine in groups, but contrary to what I have read, the babies get eaten if the group is left together. It seems like it would be easy to tell when such a small mouthed fish is holding, but it is not. If you are watching you tank, you should notice increased sparing, and a breeding tube from ripe females before spawning. then the holding male dissapears. I fish him out after about a week and put him in a container with some java moss, and  float it in the tank until he spits. These are way small for a manual spit.

My Macrostoma gets a nice mouthful of eggs, then eats them after a couple of days. Easy size to spit, but they are very strong, and wiggle out of my hand easily. Females are less colorful, but can have the eye spot on the dorsal fin(other things I read claimed this was the sex tale). Best to breed as a pair.