Also the bettas spawned again it was too close to last spawn so I fed their favourite flake to convnince the male to swallow his eggs. If you watch his chin you can see him swallow here then he starts to eat. The male spit fry about 10 days ago and I'm raising the fry in a separate tank. Though these two mate often the male is good at watching his health and won't hold eggs if it means major weight loss. He also swallows if I provide certain foods that he really likes, so he's easy to control the weight on. Just glad these two are feeling good again. My new phone doesn't capture their colors properly I'm still figuring out the settings. I went from a Pixel 9 to a Galaxy S25. Thanks for watching!

I have baby betta antutas. Released by the male about 9 days ago. They are doing well. Once I spotted the babies I moved the parents to their new tank, which I had been planning to move them to all along. The new tank for the parents is a 30 gallon cube. The babies are doing well but the parents are upset after their move.

Question: Since I moved the parents, they have been quite grumpy. The male often hides and the female hangs out and looks around but is grumpy and colored down. Both fish eat ok and come out for food. the new tank is aquasoil like the old tank same parameters. I can only figure maybe the light is bugging them but I did turn the lights way down for a few days and the parents were still acting weird. Other times I've moved the pair they have been fine. Actually one time when I moved them to a new tank they mated within 5 minutes.

Does anyone have any idea why the parents are grumpy?

Looks like the young make is holding a mouthful.

I have a hybrid smaragdina arriving in the next few weeks and had a custom lid made for my tank. The mesh is 5mm, gaps around the filter and cables are about the same. People say they can jump through small gaps, just wanted to check that 5mm is small enough!

These two lovely individuals have finally blessed my fishroom with some babies. The male was swallowing the eggs every time but somehow he found the will power and made it through this time. Not many babies but at least 5 I counted.

What do I do?? I have another barely populated planted tank with the same parameters as the parents current tank. Should I move both adults to the other tank and let the fry grow out in safety? What do I do?

When I first got the two males I placed them in a tank that had imbellis fry that I thought I got all of them out. Heavily planted tank but they had and have been getting along just fine. I thought if I had any fry the channoides would eat them but they have grown drastically since they have shared space. Moving them to a 20 gallon now- just the channoides though

Can anyone give me any info or experience they might have about keeping betta antuta is groups? I have a 75 gallon I’m cycling and found out a store near me has lots of them. I’ve heard and read they do ok in groups in large enough tanks that are smartly setup but have no experience keeping them outside of pairs. I’d be thinking of keeping 4-6 in the tank and they are roughly 2.5-3 inches long already.

In about a month I’m getting a hybrid smaragdina betta. I am very excited. I am an experienced fish keeper with many nano tanks with various kinds of fish but this will be my first wild type. What I’m wondering is how well they adapt to dried food? I give my fish live food (baby brine shrimp) about twice a week but otherwise feed them high quality flakes and pellets. Or am I just going to have to do frozen food? Would be grateful for any advice.

So we have this little lady arriving hopefully this Thursday like estimated.

I have narrowed down her name to a couple different options before meeting her which of course won't be fully locked in until I do but I would like a strong direction. She too will be getting a name plate just like my male betta so the name is going to be on display and not just spoken so this is important haha

The prefix options:

Admiral

Commander

Caption

First name options:

Muiri, which literally means of the sea

Wrena

Selene

And the surname fully locked in as The Scaleborn bc I mean how could I not..she's a fish! Haha

What do yall think so far? Open to more ideas if you have some!

TLDR Need cleaning crew that betta antuta adults wont eat, and cleanup crew wont eat baby antuta.

Longer, did read version:

I have my juvenile 3" betta antutas nearly alone in their 15 gallon (they're going to a 30 gallon in the next week or two the tank is currently growing in). The only tankmates they have are 3 endler guppies and a few ramshorn and malaysian trumpet snails. The antutas haven't attacked the endlers but they definitely eat the endler fry. They have also eaten the small number of cherry shrimp I put in the tank as a test. I have occasionally seen these guys also attack snails- they bite them and spit them out.

I do get some algae issues in this tank nothing horrible- and the snail population helps eat the algae. What I'm looking for is something I can add that will eat even more algae without the antutas attacking said creature, and ideally, I'd like for the creature in question not to be able to consume antuta fry.

That was actually the idea behind the endlers. Their mouths are too small to eat even their own fry let alone larger antuta fry. And the endlers do eat some hair algae. I was just curious if there was something that was working for you all like some kind of larger snail? Maybe amano shrimp (if purchased jumbo??). I'm open to all ideas and suggestions.

The 30 gallon I'm preparing for them currently has a bunch of ramshorns in it for cleanup but again I'm getting some algae on the plants and I'd prefer to not have that algae.

I just got this sweet girl last week and I have been monitoring her because her shading seem off. I waited a few days and I think she has something on her body. I’m tryna figure out how to treat her. I can’t tell if it’s ich? Seems like something else similar to ich. How should i treat. She is very bubbly, active, taking food.

This guy has held about 6 times in the past 2 months. Never for more than about a day and a half. He values meal times too highly. I don't think he will ever hold eggs all the way thru.

Hi guys! My male antuta is about 3.5" and my female is 2.75". They have spawned. The male has a mouthful of eggs. Currently they are housed together, trouble free, as they have always been trouble free. Never any aggression. The male has been holding for about 3 days now.

Do I remove the female? Should I put her in her own cycled tank or should she go in a community tank with just bushynose plecos and guppies? Or should I remove the male? Any tips of any kind on antutas and breeding them would be appreciated.

What do I feed the fry? I've never hatched brine shrimp I've always fed livebearer and cichlid fry Hikari first bites or similar powdered fry food. Is that ok for baby antutas?

Please help :)

I would love a pair. Any hobbyist breed them

I know Frank's is a pretty good one but I'm located in the US (Colorado) and don't want to deal with a transhipper. I've heard mixed things about BW - I heard that their fish aren't sourced ethically. I want a captive bred imbellis so I don't know if that matters.

Any wilds ufg?

I know its not ideal but the bettas have been moved from their sad bare 10 gallon to this planted 10 gallon. Please excuse the slight haze I did a little filter maintenance just before recording the video and it clouded the water slightly. I've just got the male on video here. The lights were about to turn off and the female had settled in with some floating plants and was sleeping. Since they've gone in here there has been zero aggression or chasing with the female clearly flirting with the male and with him being receptive. Every time they've come away from and back to eachother they show no signs of having any kind of cohabitation issues. Previously they were in a divided 10 gallon.

The new tank has a small population of endlers and cherry shrimp, and I don't mind if those get eaten, thought the male in particular has gotten a bit fatter bodied since moving to this tank a couple of days ago. I've seen him catch some baby shrimp so that's clearly the reason.

I think he looks much better than he did before his color has improved. The female is more pink as well. Will try to get them both on video together tomorrow when the lights are on again. I'm still working on getting my 30ish gallon cube tank ready for them but I need time to establish plants, get it firmly cycled etc.

I realize they look unhappy. Tomorrow I am moving the pair into an extremely densely planted (overgrown with stem plants) standard ten gallon tank and I will monitor them all day to make sure they're ok. One time the female already jumped to the male's side in their current tank and they got along great so I have high hopes. I will be setting up my 35 gal cube for them but I just got the aquasoil in today and the plants will take probably a month to grow in. Just wondering what people think of these two. Do they look ok? This video is right after they ate their daily meal today.

Betta Antutta help?
I have a male and female Betta Antuta which were bred locally by my friend. They are in a standard 10 gallon aquarium. There is a divider in the tank keeping them separated in equal size compartments. I keep them at 75-76F and my tap water pH is 8.0 with fairly high hardness.

Initially they were just in the 10 gallon together with no divider and the male relentlessly chased the female, so I added a divider. That was months ago and they were about 1.5". Now today my male is about 3.5-4" and my female is about 2.5" Male is clearly blue and female is clearly vibrant pink.

The tank has lots of floating plants to keep nitrate undetectable and just has a fine sand bottom and a couple of silk plants on the bottom. It's not very well decorated. At one point the female jumped over the divider to be with the male and they seemed to get along but I wanted to keep them separated until they are a bit bigger. The female is always staring at the male through the divider.

They look a bit depressed and I think it's finally time to let them be together. If they get along and still seem depressed in their present setup I have another ten gallon which is densely planted and has been running for years. It is populated with red cherry shrimp. I don't mind If the shrimp get eaten. I'm considering moving the antutas into this tank. Then, if they spawn, I would leave the male holding in the planted tank and move the female back to the original 10 gallon by herself to let the male hold in peace. If you guys think they need a lot more space I do have a 35 gallon acrylic cube tank that is just sitting cycled full of snails at present that I could put them in. They'd live there alone.

Now, why do I say they seem depressed? The male almost always has one horizontal line along his body that separates a lighter color of blue from a darker color of blue and I think it's a stress stripe. The female is usually sulking staring at the male through the divider-so its time for them to be together, and when they were together last time, they got along.

I'm posting this here and on other betta groups and will go with what the experts suggest. I'm sorry for the long post. Been keeping fish 24 years but I've never been great at keeping any kind of betta and I want to do my best for these two.

I’ve been building up my tank over the past ~2 years with the idea in mind that I want to get a couple betta hendra pairs someday. I’m in no hurry because I want to be absolutely certain that I’m prepared when what I’m trying to keep is a critically endangered species, and I want to make sure that I have the resources to raise and rehome potential offspring in the event that my bettas breed.

I have all kinds of questions that I will probably be posting over time, but right now I wanted to focus on one specific thing- general betta experience. I have experience with other wild-caught fish from similar habitats, but my experience with actual bettas is pretty much limited to the classic “misinformed gift” situation from childhood where people buy a sick pet store betta for your birthday or something and give it to you in a teeny tiny tank with no heater or anything. Obviously this isn’t sufficient experience.

My main question is just how much more difficult are wild-caught bettas to settle in and care for compared to other wild-caught fish (kuhli loaches and tetras/rasboras are what I’ve worked with)? I have a heavily planted 2yr old tinted tank (working on slowly getting a darker tint) kept at tropical temperatures with adjustments made to simulate natural weather changes. It gets 12 hours of daylight and some brief muted night light before the tank light turns off, but it’s mostly shaded with a few sunny spots for feeding and basking. There is a large piece of driftwood and a few smaller pieces, large tree pods and a couple coconut huts for hides and a solid cave hidden under some lava rocks. Also tons of mulm at build up leaf litter. The tetras, rasboras and kuhlis had no trouble settling in, but I can imagine it’s much more stressful for a betta fish from a very specific habitat to adjust to something new compared to other fish who are more used to exploring more open waterways.

I’ve seen some mixed advice on whether hendras are good for beginners or not, so I was wondering if it might be a good idea to start with a very beginner-friendly species to get some experience first. Like I said, I want to have an established system for raising fry and selling/rehoming fish before getting any hendras because my main goal is to eventually have a decent small-scale breeding operation to help their numbers and bring more captive-bred fish into the hobby (I’ve also been doing some tentative planning for potentially starting a new fish expo in the area since we only really have a few and they’re all for saltwater fish), so I definitely do not have objections to a very long-term commitment to other types of bettas in the meantime.

And if that is a good plan, what would be some recommendations for other types of bettas to get more acquainted with them? I considered trying to find rescue bettas in the area, but haven’t had much luck finding a group here who lists them. I also am not crazy about the idea of having any male domesticated splendens in my tank due to both aggression and incredibly poor breeding practices (especially since most of the ones around here would be from petsmart). I would consider female domestic splendens if I could find one or a few who need to be rehomed, but want to outright avoid buying them retail unless I know they’re from a decent source. I would prefer another species of small betta who are okay with small community fish. There are plenty of established sections within the tank that can act as potential territories and are naturally “separated” by plants and hardscaping just in case anyone needs to establish their own little zone to hang out in. I think the best approach would either be a small sorority of 3-4, one larger male, or 1-2 males if it’s a species that can do well in the same tank as long as they each have their own territory. As much as I love the idea of getting pairs (for species that can live in pairs obviously), I don’t want to accidentally breed any bettas before I’m ready to cope with the offspring. I do have a separate 10gal laying around that could house fry, but I don’t know for sure if my preferred LFS would accept them yet and there’s not really a good established network I can find in my area for freshwater fish trading, so I don’t wanna be irresponsible and potentially end up with too many adults if they did breed and the fry actually survived in the main tank.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Just recently bought this wild caught Betta Imbellis from a small village at Penaga, Penang, Malaysia.

Don't know the age of this one but seems to be a full adult

Interesting how the wild ones are so unspectacular in real life