Update

[BettaMommy]

[FONT=LUCIDA CONSOLE][COLOR=DEEP SKY BLUE] Hey everyone! I haven't posted in what seems like forever. But I thought I might tell my betta loving friends what has been going on. I attempted to spawn my bettas again becase everything seemed right and the male built a bubble nest and everything. Well I went to check up on the pair and found my beautiful red/purple male...not too beautiful anymore. The female had destroyed his fins and he looked like a floating body. He didnt look so good so I took him out and put him into a holding tank with some of the tank water to watch him over night. Well it didnt turn out so good, I woke up to a dead male .

The female is doing fine and my other male is doing good. But now my 25 watt heater is really turning ugly. There is like a black residue all on the inside of it. Should I worry about this?? Is it bad for them??

[kelicom]

Sorry about your betta. Part of the what makes bettas so fascinating is their sassy personality, but when that turns deadly, it's not so amusing.

I've bred bettas numerous times and each pair is different, and each spawning is different. I've had one male scare every female so bad I didn't think he would ever be a father. Then, one day, the female in the tank next to him who I had tried spawning with in the past (I took her out when I got worried about her and how aggressively he went after her), became striped and was acting frantic. She wanted to breed and was full of eggs. I put her in with the warrior male again ready to take her out if things got too rough again, only to watch in amazement as she chased him around the tank and he leaped on top of a leaf, panting, to get away from her. This warrior who had terrified every other betta in the house was now the prey. Previously, I had only seen that particular move from a female (leaping on top of a leaf for safety). LOL So I had to take her out to protect him this time. Bettas seem particularly cued to environmental and physiological factors that we don't quite understand yet...for instance, I have two females and they tend to spawn at the same time, just like women who live together, after awhile their periods are synced. I've noticed that the aggressivensess in both males and females varies quite a lot. And because of that, spawning pairs have to be watched very carefully if they are pets.

Breeders don't mention all this stuff--but many breeders aren't also pet lovers.

As far as the black stuff, I would definitely clean it off. I've only seen black stuff on one heater/filter of the many tanks I own, and it was in a fry tank where many of the fry died from a disease. All I know is that when I rescued the healthy babies from this tank and cleaned it out, the eco substrate smelled awful, like rotten fish. Bad smells mean bacteria. Don't know if the black stuff smells or not, but if I were you, I would clean it.