Albert

Try Morley Aquariums. Paul builds tanks as far as I know.

Nice tanks, he has built me a few.

Sphaerichthys osphromenoides is generally considered to be a maternal mouth brooder. That is to say; the female incubates the eggs in her mouth.

If that is wrong, and osphromenoides is actually a paternal mouth brooder, then it follows that all the advice on sexing osphromenoides is also wrong.

So let's bust the myth of maternal mouth brooding in osphromenoides.

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The photo above is taken from video footage of a recent spawning. Look at the anal fins; the fins are clearly unique to each fish.

The fish with the three spots on the anal fin is female, the other fish is male.

Keep this in mind when you watch the following video. Watch who lays the eggs and who picks up the eggs.

Here is another spawning:

(I would have liked to have given the 'media tag' a larger size for the videos. Perhaps not possible?)
 

An update.

Photo below are 3 month old chocolates having their evening meal of brine shrimp. They also get small mozzies, grindle and micro worms.

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They're a fascinating little fish full of character. Here they are spawning:

Can you house a pair all year round so to speak?

Not sure what you mean there Jules.

I don't separate them like one would with the common fighters. The albimarginata get on fine together. Like chocolate gourami; they are mouth brooders and don't eat their children. The only time I have seen an altercation was between two males over a female. Even then it was just "She is mine, you stay on your side of the aquarium".

They form colonies too, unless one includes some rasboras or similar to eat the Betta fry.

The photos above were from my original pair's two foot aquarium. The first photo of the male is one of the first batch of fry grown up. The second photo includes a second or third batch of fry half grown up.

The photo below is from today. To get them all together I teased them with some mozzies. They all live together happily in an old four foot tank.

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