I did a betta spawn last year......I got over 200 fry and most of them survived. It was great a great learning experience and I enjoyed watching them grow and seeing what colors they were and finnage and such as they grew. The dad was a beautiful steel blue CT...the female was steel as well, but not CT.
The fry tank must be kept very clean and you have to keep something over the top so cooler air doesn't get to the fry when they come up for a breath. The air over the water has to be warm and moist all the time.
It wasn't really alot of work believe it or not....at least I didn't think so because I was enjoying it so much...but what I had to do I had to do EVERY DAY for over 6 months ! Which really became an issue come summer. Had a family crisis and had to leave all the babies with my husband and daughter...they survived the experience..(both the fish AND my family..lol)..
I had a system of 10oz clear plastic cups on some shelving that I had set up. I used airline tube to syphon water from the cups into a bucket and then refilled the cups by just pouring water into them with a pitcher. It worked, but I really had no way of keeping the temps above room temp so it was good that I did it during the summer. I bred the fish in March, didn't get rid of all the fry until around Sept...sad thing is, after all that work I believe most of them died due to the ignorance and carelessness of those who took them home. So that's something to consider. Most of my fry were females...everyone wanted the males...I ended up practically giving the females to a LFS for about 25 cents a piece store credit..which was ok since by then I had had it...lol..
You will also need to keep two batches of brine shrimp going constantly, which isn't much work but you have to be sure you have another batch ready when the old batch is finished...they have to eat 2-3 times a day. I did eventually feed them pellets, but I don't think those are as good for them as brine shrimp and micro worms.
Actually, it WAS alot of work and I havn't done another spawn since. I don't think I will either unless I have a proper barracks system for them.
Do lots of research before you even think about starting something like that. RIght now I am raising a tank full of baby blue rams.....they're much easier so far...for one, I didn't get quite so many !
