I agree with letting the female release the babies on her own. I wouldn't put her in a breeder box though. Too stressful. She'd be likely to damage herself and possibly eat the eggs too. Just leave her be while you cycle the 10 gal. Then move her in a couple weeks. Leave the 10 gal bare bottom to make it easier to clean (you can paint the outside of the bottom black if you want - or that flecked sand looking paint looks even better). Put some PVC pipes/clay pots/artificial plants/etc for her to hide in.
I just let them release them into the main tank. Put some rubble piles in a few places. You won't save a lot of fry that way, but some will make it.
Lisa
I got these guys planning to breed them, I just didn't realize how soon it would happen. I've only had this tank running for two months! I picked up five ten gallons from a friend who had extra tanks and added to mine that makes six. I'm going to build a rack with 2-3 levels that the tanks will stack on, then I plan to set them up with sponge filters and heaters as tanks for the females to spit into and as grow out tanks. If I do well at this level and need more tanks, she has a bunch more I can get from her and expand my setup. But I'm starting small scale to see if I can even keep them alive, I've bred betta's before but never got the fry to last past two weeks, and I still have NO idea why.
Lace rock will work just as well as the pots and pvc right? Lace rock is what I have in my main tank and for the moment, with needing to buy all the filters and heaters I'd rather just take a couple smaller pieces from the main tank for now...
I wasn't particularly wanting to strip the fry at least this time anyway so no worries
I heard the first time or two its better to let them spit naturally, and although you may lose some of them to getting eaten, you get better mothers in the long run.
I LOVE the flecked sand paint idea lol, I had never thought of that! Thats definitely what I'll be doing