...if a male and female betta would atttack each other, what would be the way to breed them? i am curious as to how to induce this.
Oh, it is quite fascinating, to be sure... but it is also QUITE expensive, demanding, and complicated to do with the best results!! Nothing I'd tell anyone to go into lightly, no matter what their experience was with breeding other fish.
Firstly, considering their anatomy... bettas are labrynth fishes. They have a special organ that allows them to breathe atmospheric oxygen. They actually derive more of their daily requirement of oxygen from the air than they do the water, even in aerated aquariums. This is actually one of many reasons why they keep their fry in bubble nests. Firstly, it's a very good defense mechanism for the helpless babies. But most importantly, it provides thousands of completely protected air surfaces for the babies to breathe from when they hatch. You see, betta fry are so incredably delicate when they are first hatched out that rippling water, vibrations, or even a cold draft of air over the water's surface can cause their labrynth organ to be damaged at best and ruptured at worst! But I'm getting ahead of myself here... Let's start with the male and female betta... conditioning them for breeding and preparing the breeding tank.
Firstly, I'm a staunch supporter of the ideal that if you're going to be a breeder, you should breed with a specific goal in mind and FOCUS on that goal. Don't just go "He's pretty and red and she's pretty and blue... let's see what comes out!!" because that isn't very helpful to the breeds and color-types. Even if you have babies that come out solid red or solid blue, they now carry red or blue factors that could spoil true color in any generations that come after them.
It's like taking a purebred cocker spaniel and breeding it with a purebred king charles spaniel. They're both toy spaniels of a similar lineage and the puppies may come out looking a lot like one or the other... but they're 'mongrels' all the same and it would take generations of breeding to return their offspring to a pure status. It's so hard anymore to find true colored bettas that breed their true colors consistently because of this. So have a color goal... or a tail-shape... or size... something you think would either help your line of bettas conform to your idea of the 'perfect betta' for it's type, be it veil tail, crown tail, true red, mustard, double-tail... whatever it is.
Me, I wanted to create a better body coloring for 'lavendar' colored bettas, since most have lovely fins, but a blotchy body coloring that I found unattractive. So I started with a fantastic, full-tailed lavendar male with a solid deep lilac body and classic lavendar fins (pink with blue shimmer). And I purchased three different females. One solid red, one solid royal blue, and one solid light pink with lavendar butterfly-style fins (half colored, half white) The male was homozygous for crowntail though he was actually a veiltail himself. He had a very small fringe and double splits in the rays of his tail with a fuller finnage than a normal veiltail... but I admired this quality and wanted it passed to his offspring, so when I chose females, I looked for long, full female finnage as well as good solid color.
So my goal was: Lavendar bettas with solid body color, fuller 'veil-tail' appearance, and colorful longer-finned females. Drawbacks to my goal would be bettas with blotchy bodies, narrow veil tails, and dull female colors.
This accomplished, I set about preparation. I chose the first of the females I would breed to him and I began to power feed them. They would get very protein rich foods. Beef heart, slivers of raw fish and steamed cocktail shrimp along with live foods like waterfleas and baby brine shrimp. Fleshy foods are best if you can't provide live food. This helps them to gain a lot of weight and the female to produce a good clutch of eggs in her belly. She should get good and round with them... and I mean she will look like she's fit to burst! Condition them for the next 2-3 weeks. While they are conditioning, you can begin setting up for your first brood!
This is what I used, based on several sources I read and spoke to at the time. You'll need a 10-gallon tank initially and a 50-gallon later on (along with individual cups, jars, etc for the males), A submersible heater, Tank thermometer, a sumbersible sponge filter, 1 small fake plant (a little taller than 4-5 inches), a small rock or brick thoroughly disinfected, a clear plastic container (like a betta-hex), blackwater extract or almond leaves, saran wrap, a turkey baster or large syringe with a 5" length of air tube attatched to the end, java moss, aquarium salt, brine shrimp eggs, and 4 mason jars.
Firsly, wash the mason jars and disinfect. Fill each one 3/4 of the way full with old tank water from any established aquarium. Then, boil 4-6 lettuce leaves until the leaves are limp and transparent, allow them to cool, and place them inside the jars. Cover the tops with saran wrap, cut a slit on the top for ventilation, and place them in a sunny window. BEWARE!! You are growing live bacteria cultures, so they will rot, stink, and possibly be hazardous if they come in contact with your eyes or mouth. These paramecium and other microorganisms are going to be your baby fry's food for the first month or so of their lives. You can buy this stuff online or from really nice specialty fish stores... but this is a cheap (if smelly) way of doing it yourself. You might want a microscope or magnefying glass to monitor the progress of your cultures.
Now the breeding tank. It should be a plain 10-15 gallon tank. You can use a smaller one, but I found the spaciousness of this tank much easier to keep clean. This tank will be filled with 1gallon of old tank water and filled the rest of the way (to a MAXIMUM of 4-5 inches of depth... no more!) with water conditioned as normal, except for adding either a half teaspoon of blackwater extract or a cup of water steeped in almond leaves. The water should have a low, acidic pH and be heated via sumbersible heater to a temperature of no less than 78-82 degrees. It might be slightly yellowish from the tannins. That's fine. You'll position the fake plant in one corner with it's leaves hopefully reaching up to touch the water's surface. The brick or rock will be placed at the opposite corner. This will be a hiding place for the female later on. Place the betta-hex or other container (filled with treated water) at the center of the tank. You can have lighting positioned over the tank to see better, but a hood would only be disruptive. I used a clip-on incandescent desk light for this purpose. FYI: Instead of a fake plant, you can also use 1/2 of a plastic cup taped just above the water's surface so the cut edges of the cup are down in the water, creating a 'U' shaped space for the betta to make his bubblenest in.
Once your male and female are fat and ready, introduce the male into the tank. Allow him 4-6 days to acclimate, etablish himself comfortably, and build a sizeable bubblenest. The water conditions should induce this behavior in him naturally. Feed sparingly and suck out any uneaten food and poop with the baster/syringe. If he doesn't after 6 days are up, you'll just have to go back to power feeding him and see if he's up to it later. If he does nest, you can add the female into the container at the center of the tank on the seventh day. You might want to put saranwrap (with a ventilation slit!) or a lid of some sort on this container so they don't try to get at each other too early. Both wiill probably be aggressive initially. Give them about three days of him flaring and building up his nest for her. Feed them both very sparingly and remove uneaten food and poop.
The female will show she is ready to mate by tilting her head down and displaying vertical stripes on her sides. Not horizontal! Horizontal only means that she is submissive and unwilling! So when she has her stripes going the right way (she may display both, that's ok) you can release her into the tank. He will chase and nip at her. As long as she doesn't attack back or become too damaged, allow them to do this. It's a part of the mating process for him to dominate her and make sure she is no threat to him and is under his control. He will eventually lead her over to the bubblenest and curl his body around her. They will 'embrace' and she will release some of her eggs. One or both may be temporarily stunned by this process. This is normal. The male will gather the eggs up from the tank bottom, roll them in his mouth to coat them in sticky saliva, and take them to the nest where he will spit them into the bubbles. The female may help him, remain motionless, or even eat some of her eggs. This is normal. They will mate several times releasing anywhere between 100-300 eggs or more before the male finally chases the female away. Wait until he's calmed down and is guarding the nest at the opposite end before retrieving her (she'll probably be hiding behind that convenient little rock you placed in the tank for her! Out of site, out of mind, right?)
The male will attend to any eggs that fell from the nest at this point. Return the female to a solitary tank treated lightly with anti-fungal meds and feed vigorously to help her regrow any lost or damaged finnage and recover from the stressful ordeal!
[cont'd after my lunch break!
]
