Breeding Betta Questions

[Narwhal72]

You may actually have better luck breeding them in the smaller tank instead of the 20H.

Put the female in the tank and provide her plenty of plants for cover or divide the tank in half with a piece of acrylic. A small sponge filter with very low air flow can be added but you may not need any aeration at all. You don't want the water surface to be disturbed. I add a styrofoam cup cut in half top to bottom as a shelter for the male to build a bubble nest.

After breeding remove the female, After the eggs hatch remove the male. Males only care for fry until they become free swimming. After that, they will prey on the fry.

The reason I recommend the smaller tank is that it is a lot easier to maintain feed density in the smaller tank than the larger one. You need to add a lot more infusoria, microworms, and baby brine shrimp to the larger tank than the smaller one to maintain sufficient density for the fry. That just leads to more waste in the tank and problems with water quality. Once the fry have grown a bit you can move them to a larger tank to grow out.

Andy

 

[Windy]

Another thing, if the female isn't ready to breed, the male will chase her and if he catches her, he will kill her. Talk about voluntary fish murder in the fish world. Oh my.

 

[FeelinALittleFishy]

What I like to do is put some Indian almond leaves in then put the male in. Once he is on a live/frozen food diet for about a week ( same with the female ). I put her in a breeding container for about 2 days. If I see her bloated it's good sign that means she has eggs. If the male is ready to spawn he will have a nice bubble nest and also he will be flareing