Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens)
- Thread starter DGC
- Start date
Oh, here's a bit of interesting info you might be interested in.
In the wild, obviously the bettas are not agressive as our bettas. But, basically, here's how it works. Males make territories and defend their bubblenest's location against other fish. Females don't have a territory and just keep swimming until they find a male that suits them with a good bubble nest. If they don't like the guy, they move on, and there's not much the guy can do because he can't leave his bubble nest area for too long.
here's another great site to read up on breeding: http://bettysplendens.com/articles/catview.imp?catid=855 there are so many ways to breed. I know a lady who breeds bettas. She has everything from really large and heavily planted tanks with two or three breeding pairs to large buckets outside in the summer that are heavily planted where the fry grow up eating just mosquito larve and whatever else grows in the buckets. It's amazing because it seems like everything she does get's decent turn outs with great fry, even though she doesn't do the typical breeding ways. But then again she's been breeding for years, so she has great fish pairs and knows how to handle them.
In the wild, obviously the bettas are not agressive as our bettas. But, basically, here's how it works. Males make territories and defend their bubblenest's location against other fish. Females don't have a territory and just keep swimming until they find a male that suits them with a good bubble nest. If they don't like the guy, they move on, and there's not much the guy can do because he can't leave his bubble nest area for too long.
here's another great site to read up on breeding: http://bettysplendens.com/articles/catview.imp?catid=855 there are so many ways to breed. I know a lady who breeds bettas. She has everything from really large and heavily planted tanks with two or three breeding pairs to large buckets outside in the summer that are heavily planted where the fry grow up eating just mosquito larve and whatever else grows in the buckets. It's amazing because it seems like everything she does get's decent turn outs with great fry, even though she doesn't do the typical breeding ways. But then again she's been breeding for years, so she has great fish pairs and knows how to handle them.
Maybe. looking at the fish you have in there, it could be risky. I think females, if they are with other fish, do best in a group of 3 or so.
As to the 10 gal tank, doesn't your Betta eat the babies?
As to the 10 gal tank, doesn't your Betta eat the babies?
Personally I'm against breeding petstore bettas (sort of like buying a petstore puppy and breeding him or her), but yes, she'd be fine, so long as she has her hiding spots and the tankmates are peaceful.
edit: gouramis and bettas are closely related, and do fight, but because it's so large and probably planted, I'd say you might be able to do it. Hiding spots are necessary so she's got to be able to get away from them or them from her. You'd have to keep a close eye on them, even in such a large tank.
Make sure you research, research, research, and are prepared. Breeding is a long process, conditioning can take one or two weeks, spawning is expensive, risky for even bettas in their prime, and the actual spawning can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, the fry are free swimming at two or three days, but then you've got a few months of feeding them microworms and other live or frozen foods (They rarely accept frozen or pre-made food) as well as daily water changes up for you, then finding and jarring the males, then finding them homes. In the end, you could get anywhere from hundreds to no fry. It can be fun (I plan on breeding in a year or so when I can buy a quality pair), and from the blogs and threads I've read of other breeders, it's rewarding.
edit: gouramis and bettas are closely related, and do fight, but because it's so large and probably planted, I'd say you might be able to do it. Hiding spots are necessary so she's got to be able to get away from them or them from her. You'd have to keep a close eye on them, even in such a large tank.
Make sure you research, research, research, and are prepared. Breeding is a long process, conditioning can take one or two weeks, spawning is expensive, risky for even bettas in their prime, and the actual spawning can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, the fry are free swimming at two or three days, but then you've got a few months of feeding them microworms and other live or frozen foods (They rarely accept frozen or pre-made food) as well as daily water changes up for you, then finding and jarring the males, then finding them homes. In the end, you could get anywhere from hundreds to no fry. It can be fun (I plan on breeding in a year or so when I can buy a quality pair), and from the blogs and threads I've read of other breeders, it's rewarding.
I bred bettas about 20 yrs ago. I had a 4ft x15"x15" community tank with 1 m/3f in, no agression problems as i had lots of hiding places for the females. Eventually i set up an 18"x12"x10" deep tank with a divider in the middle, some floating plants and a small u/g filter. Put the male in 1 side, female in the other. The male was building a bubble nest within the first 10 mins. I fed them both on bloodworm and brine shrimp(livefoods) to condition them. After about 10 days the nest was approx 8" across and maybe 2" above the water. The divider was then raised about 2" so the fish had access to each other. They were spawning within minutes. The male would display in front of the female, she would nudge his flank and then he would swim just below his nest and she would follow. He would then wrap his body around hers and sqeeze some eggs from her. You can actually see the eggs falling, they are about 1mm across and white. He then let go of her and swam down to collect the eggs, spitting them up into the nest. The first time this happened, the female just floated to the substrate, i thought he had killed her. When she hit the substrate she came round and swam away, then the process was repeated till she was empty of eggs. This took about 30 mins. He kept trying to coax her back to the nest, but she had no eggs left, so she was removed from the tank and placed in a breeder net for 2 days to recover. The male then sat below the nest fanning the eggs and picking up any that fell out. After 2 days the eggs hatched and i could see the fry tails hanging down, again the male put back any that fell out. Another 2 days and the male was removed and put back in the community tank with the other females and the 1 he had spawned with. He is best removed after 2/3 days as he will then start to look on his fry as live food. The fry were fed on newly hatched brine shrimp and infusoria. I also prepared a high protien diet for them from scraped ox liver, egg whites, a liitle amount of ox blood and egglayer fry food(this stuff really stinks after 2 days), which i kept in the fridge and fed into the grow out tank with an eye dropper. Within 12 weeks they were approx 1" long and all the males were seperated into jars which were left floating in the growout tank. females left in tank. The jars were cleaned every day and my fry grew to be beautifully finned and coloured. I never tried to spawn them again, as i only did it to see if i could. All the fry went to my lfs and i was told the males were some of the best they had ever seen. If you take your time and do it right you will have lots of pleasure breeding these, but PLEASE, watch them and remove the female as soon as she seems to have had enough or the male will kill her. Good luck in your venture.Chris.
