ok i went out and bought two betta's: one male and of course a female. i've read up on everything as i normally do with new additions to the house and well i've read on almost every site i've been on that i need to feed them live food to condition them for breeding. number one: is that true? number two: what should i feed them in that case? number three: how much should i feed them? and how long will it take the female to actually be ready to well "do what they do" she has that little tube thing stickin out but i've also not been able to get any info about the point where she sees the male and gets ready for breeding with the little ventral tube thingy and her having the eggs. is she supposed to have the eggs before they "do what they do" or what? i haven't found anything contradicting that thought nor enforcing it. so plz if u can help me out here!
Startin to breed bettas
- Thread starter mtiller
- Start date
Live food is not required, frozen brine and bloodworms will suffice just fine. Feed both fish that for a week or so, then in a small clear container let the female float in the breeding tank, the male should then go to build a bubble nest, and will start displaying to her and attempting to get her to follow him over to the nest. If she displays back and acts interested rather than scared, she may be ready. The only way to tell for sure is by releasing her into the tank from the container and watch what happens. If the male goes after her, bites her and such and she goes for cover, she's not ready, if she stays and takes his hits, she most likely is ready and will follow him to the nest in a little bit of time. However you need to watch them during these excursions, take her out immediately if things get too rough, and try again 6-10hrs later. It may take a couple days to get to the point where she is ready after conditioning.
Ok, now when they do spawn, as soon as the female is done laying very often the male will shortly there after tear after her and rip her up good, take her out then, but be careful of the bubble nest. For the next week to week and a half leave the male with the eggs/fry. Now chances are the male may not do things right as this would most likely be his first time spawning. The male will tend to the eggs, bubble nest, and fry for up to 2-3 weeks, but its best to remove him from the tank after 3-4 days of free swimming stage for the fry. The reason behind this is at this point he is getting exhausted tending to the fry and such for a good long time, and he is gonna need food soon (don't feed him during this time) if he doesn't get away from the fry, he may eat them just because he is gettin pretty hungry.
Now on to care of the fry, you will need to have an infusoria culture going before hand, basically what ya do add some plant matter to a jar, fish wastes, and then throw it in a sunny location, eventually it should get nice and bright green. Another trick is for the breeding tank, have the bottom half of the tank basically covered in Java moss, or at least a good portion, this will greatly increase the survival rate of the fry as numerous micro-organisms grow in the moss and will be food readily available to the fry, along with the infusoria. After a week or so of this, the fry may be ready to feed on Baby brine shrimp. A day or two ahead of this time, start your brine shrimp culture going so they will be hatched and still very small, feed small doses of them at first to make sure the fry are infact eating the BBS. Another week after this you can start with a fairly regular diet, brine, chopped up bloodworms, FINALLY crushed flakes/pellets (to subsitute the BBS you could also use Golden Pearls in the smallest diameter available) Golden pearls in the larger diameters can also be used at this point.
Now at a month to a month and a half old you should be able to start identifying the males, it will be time to start separating them out. The only practical way to do this is into gallon sized (idealy) Jars, one male for each. Make sure the room is around 80*F to maintain good water temp, and you'll need to do 80% or so water changes on EACH jar EVERY day. The females can be reared in one tank together.
This part is something you really need to consider before you do breed. You will end up with a potential of a 100-200 males out of this one spawn, and another 100-200 females. That means that many jars for one spawn, and a couple 55gal tanks for the females. Since these are your typical LFS bettas your breeding, you won't get much money at all for them, basically you will get 60 cents to $1 for each fish, if that. You will also need to rear these fish to 3-4 months of age before selling them, thats a big time and money investment for very little back. Keep this in consideration, I've bred them before and it is alot of work.
Hope this helps,
Brian
Ok, now when they do spawn, as soon as the female is done laying very often the male will shortly there after tear after her and rip her up good, take her out then, but be careful of the bubble nest. For the next week to week and a half leave the male with the eggs/fry. Now chances are the male may not do things right as this would most likely be his first time spawning. The male will tend to the eggs, bubble nest, and fry for up to 2-3 weeks, but its best to remove him from the tank after 3-4 days of free swimming stage for the fry. The reason behind this is at this point he is getting exhausted tending to the fry and such for a good long time, and he is gonna need food soon (don't feed him during this time) if he doesn't get away from the fry, he may eat them just because he is gettin pretty hungry.
Now on to care of the fry, you will need to have an infusoria culture going before hand, basically what ya do add some plant matter to a jar, fish wastes, and then throw it in a sunny location, eventually it should get nice and bright green. Another trick is for the breeding tank, have the bottom half of the tank basically covered in Java moss, or at least a good portion, this will greatly increase the survival rate of the fry as numerous micro-organisms grow in the moss and will be food readily available to the fry, along with the infusoria. After a week or so of this, the fry may be ready to feed on Baby brine shrimp. A day or two ahead of this time, start your brine shrimp culture going so they will be hatched and still very small, feed small doses of them at first to make sure the fry are infact eating the BBS. Another week after this you can start with a fairly regular diet, brine, chopped up bloodworms, FINALLY crushed flakes/pellets (to subsitute the BBS you could also use Golden Pearls in the smallest diameter available) Golden pearls in the larger diameters can also be used at this point.
Now at a month to a month and a half old you should be able to start identifying the males, it will be time to start separating them out. The only practical way to do this is into gallon sized (idealy) Jars, one male for each. Make sure the room is around 80*F to maintain good water temp, and you'll need to do 80% or so water changes on EACH jar EVERY day. The females can be reared in one tank together.
This part is something you really need to consider before you do breed. You will end up with a potential of a 100-200 males out of this one spawn, and another 100-200 females. That means that many jars for one spawn, and a couple 55gal tanks for the females. Since these are your typical LFS bettas your breeding, you won't get much money at all for them, basically you will get 60 cents to $1 for each fish, if that. You will also need to rear these fish to 3-4 months of age before selling them, thats a big time and money investment for very little back. Keep this in consideration, I've bred them before and it is alot of work.
Hope this helps,
Brian
ok so when does she get the eggs? does she have them when they start to mate or does she have them before and then release them? and i happened to have gotten goldfish fry in the same tank with my corydora they prob. hatched from the anacharis and cabomba plants in my pond and now atleast two are in the tank with the corydora and ghost shrimp. will they be ok? i'm not worried about the ones in my pond cause i have plenty of plants for them to hide in. so any additional advice would be much appreciated and thanx for replying!
I would have a separate tank for the breeding. A 10gal is fine, lower the water level down to 4-5". The female releases eggs while with the male, basically the male will wrap his body around her in such a way that she will be in a state of paraylisis for a few moments, releases eggs, the male then goes and catches the eggs and spits them up into the bubble nest. The female will release anywhere from 1 to 20 eggs at a time. This will repeat for an hour or so until with a well conditioned female you'll have several hundred eggs. Again a separate tank just for the spawning is what you want, the male gets extremely protective of the eggs and fry, and could potentially end up killing anything else in the tank, and it is best to have just the betta fry in the tank after you remove the male as the other fish may eat the fry.
Here's a good pic of a female ready to breed...verticle strips evident...
You need to have them where they can see each other, but not get at each other. I used a hurricane lamp cover in a 10gallon for this. I had the female in the hurricane lamp set inside the 10gallon...with the male swimming around in the 10.
When you see the female following the male with verticle stripes..(not horizontal...horizontal stripes denote stress)....especially if she points nose down when the male comes by...and the male has started making a good bubblenest..swimming by the female and then to the nest...... That's when you can let the female in with the male.
You need to have them where they can see each other, but not get at each other. I used a hurricane lamp cover in a 10gallon for this. I had the female in the hurricane lamp set inside the 10gallon...with the male swimming around in the 10.
When you see the female following the male with verticle stripes..(not horizontal...horizontal stripes denote stress)....especially if she points nose down when the male comes by...and the male has started making a good bubblenest..swimming by the female and then to the nest...... That's when you can let the female in with the male.
Oh,
GOOD LUCK!! I bred bettas about a year ago and it was an awesome expirence. One website that is awesome is fishjunkies.com, they had a whole section on bettas and breeding etc, and an awwesome forum!
Pufferpeep :dive2:
GOOD LUCK!! I bred bettas about a year ago and it was an awesome expirence. One website that is awesome is fishjunkies.com, they had a whole section on bettas and breeding etc, and an awwesome forum!
Pufferpeep :dive2:
You're a lot braver than I am. I wouldn't know what to do with 200+ baby fish. Let us know how it goes and post pictures if you can!
I did the 200 plus betta fry thing once......just once.....lol....that was enough for me !
Mtiller....it's at least a 6 month process.....if you get hundreds of babies...that will be lots of individual cups/bowls to put them in while they grow...which you will have to do when they get about 3 months old. Then it's another 3 months at least of growing before they're big enough to sell...so you'll be cleaning out all those little cups/bowls every day or every other day for at least 3 months.......also, you better look for an lfs to take them before you start....lol.....or give them away.....if you can.
Good Luck !
Mtiller....it's at least a 6 month process.....if you get hundreds of babies...that will be lots of individual cups/bowls to put them in while they grow...which you will have to do when they get about 3 months old. Then it's another 3 months at least of growing before they're big enough to sell...so you'll be cleaning out all those little cups/bowls every day or every other day for at least 3 months.......also, you better look for an lfs to take them before you start....lol.....or give them away.....if you can.
Good Luck !
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