momiji345

Hi every body my fish are doing very well.Me and my friend are going to breed betta. (Its my first time breeding)I read about how to breed I need more info
.Both of of fish likes each other.Don't weary there is class diving thing in her tank(her tank is bigger then my)The tank is about 25 gallon.Do we have to get a bigger tank.Do we have to get see through plastic cup.

plz give us more info
Thank you

mathas

Fishlore has this article on breeding bettas, as well as a subforum devoted entirely to that topic found here where you can ask any questions you may have after reading the article.

Lucy

I think you'll find it's much for involved than putting a male and a female together.
There's a lot of work involved.

This is a good source of info:

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/fi...g-project.html

Alessa

to breed betta you need to know the pedigree of both parents preferibly, you can find good breeding pairs in aquabid for under $100. This is to make sure the offspring will be quality offspring and not the common pet store betta. The reason why the common pet store betta cannot be bred is because you never know how their genetics are and you may end up loosing the work of months with dying fry or birth defects. Also, who would buy common bettas for a price higher than at petco... specially when there are so many? Also know what traits do you want the offspring to have, and have a general knowledge of basic mendelian genetics and betta traits.

you need to condition the pair for two weeks with high quality food, and then place the girl in an open ended container inside of the tank where the male is. The water must have a indian almond leafs, or the extract.

you need to watch over the pair for hours a day for several days, and see if they are accepting each other and are no longer agressive. when the male is bubble-nesting and she seems interested you release her. if they dont fight and end up shreding themselves up or killing each other fine, if they do fight move her back in the enclosure and repeat. some pairs wont even like each other, and you wont realize that until you've lost a lot of time and money and probably one of the pair.

when the "embrace" begins and they spawn, remove the girl from the tank or she can decide to eat the eggs or kill the male. Then the dad will pick up the falling eggs and deposit them in the nest. If the dad isnt a good one he will eat his eggs/fry, again, spoiling the proccess.

You must have a live brine shrimp hatchery for the fry to eat. When they are free swimming remove the dad from the tank. when you start noticing who is a boy and who is a girl, the males should be placed in individual containers, and the water changed daily. you must know there could be LOTS of fry that need food and clean water every day until they are gone.

you must also sacrifice or "cull" any fry with birth defects.

I am by no means an expert and only know the theory. but what i know is that this is one of the most difficult fish there is to breed and that it takes a lot of time and tons of money. Hopefully pandora will be here soon, shes the expert.

Martinismommy

Not only is it a lot of work but it is also a LOT of money....There are so many things you need to consider before attempting this....One of them being one or both Bettas may end up dead in the end......

What are your reasons for wanting to breed?

Angela_96

From watching my stepdad breed betta fry over and over one thing is certain, the betta you buy in the pet stores are not quality bettas for breeding. He has took care of and raised several batches only to loose all of the batches after 5 months of tiny tanks and daily water changes and lots of money invested in fry food, bb shrimp, and time.

You may want to invest in a good breeding pair from a breeder or on aquabid, then remember you will need several small tanks to seperate the fry once they get so old.

Breeding bettas are def a lot of hard work, and require daily water changes.

Martinismommy

Yes, I have to agree with you Angela.....There is no way anyone should even consider breeding stock from the pet stores...You have no idea of the genetics or age...If you are going to do all the work you may as well do it for something really nice and worthy of breeding..This has been one of my biggest investments is my new breeding pairs....

Angela_96

I told my stepdad that I would get him a breeding pair off of aquabid as soon as I had the chance to really look for a pair for him. He really enjoys working with the fish, doing the water changes, etc. Besides he has a birthday coming up... a perfect gift to keep him busy lol...

momiji345

Thank you

Allie

Where are you from? There are a lot people who sell quality betta. PM me if you'd like a link to a site that most of them frequent.

Pandora

As everyone's said, betta breeding is quite a lot of work and time (and $$ when first setting up). I agree with Martinismommy that if you are going to invest in what it takes to raise a spawn, you're better off finding a breeding quality pair. It's a lot easier to find them now than when I first started breeding, and you're far less likely to end up with a hundred young bettas you can't give away! There's getting to be more and more Canadians breeding, so take Allie up on her offer to help you find someone. As well, there's a transhipment from Thailand pretty much every month (except winter). I sometimes have fry, but wont' have any ready for at least another couple of months.

Alessa and the links others posted had a pretty good summary of what you need to know, and if you still think you want to breed after researching what is involved, I'll be happy to help with any questions you might have, as I'm sure will anyone else with some experience! Bare necessities to start are: 5-10 gal spawn tank, heated, with sponge filter (need sponge filter, air pump, airline tubing), housing for male and female pre and post spawning, container or lamp glass to separate the pair in the spawn tank, good conditioning foods for the adults (mix of live, frozen, and quality pellets) live foods for fry (baby brine shrimp and microworms if you can get them), and start collecting jars (min 1 quart, 1/2 gal is better) for the fry once they get to 2-3 months old. Also.. time and patience! When I have juvies, I tend to spend min 2-3 hours a day changing water, and usually an hour or 2 feeding. So... no social life for me!

Good luck

momiji345

Do we have to get see through plastic cup.

Alessa

What do you mean? If you mean a container for the girl to be inside the tank, I already said in the above post I made: [quote]place the girl in an open ended container inside of the tank where the male is[QUOTE/]

It cannot be a plastic cup. It has to be open-ended since the girl needs access to fresh air. Lamp glass or a transparent jar should work.

If you mean for the tons of fry... yes, you'd need at least 50 jars for housing the possible males you may get.

I dont want to be annoying but I find the need to repeat the question MM asked: "why do you want to breed them?"

momiji345

We are go to give some to friends and family and keep some girls well my friend .One of my friends really wanted one Betta but her mom said it was to much to pay in store .She has 6 gallon tank and heating am not very sure its big (she use to have fishes a long tme a go)Her mom was ok to give it for her birthday.We have about 41 friends and family that are on the list that they want a Betta.Most are friends.They have talk with there mom and dad that if they can get one.

Allie

You do know they can have up to 500 eggs laid right?

momiji345

o my goooooooooood thank you for the infoI think it was about 300 and some thing.lol i need to really read more info

We ask if some of are teachers want some so now were up to 56 people.We may have to sell some.But some of the eggs/fry dies.Most of them will live.

Alessa

Unless you have pedigree quality parents... I doubt anyone else would want the other 444.

at least if you get the quality parents you could sell the others in aquabid, and people would pay good money for them, at least making up for the cost of the breeding which is a lot.

clinton1621

Umm... not to sound argumentative, but fish in the wild dont have pedigrees, and there is nothing wrong with them when they breed... in fact the original bettas look nothing like the bettas of now, they were selectively bred just to make color and tail variations. So yes by breeding plain run of the mill fish then you probably wont get any spectacular variants, but they are not going to all be mutants or deformed... they will look like plain run of the mill colored bettas.

sirdarksol

Agreed. If you can find enough people willing to buy regular bettas, then yes, this could work well (though unhealthy parents from a crummy petstore are likely to birth unhealthy fry).

I think what people are getting at is that the market is pretty flooded with run-of-the-mill bettas, meaning Momiji and her friends may be stuck with dozens (hundreds if the breeding is uncommonly successful) of relatively healthy, pretty, but common bettas.

LuvaBetta

My problem is that they just don't breed! I had some beautiful half-moons off Aquabid. The male and the female were actively interested at first, he blew a beautiful bubble nest, when I released her he courted her, but they just never bred. Now, after three weeks they're still in the tank swimming around happily ignoring each other. The catappa leaf turned the water a pretty tea-color (I've since done several changes, of course!), they both eat well, are in good condition, but no babies. I tried her with another sibling male and she flat tore him up. So - they're just good buds, I guess! It's kinda disappointing.