Do white marks on betta indicate ready for breeding?

do white marks on the sides of my bettas fins mean its ready and a good time to breed? Miley

 

Not if its a male - on a female she will have vertical bars, if shes got horizontal bars its a sign that shes stressed. Has your male only recently acquired these white stripes?

 

no ... he is a male crowntail.  it may just be his natural coloration but some where I read that they get those white ends when its a good age to breed them - and I know that he is rather young because of his size.  hes maybe an inch long mouth to end of tail....     also how would I be able to tell what his temperment is - you know like to see if he would be a good breeding fish or not - my sister has a betta and I had a female and we tried breeding them but her fish was too aggressive.  is there any way to test that or no?   thnx Miley

 

Miley,

You have already had the breeding of Bettas discussed with you and you do NOT have the equipment, help, or ability to BREED bettas. It is best left to the people who know what they are doing. You and your sister were very lucky BOTH fish did not kill each other. Breeding bettas is something best left to the professionals or people who have been keeping fish a lot longer and with much better luck than you have had.

Here are the minimum requirements for equipment just for starters:

10 gallon breeding tank - filtered, cycled, and heated
5 gallon quarantine tank for the female to go to after breeding
LARGE grow up tank for the female fry (like 55 gallon or so)
about 100 small containers for the male fry

All of this equipment needs to be cleaned daily after the spawning takes place and the fry are hatched. There are NO shortcuts. When the little males go into the small containers to keep them from killing each other, guess what, they ALL have to have 50% water changes EVERY day or the fins will be deformed and the fry will be unhealthy or dead. The large tank will also need a 50% water change EVERY day or same thing for the females.
If you are not prepared and the fish finish spawning and are left together for even a short time, they WILL injure or kill each other.

You do not even have a large tank for either of the bettas, as I understand it and neither of them are being cycled or filtered or heated. You do not have any business getting into breeding bettas. Even when you get the equipment, you have a lot of learning about fish in general, let alone bettas before you have the ability to do any thing like this.

The professionals and breeders who have done this before have spent more than just a small amount of time or money getting their fish ready and they READ, READ, READ and study what to do so they do not lose their fish.

The IDEA of breeding bettas may seem tempting and I cannot stop you from trying if that is what you are going to do, but you will not be able to say that you have not been warned about the consequences.

LOTS of hard work
LOTS of expense
LOTS of risk to your fish if you do not do it correctly or get lazy about the maintenance

Rose

 

Chickadee is correct, ive done it and its such a tedious job! if you're not prepared you're going to lose not only your fry but your breeding pair too! its taken me loads of reading and researching to get it right, I was also coached by someone!!! but up until now ive never experimented with more expensive strains of bettas.

Ill never forget my first experience with trying to breed, they spawned and then the female killed the male, the male tends to the eggs and fry. my female later died obviously from the injuries substained and the fry hatched and very few survived, I was ill prepared and eventually all died. that was before I stumbled across fishlore!

 

hI this aint a good message and isn't approprite for this topic but I love neons to

cheers james

 

Thanks for reading the thread James! I also like neons!

 

I would like to breed Bettas. I would like to know how to identify the right time for getting the males and female together. How to maintain the tank in more detail. Is there some place I can read on this?

Thanks

 

It requires a lot of equipment not just one tank...here is a partial listing just for starters.

At least 10 gallon tank for breeding tank

A 5 gallon tank for recovery of female after breeding (she cannot go back to community tank or with other fish until she is recovered for a time)

A 5 gallon tank for recovery of the male after he is finished tending the fry

A 55 gallon tank or such to raise the female fry in

At least 100 small jars that can be used to house the male fry (may need more depending on size of the spawning)

All of the above containers will need to have 50% water changes DAILY until you are finished with the selling of the fish. Where those who breed other fish can eventually let the filter take over after they reach a certain size, this never happens with the bettas as the small containers for the males are not cycled and heated generally in a home type operation. It is an every day job and has to be done as with the build-up of nitrites and nitrates, not to mention ammonia; it can wipe out the whole compliment of fry or at the very least cause them to be deformed beyond selling.

If you go to the Google site or Search on the browser page, it should give you a lot of different sources of information. There are also many good books on bettas and all of them would have information on breeding them. It is my personal opinion that unless you have a staff of people working for you or you are prepared to work VERY hard for months until they would be ready to leave your care, breeding bettas is best left to the professionals. It is not a money making proposition and demands a lot of time.

Rose

 

Thanks a lot. My earlier Betta pair did spwan. The Eggs hatched too. But I did not know how to handle them. Finally lost all the fry and the female. I would like to give it a try again. Will let you know how I progress. One doubt, Is there any apparatus or trick by which the female can be isolated and remove from the tank without disturbing the eggs. I am worried, while trying to remove the female the eggs shouldn't get disturbed.

 

They do make fish traps but I will tell you they will not work in the circumstance of breeding bettas. Time is of the essence when you need to get those fish seperated...you are not going to have the time to set the thing up and catch the fish as the parent fish can and will injure or even kill each other. When it is time for her to be removed, the fish are going to have to be seperated immediately or there will be bloodshed.

Rose

 

Ok Thanks.

 

I just happened to stumble upon this thread, though I'm a bit confused about where the Neons came in at?? ???

Anyway, thanks for the info. The idea of breeding Bettas crossed my mind, but I guess it's out of the question for me since I don't have that much time or that many tanks. Why do the female fry need such a large tank for??

Does anyone know of any Betta breeders in the Columbus area? (Not that I'd be able to get anymore now since I already have 1 male.) I just really love the Halfmoons. I didn't even know such a thing existed! Don't get me wrong, I still really like the veil tails too.

 

The females will be in there for several months and there will be a lot of them. They will need to have room to grow and the amount of biological load they will produce need that amount of space.

Rose

 

I am so glad I found this thread.I had also thought of breeding bettas but I don't have the time to do so.

 

I am so glad I found this thread.I had also thought of breeding bettas but I don't have the time to do so.

me too!!

 

yo, first post,
need help,
me and my buddy are interested in breeding bettas,
but we can't find a place to purchase betta cups,
you know those nice professional looking ones at petco,
and how will I sell my bettas? since I am 15 no store will take me seriosly,
advice-help-suggestions? any body?

 

Hey Miley ,
Let me encourage you - we know how you feel, we'd love to breed our little white DR female Angel to a HM or OHM, so we looked around the web & found a lot of info on how to breed Bettas successfully. What happened with you & your sisters bettas was that they weren't conditioned, or 'in the mood'. A friend of ours ended up with a dead female when she tried breeding her 2 bettas. The male actually attacked the female, killed her & threw her out of the tank onto the carpet. Please read this message & the links that I'll include, along with your sister & anyone else who you can count on to help you with raising the baby Bettas.

I say if you really want to mate your Bettas and can get ALL the stuff you need before starting and a place to set it up and can spend the time you'll need to on the babies (pretty much there goes having a life for a few months) and have a plan for the babies when they're old enough to go to new homes, then go for it. You might have to save up for a little while (we sure will have to), but that will give you a chance to read lots of info online so you can be better prepared to try. I'd say try over summer break because it'll take so much of your time every day and get all the help you can lined up.

What we've found is that they need to be conditioned & introduced properly before you can let them be together.
- this is a good page for seeing how to prepare them and goes thru 72 hours after spawning. I like it because it's real detailed and has a lot of pics to help show what you have to do. Lots of equipment and time for sure, huh? We were surprised at all the work it is and how much space we'd need.. like an entire room devoted to the BIG Betta family we'd have. It's on a cichlid site, but it shows how to build the brine shrimp hatchery to hatch the baby brine shrimp to feed your baby bettas. If we do mate Angel, we'll build 2 of those to be sure of having enough food for the babies. I think those 2 pages give you a good idea on where to start as far as the equipment you need for the mating.

Before you do the mating, you'll want a 55 gallon for the female babies setup & cycled and i'd say you'd probably want to order about 200 jars or the acrylic mini-tanks they use a lot in Thailand for baby male Bettas, just to be sure you have enough.. sometimes a Betta mating can yield over 300 or 400 Betta fry and who knows how many males you'd get. You can probably order them from one of the online fish stores.

If the mating is successful, I think that the hardest part is afterwards, when you have the baby bettas to deal with for a few months, depending on how many eggs your female produces. You'll want to stock up on water conditioners (AmQuel+ & NovAqua or Prime are good) for the water (get enough for at least 1000 gallons) you'll be treating to do those 50% water changes & LOTS of baby Betta food for them once they're off of eating baby brine shrimp. Stock up on the different meds Bettas need (like Fungus Clear, Maracyn, Maracyn-2, Furan (I think that's the name) so you can treat babies when they get sick - bound to happen with so many of them. You'll probably want a few small quarantine tanks for sick female babies to treat them since it'd be a real pain to treat 55 gallons & not good for the healthy ones anyways.

Anyways, that's kind of the basics to doing a good Betta breeding. I think if we ever do mate Angel, we'll put a radio or multi-disc cd player on loop in the Betta room, so the babies always have someone to listen to since they love being talked to.

Kind of overwhelming, huh? It is to us too, but I guess it's just how it is with breeding Bettas. They're such great fish so we want to do it right. Little Angel's my baby & I don't want to have her die because I didn't do it right. For now, we can't breed her - we just don't know enough or have the space & time.

Don't let it discourage you though, ok? Just educate yourself real good on everything you can find about breeding Bettas & get all of the right supplies and then you won't end up just wasting time & tons of money and/or losing your little Betta & who knows, maybe one day you'll end up working as a Betta show breeder. You love your little guy and are guaranteed to fall in love with the adorable babies, so you want to have the knowledge & ability to do it right. If you're not sure, keep it as an idea to do in the future when you are sure.

I just got an idea that might save you TONS of money but still give you the experience of breeding - try to find out if there are any breeders in your area that would apprentice you. You could learn hands-on from an expert and then when you do a breeding yourself, you'll have the ability to pull it off successfully and produce healthy Bettas. The breeder could also teach you about the science of breeding show Bettas, getting a certain color, etc.

Here's some more links on Betta mating to get you started (you can find more off google & google for info on raising the babies):

 

yo, first post,
need help,
me and my buddy are interested in breeding bettas,
but we can't find a place to purchase betta cups,
you know those nice professional looking ones at petco,
and how will I sell my bettas? since I am 15 no store will take me seriosly,
advice-help-suggestions? any body?

Hey,
Read my post to Miley about breeding Bettas - it'll give you a bunch of links about breeding them & what's involved. You'll need jars meant for baby bettas or small acrylic tanks for raising the males in.. those cups are meant to be just temporary and for displaying them for sale. Probably would have to sell them locally thru advertising in the paper or something or sell them online at sites like eBay & Aquabid if you want the expense of shipping them in the appropriate shipping boxes & all, overnight with cold/heat packs. After all the money you'd have to spend on them from start to finish, it'd probably be a low or no-profit deal with all the setup costs, money spent over the months of raising them, the online auctions fees & trips to the PO, doing all the little forms for overnight shipping. Like Rose said, it's not a money making proposition - without a professional setup to produce the way they do, it's something you do solely for the love of Bettas and have to commit so much time & money to that most people don't try it.

 

Thanks a lot. My earlier Betta pair did spwan. The Eggs hatched too. But I did not know how to handle them. Finally lost all the fry and the female. I would like to give it a try again. Will let you know how I progress. One doubt, Is there any apparatus or trick by which the female can be isolated and remove from the tank without disturbing the eggs. I am worried, while trying to remove the female the eggs shouldn't get disturbed.

- this link tells how to remove and isolate the female with minimal disturbance to the eggs, along with the setup to make that easier to do.

 

I'd,
it takes more than i'de hoped,
i'll invest more into one quart jars,and food,thanxs a lot FLBettaCouple  :]]

 

I thought about breeding betta's now I would not touch it. thanks for sharing the info. I have to females in tank and I will not get a male to save my life. to much work... again thanks for the info

 

I thought about breeding betta's now I would not touch it. thanks for sharing the info. I have to females in tank and I will not get a male to save my life. to much work... again thanks for the info

No prob.. we only found the info because we thought about it to. We still might, but it'll be a while from now if ever because of all the expense & time plus needing a whole extra room just for the bettas.

I love female Bettas.. little Angel is my favorite. Feel free to post your Bettas pics anytime, we'd love to see them.

 

thank u all for ur replies but I definitally am not going to breed any betta - especially since we only have two males! lol. Miley

 

thank u all for ur replies but I definitally am not going to breed any betta - especially since we only have two males! lol. Miley

LOL.. yea, that might give you some really unusual baby Bettas!

 

Just wanted to tell you, FLBettaCouple, I watched your videos yesterday, and Angle is beautiful! I saw a male this morning on Aquabid that would be a really nice mate!!!! I know, not now! but they would be lovely together!

Fish in the Frozen North 8)

 

Just wanted to tell you, FLBettaCouple, I watched your videos yesterday, and Angle is beautiful! I saw a male this morning on Aquabid that would be a really nice mate!!!! I know, not now! but they would be lovely together!

Fish in the Frozen North 8)

LOL.. Oh the temptation!.. yea, it's hard to resist but someday soon we hope.. Then we'll have LOTS of white betta adolescents to sell to good home we hope. Thanks, Angel is a find, can you believe she was there at least 2 days before we got her.. ???

 

hI all!!

just read this post and although I'm not breeding bettas I was a little confused... :-\

are the jars that house the male bettas when they become aggresive heated?????? there must be ALOT of jars, no?

???

 

If we had a big betta room setup, we'd keep the room itself warm enough that the water in the jars would be at the right temp since they couldn't be individually heated.