How to breed betta?

I bought a male crowntail betta and a unidentify female betta today.
I have read the article in this website about breeding betta. However I don't really get it X(

I try to put them in the same tank, but end up the female was being attacked by the male =(

If I would like to breed them, what should I do first?

 

That's what will usually happen if they aren't conditioned and introduced properly, you'll want to treat your female if she was injured and let her heal. She'll not be in condition for mating for a while.

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. 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 anyone else who you can count on to help you with raising the baby Bettas because you will need help - a LOT of it!

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 at least 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 when you'll be able to be with them all day long 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 big room or garage (with good climate control) 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 LOTS of 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 and LOTS of VitaChem to give them all vitamins daily for better development. You'll probably want at least 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. And remember that you have a time limit basically on the females before they too would need to be put in acrylic mini-tanks - they'll hit an age and turn aggressive and you will end up with a thrashing tank of dead and dying females.

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.

Just educate yourself real good on everything you can find about breeding Bettas & get all of the right supplies (well over $1000 there to start with) and then you won't end up just wasting time & tons of money and/or losing your Betta pair. If you're not sure, keep it as an idea to do in the future when you are sure.

An idea that might save you TONS of money but still give you the experience of breeding is to 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):


Something else to consider is where those Betta babies would go. Your utility bill to keep the room the right temp, changing half the water in 100s of containers daily, food, meds, etc will add up fast, so you'll want to have a reliable plan for them when they're old enough.

 

I have to ask, why do you want to breed them? It is a VERY difficult and expensive process best left to professionals. There is no money to be made breeding them, in fact you will spend a lot more. It is VERY difficult to find homes for dozens or maybe a hundred babies. Even if both parents are show quality it doesn't mean any of the babies will be that same quality. You will not be able to make money selling them on Ebay and pet stores do not buy from home breeders. You would need at least 100 1/2 gallon jars to keep them separated and the water needs to be changed daily. This takes hours of your time.
Do yourself and your fish a favor and don't breed them. There are already so many Bettas in the world needing good homes. Why bring more into the world only to suffer and die.

 

I just sent you a PM.

 

=( Maybe you are right... haven't thought that far...

Feel very guilty now >___<

 

=( Maybe you are right... haven't thought that far...

Feel very guilty now >___<

don't feel guilty. they are such great fish, I think everyone at some time thinks about breeding.. a couple species of wild bettas are less expensive and all to breed, but most betta species, especially the pet version of the splendens are a huge thing to breed.

 

I have a set of white halfmoon betta that I plan on breeding. They are young-about 3.5-4 months of age. Perfect age! I have ordered the leaves from Malaysia - the almond leaves and feed (I think that there may be something to this stuff) and am watching videos on youtube.
Anyone have any tricks for this? Here is a picture of the pair.




I know very little about breeding fish but I seem to get really lucky-I have gardenarI killifish fry that I had no idea were on the way!
And no, that is not him in this tank with the female. There are 4 females in the tank-two are white.

 

Very Pretty!!! I looked in to breeding Betta's at one point and it seemed a bit complex...so I'm not much help but they are quite pretty! I'm sure you'll have lots of replies soon!

 

****Moved to the Betta Breeding section of the forum****

Gorgeous bettas!

These stickies might help with your research:

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfi...t-to-breed-bettas-responsible-breeding.89909/

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/step-by-step-guide-to-breeding-bettas.37434/

 

HI Lucy and thanks for the links. I learned much! I am now going to do even more research! It looks like a lot of work but it also looks rewarding. I believe that I have quality betta-wish they were siblings!

 

As a new betta breeder myself, with my first fry growing. I found this link the most informative on the how-to of the spawning process. I think this is the most accepted way to do it although there are all kinds of variations that people swear by.



Keep in mind, betta breeding is a lot of work.

Best of luck

 

That was an interesting read.
The betta pictures were taken by Martinismommy (who wrote FL's guide).

 

Thank you all! LetDiceFly, I am getting so excited. I also joined the International Betta Congress. There site is all about Betta. It has invaluable information as well. Something they mentioned in one of the articles I read made much sense. The author (Christy-I believe) stated that introduction was the biggest issue. She suggested to place the female in the tank for a week or so with the male in a small container-such as a vase outside the tank in a direct line of sight. Next, allow it in the tank but inside something such as the glass of a hurricane lamp. Lastly, allow him to join the female. The article stated that this cut down on aggression.
A second article discussed betta as a step/surrogate father to young betta-a beautiful male that is not a great parent.
I plan on attempting my first spawn this spring when I hope to have finished my research.

 

Yes, on IBC they give many different ways that people have found successful, many of them contradict each other. From what I've seen, getting them to mate is the easy part and raising them is much more difficult. Best of luck.

 

Are you keeping those beautiful fish in the same tank?

 

No, LyndaB, they are in separate tanks-all my betta have their own tanks. I have a mirror that I rotate amongst the tanks for five minutes each day. I make sure to interact with each fish as I feed twice a day but I keep all fish in separate tanks.
I am about to also purchase a sibling pair of multI colored-with blue as the base-can't wait to see them!

 

Oh, in that first photo, it looks like the male and female are sharing a tank. He is just stunning, by the way.

 

Thank you-LyndaB that was a female Betta tank that was working out but I needed the ten gallon for my baby axelotl and moved each of the females and each of the males to individual tanks. Now, they are all in just 2 and 1/2 gallon to 4 gallon tanks with bio/mechanical filtered and heated tanks with almond leaf and a shot glass for a house. They seem happier and I am expecting 3 more-2 male and a female this week and a sibling pair in the next month. I tried to buy one on aquabid.com from ---mom (the person that wrote the blog about breeding for fl but apparently they had sold). The siblings are from Taiwan and will be here soon is my understanding.

 

Betta breeding IS hard work, however it can be very rewarding!
All I have to say is that when spawning, make sure your spawning tank is not that big! often bettas will ignore each other if the tank is over 6 or 7 gallons, However I HIGHLY suggest using a 15 gallon tank or somewhere near that, and making a separator for 5 or 6 G, that way if you get fry you can take the separator out and give them a nice big tank, slowly adding water over time! Also remember to only have water level 5 or 6 inches high!

Good luck!