Breeding Bettas, from Start to Finish...

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Peanut_Power

Running From The Hammer...
MFK Member
Jul 6, 2005
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BannedVille
www.monsterfishkeepers.com
Aight guys....fill me in. Magan has decided that she wants to try breeding her bettas. I'm a wee bit curious about it as well, have a general idea on how to do it, but there are still some parts I'm not entirely clear on.

We went out to Walmart (hahaha) and got a NICE female, she PLUMP with roe, totally ready for breeding. Her ovidepositor is down, shes just perfectly ripe. Went through all the female, found the ones that were ripe, and then picked the fav. one outa all of them. She was the most ripe, best lookin one...so we got lucky. Right now the males (have two of them in a divided half gallon 'tank'.

We placed the female next to the two males in her little cup (:swear: Walmart for their betta cups...anywho). The males immidately started flaring and displayin more to each other and to her, then one of them started building a bubble nest. The other one doesn't seem all that interested.

Bought a 10gal tank, filled it up with water, the water line is 1.5" from the top of the tank to 'prevent' them from jumpin out should they get the urge. Her dad has a pond in the back that has a lot of live plants...can't member the name of them, but they are commonly sold at LFS, a low light plant, and great for floatin. I wanna say elodia, or foxhair....its a long stem with fine, hair like leaves. Anywho, got a WHOLE bunch of that and put it in the tank. 80% of the surface area of the tank is covered by the plants...and it extends into a large mass that touches the bottom in some places. Looks really nice actually! :D Tank is set up and ready for them to breed in.

I know that the female has to be ready to breed or the male will get really P.O that she won't breed and beat her up. I read somewhere that you can put the female in a cup in the tank with the male, with the edge of the cup just barely above the waterline in the tank. When the female is ready she will jump outa the cup and breed with the male. Is that a good way of doing it? After that, I'm kinda sketchy. I know with breedin gouramis its good to have the ambiant air above the water to be the same temperature as the water. Is there anything else I should do? Little tips? The tank is right next to a window on purpose, so that it will get a little algae, and the live plants will have stuff for the young to pick on. Thankz, sorry its so long! Cheers, Jer
 
from what I can rember when my mate bred them, when they started to make the bubble nest, he then put the female in with the male but watch them, spawning usualy will take an hour or 2, sometimes if they are not ready... a bit longer... when the female and the male do their little dance, you should remove the female straight away...

usualy you are ment to put the female in with the male who makes the biggest bubble nest.. but by the sounds of it, it's long gone...

the male and the female will fight/attack each other, this is "forplay" usualy the female gets the rough end of the stick with attacked fins/tail etc.. but after spawning REMOVE the femail right away!

make sure the male stays there!

:P

good luck!
 
with vail tails once the male has built a nest I just added the female str8 to the tank with the male. Onething you need to do frist is lower the water level in the 10g to half. This will help the male out once the fry hatches to teach them how to go to the surface for air. Then once the male has been added to the tank and bulds a nest. I just add the female st8 to the tank with him.
It could take as long as 2 days before they mate or as little as 2 hrs. This al depends on how ready she is to spawn. No matter what you do the female wil keep the hell beat out of her. Once the male raps him self around the female he'll skease the female til she releases her eggs. He'll then pick them up and add them to the nest. The female will stay in a state of perlized for up to 15 secounds after the male causes her to release the eggs.
After mating is done sometimes 2 to 3 hrs later remove the female and leave the male. The eggs will hatch in 24 to 48hrs from the time spawned. I leave my males in the tank with the fry til the fry can swim horasontal or withut there heads hanging down. Around 3 to 4 days from hatching. ONce there free swimming without the egg shacks they'll need t be fed 3 to 4 times aday for the frist 2 weeks.

Here's a few links on breeding and foods. The egg yolk is what I used til they could eat Live brine baby shrimp.
http://www.fightingfish.com.au/article.php?id=5

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_brineshrimp_hatchery.php

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/food/bbs/how_to_bbs.html

This is the set up I use sems to work better and has a better hatch rate on the BS eggs
http://www.fightingfish.com.au/article.php?id=41

Any more questions fell free to ask. I love breeding my betta's And injoy helping others to learn more on the how to's of spawning them. I have round 500+ Crown til fry and 200+ crown tail vail tail mix and last but no least I have 300Half moon fry.
 
Thankz, already lowered the water level...the male isn't buildin a nest though. Tryin to get the water quality top notch. Got some plants from outside in the pond so the water is a little cloudy still....new tank also. Gonna add a air pump to get some water movement going...;)
 
The male want build a nest with air going in the tank. For some reason the vail tail betta will not fight the surface movment to build one.. Another thing is fed them BLOOD WORMS these out of any food you fed the betta will push them in the spawning stages faster then anything I've tryed. I've tryed alot of differnt foods water temp W/C's nothing. Blood worms will push them in that stage over night. with vail tails you can also just place the female close to the male and he'll start buildding a nest.
Vail tails are really easy to breed in the event the male doesn't build a nest with the female close to him. Keep feeding him the Blood worms and he'll build it. It's like the show fild of dreams" if you build it they will come" Will with betta breeding " if you fed them Blood worms he'll come into heat"
Male vail tails will also build a nest in a cave area to. If the male doesn't build a nest after 4 to 5 days of being fed Blood worms. I'll eat my hat. LOL this normally has great responce in the males. I've tryed everything brine shrimp { live and dead} kril leafs tanneries, Just about nothing but the blood worms would bring a male who normally wouldn't spawn into spawning.
 
Flapss said:
Another bit of interesting information Weasel :woot:
Click to expand...

Thanks Flapss I try. LOL No I;ve been breeding betta;s for 3 yrs now and have tryed and felded at alot of differnt things. As with most breeding programs. There's somethings that work and some that don't. But 99% of everything I've tryed with vail tails has worked. The best way I've found to breed the vail tail is just condition them a week before hand with blood worms nd if the males got a nest built? Just let the female go in with him for a coupe of days. The vail tail betta is one of the simplest fish to breed. Even easyer then the rabbit of the fish world, the convic.
I've breed Halfmoons,Half moon plakats and double tails. You name it I've bred it in betta's. The only Betta I've ever had any trouble with breeding is the crown tail. I tryed for 4 months to breed 5 differnt males to 12 differnt females and out of those differnt couples only got 1 pr to ever spawn. Out of that spawn I got 20fry to live. I've bred crown tail Male to vail tail female and got some of the prettest fry out of all the betta's I've bred. I got 40 to 50 comb tails out of there fry and now that's a beautiful betta.
Another thing he or she could try is find a crown tail female for his male to breed with. The crown tail female in with the vail tail male will cause the Vail tail to spawn faster also. By frocing him ino the breding stagefaster. It always semed like the vail tail thanks he's found a trophie wife in a crown tail female an he trys to bred and doubles the size of his nest while the females in the tank with him. Now I will tell you that when breding a crown tail Male to a vail tail female, The male will beat the female vail tail up alot more then normal.
I don't know if you know this are not but if your worried about the female getting beaten up will trying to spawn. Then breeding betta's isn't the thing for you. Cause the male will beat the female into spwning. It's there waay of showing the feamles who's the boss in the spawning stage. so if you've got a pretty female and want to bred her. Then be fore warrened she will get the **** beat out o her and if your breding a crown til Male to vail tail female the mle will kill the female very shortly after spwning with her.
Vail tail males breeding with crown tail females it's the other way around. Shortly after the spawning the female will be 9 time more likly to kill the male after spawning. It's harder to get Male CT / female VT to bred but when they do the fry is so much more colorful and the { comb tail } that comes from the fry is awsome looking fish even the CT/VT female fry has a long finages. There for making it harder to tell the differnts in sexing the fry at a earler stage.
 
Another thing to remember when breeding bettas is to ensure the dad can see the fry all the time. I lost a lot at night, when he couldnt see them to put them back into the nest. I keep a light on at all times now. And a TURKEY BASTER will be your best friend :) great for cleaning without sucking up the little fellows. i haven't bred in a while, but am thinking on getting back into it.
 
i did this with flying colors.
the female doesnt have to get beat up if ya do it right.
i know a bunch on this but will be brief this time.
i used a 5 gallon tank.
what ya do is get "i think" an oil lamp.
take the glass top off and put it in the tank standing up.
then put the female in it,and the male on the outside of it.
let him make a bubble nest.he will go over to the female and flair up at her.
after a while,let the female out.lift the lamp top slow so it doesnt mess up the nest.
if they fight,put her back for a few more days.
do this until they breed not fight.
they will cup around each other to breed.
he will squeeze her eggs out then pick them up and put them in the nest.
take her out,keep him in until the babies can swim on there own.
once the babies were big enough to not be in the nest,
i caught them and bought some cheap plastic cups "lots of them"
and put one baby in each.easy to clean and the babys will fight if there together.
 
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