how smart are bettas???

[nubz]

ok.ok. dont hate me for loving a less than )Y(onster fish. i recently baught my mom a female betta for her birthday. i have it in a natuarium turtle tank
they are perfect for anabatoids too. i now love the little fish and it wont even take flake food any more. fresh from the gulf,shrimp only!!! i feed it from a feeding stick and she will even do little tricks like hop on to a semisubmerged vine to retrieve a morsel.when the food is held so it wont come off she will jump up grab a piece swallow jump off catch her"breathe" and repeat. i dont do this much though. she has an uncanny ability to figure out problems....unfortunatly. i was feeding her dinner and a piece got stuck on the other side of the glass by the filter. there is a low part so the filter can be put in as shwn in the pic.its only a half cm jump for a fish. well she saw the shrimp stuck to the glass and figured there was water on the other side. she JUMPED!!!!! i know it wasnt a panic jump because she looked at the food, then me, then the food then me and desided i wasnt gonna get it for her. so she did it herself. believe me she thinks this way! i scooped her up and put her back in her tank. looked her over for damage and waited for her to calm down. ten minutes later i fed her that last piece of food and put a blocker up.
are bettas all this smart??? she is about nine months old can i breed her?
if i do is there a chance she will be injured or die?can more than one female be kept together. can a male and a school of females be kept together???like a school of oscars where fighting is less often due to numbers. this isnt my first betta its the only one ive ever loved.

 

[BIG_ONE]

lol I been raising bettas my entire life. And to tell you, bettas are ready to breed at the age of 4 month. But the older the better. More eggs, and stronger frys. But remember to condition your female before you start the breeding process. Conditioning betta would take you about 2 week. Make sure the female and male see each other at least 10 hours a day(i do 15). Feed your female and male live food such as mosquito larvae, daphnia, brine shrimp, and what I would recommend the most is california black worms. Also add IAL(indian almond leaf) or atison spa which is extracted IAL to both male and female. Black water extract would work also if neither of them are available. These IAL would set the bettas in the mood to breed, but be cautious as it also set the male to be much more aggressive as this is what making the male in breeding mode.

Adding plants(live) would be highly recommended, as they serve as a natural breeding ground for bettas and drains ammonia naturally and convert into food(for plant)/oxygen. Both floating and underwater plant would be recommended. A 10 gal would be the absolute minimum. But be prepare to upgrade into a 20 and more. If you seperate the frys then they will become aggressive.

Feeding the fry, the best food source for them would be infusoria. You can find out more on how to make infusoria online and how to make em. Green water is also a good idea as they usually carry plenty of infusoria. You can start baby brine shrimp after 2 week. Infusoria would ensure you of the most survival rate out of the breed.

When the female is ready to be bred, the female stomach has to be like it was swallowed a marble or unless you see eggs dropping 1 by 1 every 5 min or so. During the process of breeding, you might be scared that the female might die. But no worry, she'll be fine if she is ready to breed. Sometimes the female goes right at it, sometimes it takes some fighting and chasing from the male to get the female to breed with him. Sometimes it takes some real beating from the male to get her to breed. The breeding session can take anywhere between 1 hour to 24 hour. It all varies on how your female want to cooperate.

Make sure you have a jar or tank with aged water with banana leaf and be ready to transfer her there after they are done breeding. When they are done breeding, the female will try to get as far as the male as possible by hiding any possible places and laying low from the male view in able to avoid its vicious guarding of the eggs.

When putting a female into a her nursing home to recover from her injury, make sure you don't use any melafix, pimafix, or bettafix as they can be pretty darn dangerous. The best bet would just add a bit of salt(don't add enough salt to make the tank brackish) and add sun dried or dead banana leaf. Nothing works faster and safer than these. And just warm your tank/jar to low 80s or high 70s.

Most people that have bred bettas commonly doesn't recommend using empty tanks. They prefer a plastic like tub or a very large plastic storage container. But for the professional and grand master breeder, they prefer using all natural clay pot that hasn't been heated or cooked. Or using large storage container and gathering/using all natural clay from rivers/lakes and put into the container. But don't breed the betta in it. Breed it in a container and keep it quiet as it results less injury to the female and faster breeding process. Then after the fry are about a month, you can transfer the fry into cemented ponds, large storage container, or giant clay pot that are unheated/cooked. The clay minerals itself has been proven to keep the frys healthy and promote very good scales and fins.

Some other stuff they put in the pot/pond are dead banana leaf/dead lemon grass/dead mango leaves.

If you need any more help or info, feel free to PM me

 

[gomezladdams]

bettas are smart fish,doesnt surprise me at all.

 

[orbit]

lol I been raising bettas my entire life. And to tell you, bettas are ready to breed at the age of 4 month. But the older the better. More eggs, and stronger frys. But remember to condition your female before you start the breeding process. Conditioning betta would take you about 2 week. Make sure the female and male see each other at least 10 hours a day(i do 15). Feed your female and male live food such as mosquito larvae, daphnia, brine shrimp, and what I would recommend the most is california black worms. Also add IAL(indian almond leaf) or atison spa which is extracted IAL to both male and female. Black water extract would work also if neither of them are available. These IAL would set the bettas in the mood to breed, but be cautious as it also set the male to be much more aggressive as this is what making the male in breeding mode.

Adding plants(live) would be highly recommended, as they serve as a natural breeding ground for bettas and drains ammonia naturally and convert into food(for plant)/oxygen. Both floating and underwater plant would be recommended. A 10 gal would be the absolute minimum. But be prepare to upgrade into a 20 and more. If you seperate the frys then they will become aggressive.

Feeding the fry, the best food source for them would be infusoria. You can find out more on how to make infusoria online and how to make em. Green water is also a good idea as they usually carry plenty of infusoria. You can start baby brine shrimp after 2 week. Infusoria would ensure you of the most survival rate out of the breed.

When the female is ready to be bred, the female stomach has to be like it was swallowed a marble or unless you see eggs dropping 1 by 1 every 5 min or so. During the process of breeding, you might be scared that the female might die. But no worry, she'll be fine if she is ready to breed. Sometimes the female goes right at it, sometimes it takes some fighting and chasing from the male to get the female to breed with him. Sometimes it takes some real beating from the male to get her to breed. The breeding session can take anywhere between 1 hour to 24 hour. It all varies on how your female want to cooperate.

Make sure you have a jar or tank with aged water with banana leaf and be ready to transfer her there after they are done breeding. When they are done breeding, the female will try to get as far as the male as possible by hiding any possible places and laying low from the male view in able to avoid its vicious guarding of the eggs.

When putting a female into a her nursing home to recover from her injury, make sure you don't use any melafix, pimafix, or bettafix as they can be pretty darn dangerous. The best bet would just add a bit of salt(don't add enough salt to make the tank brackish) and add sun dried or dead banana leaf. Nothing works faster and safer than these. And just warm your tank/jar to low 80s or high 70s.

Most people that have bred bettas commonly doesn't recommend using empty tanks. They prefer a plastic like tub or a very large plastic storage container. But for the professional and grand master breeder, they prefer using all natural clay pot that hasn't been heated or cooked. Or using large storage container and gathering/using all natural clay from rivers/lakes and put into the container. But don't breed the betta in it. Breed it in a container and keep it quiet as it results less injury to the female and faster breeding process. Then after the fry are about a month, you can transfer the fry into cemented ponds, large storage container, or giant clay pot that are unheated/cooked. The clay minerals itself has been proven to keep the frys healthy and promote very good scales and fins.

Some other stuff they put in the pot/pond are dead banana leaf/dead lemon grass/dead mango leaves.

If you need any more help or info, feel free to PM me

WOW! Excellent right up! This should definitely be a sticky! I never put to much thought into breeding Bettas but I did know it is an art. Also never even thought of banana peels for healing.

Great info!!

 

[BIG_ONE]

Banana leaf, not peel. The banana leaf im talking about are the banana tree that are found in SE Asia. It's tree is not rock solid like those banana farm in Hawaii and South America and with a knife you can cut through its trunk with a good swing to it.