How do i breed my bettas?

Question

Im breeding my bettas and my male built a HUGE bubblenest. The female is showing her verticle lines, and the male flared for her, i put them together but there not doing ANYTHING. I thought they were supposed to face eachother, and do kind of a "dance", then go under the nest and breed. I had a female in there befor this one, and they were interested in eachother, but never bred(at least i didnt see them). So, i switched her after about a day (LIKE I WAS TOLD TO DO). I really want to breed them, and i need GOOD advice. (could it be possible they bred at night when i was asleep, how can i tell?) PLEASE, i need tips from experienced betta owners, or breeders!!! WHY WONT THEY BREED?????

Answer 1

place them is seclusion in a tank with a lot of fake greenery; then assure there is only indirect light

Answer 2

You could go to this site and read all kinds of things about breeding bettas.

Good luck.

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/bettas/

Breeding

Bettas have a fairly short lifespan, and are most successful as breeders when they under a year old (bettas in pet shops are usually at least six months old). They breed in bubblenests and do not require a large tank or special equipment.Most breeders find that a bare bottomed tank of roughly ten gallons works well, although smaller tanks are also suitable.Ideally the fish should be conditioned prior to breeding, by feeding them a diet of live foods. The water should be at a pH of about 7.0, and temperature around 80 or slightly above.The male will blow an elaborate bubble nest when he is ready to spawn. The female should be provided with a hiding place, as males may become aggressive during courtship. Even with a hiding place, it is common for the female to lose a few scales or have their fins frayed during spawning.When they are ready to spawn, the pair will display intense coloration and begin circling each other under the bubblenest. The male will wrap himself around the female who has turned on her back. As she expels the eggs, they are fertilized and begin to sink. The male will scoop up the eggs and spit them into the nest. From this point on the male will tend the brood. It is advisable to remove the female, as the male may become aggressive towards her as he tends his young.The male will continue to tend the bubblenest, spitting eggs that fall out back into the nest. In one to two days the eggs will hatch, and the fry will be visible hanging in the bubblenest with their tails pointing downward. They will feed off their yolk sack for another thirty six hours, during which time the male will continue to pick up any fry that fall out of the nest. The male should be removed within two days after the fry hatch, as they may eat the young once they are free swimming. The fry should be fed a couple of feedings daily of baby brine shrimp or very fine baby food. Tetra makes a dry mixture specifically for egglaying fish, and many pet shops carry frozen baby brine shrimp. Take care not to overfeed, as the uneaten food will foul the water and can quickly prove lethal to the fry.

Answer 3

Some spawns take longer then others while some happen within 24 hours. Just give it some more time and just let them be and dont watch them too much just watch to make sure no one is getting hurt. It is possible that they bred during the night, you would be able to tell by looking at the nest, it will have these white dots in the bubbles, almost like grains of salt on glass. Check out ultimatebettas.net for help, great website.

Answer 4

Some bettas pair are not readily in spawning mood even when they are together. For me, I usually feed them well esp. the female so that its stomach is full of eggs and will be more readily for spawning. For the male, it is important too to feed well cos it usually don't prefer to eat during the breeding process.

Tank preparations is also important. I use a 2ft by 1ft and water level at 6 inches. Too high a level will endanger baby fries as once it is dropped to the bottom of the tank it will not be able to swim up to the surface level and will die. The male will also be exhausted picking the fries up and down if level is too high. Use broad-leaves plant with leaves able to reach the water surface so as to secure the bubble nest position. The male also prefers to blow its nest under leaves. I usually add some dried brown leaves that will stablalise the water (water will turn brown). More acidic water is preferred but not essential.

You faced problem with this stage -- "the introduction"
Try this... Cut the top portion of a 1-litre coke plastic bottle and fill it will water to about same 6inches. Then place the female into this bottle and then the entire bottle to the breeding tank where the male is. This will prevent the female from being attacked by the male if it is not ready for breeding. Observe the female body colour tone and its response to the male's flare. Tone will be darker shades and the female seems to be not afraid of the male anymore. Now release the female to the male. Increasing the water temperature to between 80 to 83 degrees F will make them more active for spawning.

From first introduction, male will prepare bubble nests. Two days later, the female will approach the male for egg-hatching. There will be few attempts that the female will swim towards the male with headdown pattern asking for breeding but the male will still chase it away. This is normal. After few attempts, you will see that they actually curl themselves while the eggs are released from the female stomach. The male will fertilised the egg at this point. Eggs will drop to the bottom of the tank and the male especially will pick up all the eggs and blow them to the bubble nest on water surface. About few hundreds eggs will be released depending on the female size with each time between 10 to 40 eggs. So if the female is not fully grown or well fed, you will not be able to expect more eggs. Some females will help to pick up the eggs too. Seperate the female once no more eggs are released as the male will get frustrated at this point and will attack the female and may kill it. Seperate the female to a bottle and feed it well to recouperate -- usually three days it will be back to normal state.

Leave the male to guide the eggs. 48hrs later or more, the eggs will hatch to fries. Feed the fries with liquid food -- a few drops is sufficient throughout their growth till their jaws develop. At this point, majority of the fries will die. This is normal too. Introduce freshly born brine shrimps as the fries growth a few days old. At this point I introduce slight air bubbles but ensuring not too much current generated that will disturb the fries. This way will give the fries more oxygen and also it will break the water surface tension which will otherwise make the water too stagnant for fresh air to penetrate the water surface. When majority of the fries hatched, remove the male a day later ( he is too exhausted by now fetching the fries back to the nest mutiple times. He will eat up the fries eventually).

Maintaining fries is a tough experience. I prefer to leave the fries as they are --- some prefer to transfer them to another tank. Maintaining clean water is very very important now. Never clouds the water with food. Change a small portion (1 inch) of water every week. If water obtain from tap, leave it overnight before using -- chlorine content will dissapear after overnight. A few drops of liquid milk from the pet shops will do. Some liquid food actually instigate micro organism's growth and this makes ready food for the fries --- ask yur pet shop for this kind of food. Fries will pick up micro things to eat. Some ppl actually uses hard-boiled egg yolks. Take a portion of the yolk and wrap it in a cloth. Immerse this yolk with cloth into the tank and shake slightly. Fine yolk will penetrate the cloth and scattered around the tank. Once is enough -- too much will spoil the water. After 4 weeks later, the fries would have grown to 1cm long, now transfer the fries to another tank and can feed live blood worms or tubiflex worm or brine shrimps. You will need few tries to be successful for this stage.

Good luck..

(6 minutes ago )

Answer 5

Breeding bettas is not particularly the easiest thing to do. Especailly rasing the young. But it is rewarding, when you get a brood to adulthood. It's a pretty rough process for them. Often the female, though sometimes both of them, will be nipped and bitten, have torn fins, etc., by the end of the ordeal.
How to go about it...
After you feed them on live and or frozen food for two weeks prior to the breeding (live's best, gives them the added exercise of the chase.) (Brine shrimp, mosqoito wrigglers, blackworms, blood worms, etc.) You need to have very specific temperature (80-82 degrees), the water at a depth of 4-6 inches, plants put in (real or plastic, live plants can help with the infusoria culture, but can die, and can kill many of your babies at the same time if they do..), and what I've found works great to hold the male's bubble nest, is a small styrofoam cup cut in half lengthwise. You put the male in, first. Let him have a day in there, then put the female in there in a clear container, so he can see her, but not get to her. Glass hurricane lamp shades work best for this, though you can use basically any jar. Leave her there for another day or two (Don't rush them, give them time), to allow him to build the nest and display to her, make her ready as well. When she seems to be swimming with her head slightly downwards whenever he comes around, and she has slightly visible virtical stripes on her sides (harder to veiw on paler females), let her into the male's tank. He'll probably nip her, and chase her around whenvever he sees her, but eventually (It may take another day or two), she'll come to him with her head down again; and they'll mate. This involves the male wrapping his body around the female and 'squeezing the eggs out' as they do a little shake, as they do this, the male fertilizes the eggs with his 'milt', or sperm. The eggs fall to the bottom of the tank, the male goes to pick them up, and often the female will float to the surface in a funny position, looks like she's dead sometimes (she's just stunned, gives the males a chance to get the eggs to the bubblenest before she 'wakes up' as some females eat the eggs (some males do, too), but some females help put them in the nest as well...), but will come to in a moment or two. And the process happens again and again. When the female's finally emptied of ripe eggs, she's chased off by the male, and you have to remove her from the tank, or he will kill her, as females in the wild eat the fry (In the cinfines of the tank, she can't get away, you MUST remove her...), he protects the nest from all other fish, especially bettas. After a day, sometimes two, you'll see the little fry hatch. They sink to the bottom, the male puts them back into the nest. (Sometimes males will eat them, too, but that's not genearlly the case, depends on the individual male..) After the fry become free swimming (swimming horizontally), then you remove the male, or he will eat them. You feed the newly hatched fry things such as infusoria, vinigar eels, and micro worms, from which they graduate to baby brine shrimp or decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and daphnia, working their way up to adulthood, to start the process over...
And don't just remove him when the babies hatch. They will die. They need put back up in the nest until they are free swimming. Bettas are labyrinth fish, they need air, and the babies can't swim properly when they're newly hatched. If left on the bottom of the tank like if you remove the male, most of the babies will die, leave the male until the babies can swim.
Hope this helps!

Answer 6

From what I remember, both bettas need to be fed a good amount and the water temp must be a little higher than normal. Sorry for giving you generalizations, but I haven't done this in a loooonng time.

Answer 7

Sometimes they just don't like each other. At least she isn't try to kill him like one of mine did. They may be too old to breed. Honestly it's more of an art than a science. Read bettatalk.

Answer 8

You'll have to establish an account first, but this link will probably point you in the right direction:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58582

Answer 9

I have a betta....he's cute....just thought you should know....bye

Answer 10

try ask.com