I need as much info on breeding bettas as possible?

Question

Right now the female and the male are in a tank with other fish, gravel and a filter. I think that this is wrong. The female has her "plump" belly...but nothing else is happening. Does she need to be removed and out into their own bowl? Will she die if the eggs are not sqeezed from her? please HELP

Answer 1

i have sucessfully bred my bettas and i can give you some excellent advise...
breeding tank should be no less than a ten gallon with a depth of 6 inches of declorinated water, a floating thermometer, small heater (50 watts or less) to maintain a temp at 78*F - 80*F, 1/2 tsp aquarium salt per gallon of water. let this tank sit for two days with NO fish.
then you can condition your fish. to do this you would first put the male betta into the tank. second, put a tall glass jar almost in the middle of the tank and fill it with the same water from the tank to match the level of the water inside the tank. place a styrofoam cup cut lengthwise to float on the surface of the tank water (not the jar).
within a few days the male betta will begin to make a bubble nest underneith the cup. do not add an airstone or anything that will disturb the water in any way, this includes any drafts. as the nest will not hold well.
once the nest is a good size you can add the female to the jar allowing her to see the male but not touch him. leave them this way for two or three days feeding them on frozen bloodworms. live/frozen foods induce the spawning behaivor. be careful not to let any food settle to the bottom of either the tank or the jar as this will quickly "foul" the water. if the water has a bad smell, remove any uneaten food and do a partial water change using an airline hose and add fresh dechlorinated water using the same hose as any disturbance of the bubble nest will cause it to pop.
when the female is ready, she will be fat with eggs and you will notice a white ovaduct spot pretruding from beneith her. (this is always there but now it should be more noticable) she will appear very interrested in the male and appear like she will do anything to get out of the jar to him (usually).
at this time VERY gently tip the jar allowing the female access to the male in the tank. leave the jar in the tank in case you have to seperate them again.
the male will chase the famale and "Display", he will nip at her and then go back to the nest as if to "lure" her, then nip and chase and display again.
if all goes well, this would be harmless. but watch them very carefully! if things get out of hand, the male might kill her. this means that she is not ready to spawn yet even if she has eggs. (by the way, this doesnt pose a problem if she is full of eggs and does not spawn. they will either be absorbed back into her body or she might drop them then eat them) oh, make sure the bettas are about the same age and size. males tend to be a little larger. but if you have a female that is too young (alot smaller) certain death will mostly follow as the male could kill her. if spawning gets too rough the famale will attenpt to hide and appear stressed and exhausted. remover her emediatally and wait another day or so.
for me, i left my bettas alone over night after watching them closely most of the day. if you do this, make sure that you add lots of plants (fake) for her to hide if he gets too rough and she will be safe. (he will not chase what he cannot see.) also a helpful hint: have little movement around the tank and dim the lights. if the fish are startled they will only be stressed and not spawn.
when they are spawning, the female will stay close to the male under the nest, they will embrace in a handshake fashon for only a few seconds, at first there may be no eggs falling but as they continue a few more times you will see them fall. the female will appear dead while she releases her eggs and float under the nest. Dont pannic, it only lasts a couple of seconds so the male can gather the eggs falling and pick up a few from the floor of the tank. the female might help recover the eggs from the bottom (mine did) but sometimes she will just eat the ones on the floor. this is ok because they may spawn up to a 100 times. thats lots of baby eggs! let them spawn untill the female hides again. spawning can last for hours.
when she does, take her out and place her in another container seperate from the tank with water set up like the ten gallon tank. (aged, dechlorinated, a little salt, and the same temp as the tank) this helps her recover from any wounds she may have gotten from spawning and the temp keeps her from getting stressed and going into shock.
leave the male with the eggs! do not feed him for at least three to four days after the spawn. he will not eat the food and it will foul the water!
the eggs are very hard to see and you might see them as little white blotches on the bubbles if you shine a flashlight from underneith. dont worry if you cannot see them, believe me, they are there.
the male will take care of the eggs, putting them into his mouth and spitting them up to the nest making the nest bigger and fixing any bubbles that need it. after 24-36 hours, the eggs will hatch. you might see little tails hanging from the nest (also very hard to see) another 24-36 hours fry will fall from the nest, dad will scoop them up in his mouth and put back in nest. another day or so fry will free swim near the nest. at this time take daddy out and put him in a seperate container of his own and feed him frozen blood worms like mommy. pour some green water in the tank slowly.(water with algy growth) and some small snails (you get usually free from fish stores as they just throw them away) they help clean the tank.
well that is basically it. my short novel on breeding bettas. the easy part is breeding them the hard part is keeping the baby fry alive! i suggest reading books on bettas. it will tell you how to raise them. but understand, my bettas spawned for hours producing many eggs, however, only two females survived. it is trial and error. but the best part is, if you dont succeed the first time, try again. it is so worth it knowing you have at least one or two babys that are like your own children. i love my lil girls (bettas)

Answer 2

I worked in the Pet Department in a store for a long time. We had Bettas. We always kept our male bettas away from the other fish because they would fight them. We always kept them away from each other also because they would kill each other. A man came in one day and told me he raised bettas and that after the female had the babies that the male would take care of them and would sometimes kill the female. I'm not sure how true that is because we never put ours together so they never got the chance to breed.

Answer 3

Hi,
If the female has the plump body,shes ready to have her babies,but if you don't take the babies they will be eaten.You can get what is called a breeder,it goes in your existing tank.It has 2 halves you put the female in the the and when she has her babies they will fall into the bottom part.Then you can take the mom out and the separator out when the babies are big enough not to be eaten you can put them with other fish.
Brandy

Answer 4

this link will help.
http://www.bettysplendens.com/articles/catview.imp?catid=855

oh, ps.. the female doesn't have babies.. She lay eggs.

If she doesn't mate with the male, she'll lay the eggs anyways. It'll just fall to the bottom of the tank and get eaten by the fishes. It's protein packed.