how can you tell a female betta when she is ready to breed?

Question

how can you tell if you female betta is ready because i dont know how it looks like. all i know now is that it has long strip lines on the side of her and she has a small whit thing under her belly...

Answer 1

First, horizontal stripes do not indicate stress--dark female fish often are horizontally striped. Horizontal stripes indicate stress--but breeding is stressful. If your female is mature and you have been conditioning your female (keeping her away from other fish, feeding her high protein meaty food twice daily for about 2 weeks, making sure she is in top condition and kept clean so she doesn't start to develop any illness that may be passed to the babies), she will be physically ready to breed. This doesn't mean she will want to breed--especially if she has never bred before so doesn't quite know what is happening. But, if your female is showing vertical stripes (from stripes running from top to bottom) when she sees the male, and if her oviposter (egg tube) is showing, she's ready. If she sees the male (through the glass), she'll start to follow him around to make sure he pays attention to her, moving up and down the glass to try to get to him. Once you put the two fish together, she may still need some time to physically get her body to release her eggs (especially if she is young or if this is her first breeding) and the male may, in his frustration, get nippy (so keep an eye on them).

Answer 2

She will have vertical (up/down) stripes. Horizontal stripes indicate stress.