When should i put my femal betta into the tank with the male?

Question

should i wait for the bubble nest to form before i put her into the tank? or should i put her into the tank and the nest will form with her in the tank? she has the vertical bars and he is showing off to her, but i do not see a bubble nest yet. there is a small ring of bubbles lining the top of the water that might be a bubble nest.. so what should i do?

Answer 1

A ready male will usually buid a bubbe nest however, this is not lways the case. Also, if you have a filter in his tank it may be breaking up his bubble nest. To help him out, cut a ring or two off the top part of a clean styrofoam cup. He will probably build his nest inside that ring. Once you see any signs of a nest it will probably be safe to add her into the tank. If this is the first time these two have spawned be sure to hang around and check fairly often to make sure things are going well and he's not beating her up too badly. Here's a method of breeding bettas that has worked well for me for years and years.

Breeding tank: A 10 gallon makes a good breeding tank for bettas. Place in on a dark surface and set it up with no gravel or decorations. Use a small sponge filter and a heater. maintain the heat at 78-82, the temperature is not really that critical. Using a hood is a good idea to hold in heat and moisture.

Conditioning: Condition the male in the breeding tank. Condition the female in a seperate tank and be sure they cannot see each other. Feed well on frozen or live foods alternating with flakes or pellets for at least a week. The female should be plump with eggs and the male should be flaring and showing his best color, maybe even building a bubble nest.

Spawning: Drop the water level in the breeding tank to about 5" deep. Place the female in a bowl or other container next to the breeding tank so that the male can see her. As soon as there is a good bubble nest in the breeding tank add the female. Check for eggs in the bubble nest every few hours. You know they are finished when the female is hiding from the male and he no longer leaves the nest to chase her down. He will also not be trying to attract her to the nest. At this time remove the female from the breeding tank. If they fail to breed within a few hours go back and repeat the conditioning steps for a week.

Eggs and fry: The eggs will hatch in 2 days. At first the male will collect the babies and return them to the bubble nest, this is normal. Once you see that the babes are able to swim in a normal fashion, remove the male. Now is the time to start feeding the babies. Feed them newly hatched brine shrimp, micro worms or vinegar eels. Feed several times a day for the first week to 10 days. At that time you can start addig some powdered flake food to their diet and begin increasing the water level in the tank.

Care: The babies need very clean water. Do a 50% or more water change every day and be sure to remove any uneaten food or dead babies that you see. Keeping the water clean and changed very often is one of the major keys to sucess. Be sure you cull the brood. Culling is to remove unwanted fish. Remove any deformed fish right away and destroy them.

Rearing and selection: Eventually you will need to split the batch as they will over crowd the 10 gallon. Removing the females to another tank is the best way. The males can stay together without a problem. Continue to feed quality foods of increasing size working your way up to frozen or adult brine shrimp and continue to do large daily water changes. Once they begin to develop color, you should cull based on color. Keep the color you like and remove the rest. Even if you started with two reds you will get a few that are not red or are not evenly colored. If they are near adult size a shop should buy them from you or at least give you some store credit. Be ruthless, keep only the very best to breed with next time around.

The males can stay together basically for their entire lives as long as you never seperate them. Once seperated even for a day they will begin to fight so keep that in mind.

Best of luck and stick with it, you'll have baby betta before you know it!

MM

Answer 2

K First off... DO NOT put the female into the tank until there is a fair size nest already built... many females die if you put them in before the nest is built!!! Take it from somone with a high success rate!!!

Our last spawn was about 400+eggs!

K all you need to do is introduce the pair, you can do this easily by simply using a container that is plastic with holes in it, so that they share the same watter. I just used a breading trap/tank that floats in the watter near the top (you dont want a full tank either, just one that has about 4 - 5 inches of watter in it. Then when the nest is built (trust me youll know when it is, you can even put a styropome cup cut in half on the top of the watter like a cave and he will start the nest under that). Then once the nest is built carefuly dump the lil lady into the makes tank, be sure she has some place to hide from the male if she needs to (if she starts losing her fins, or he does then seperate them imediately). After you dump her in, nature should take its course, you will notice that she will come over and inspect the nest every so often until she thinks its good enough, if she does not she will not comply with his attempts to breed.
Another suggestion is not to have ANY gravel at the bottom of the tank, this is suggested only for a higher success rate, as the male may miss some eggs when they fall, if its in or on the gravel. Oh and once you notice that they are no longer "embracing" remove the female, and DO NOT REMOVE THE MALE UNTIL the babies are FREE SWIMMING meaning they can swim by themselves and are no longer sticking by the nest.
AND NEVER ASK WALMARTS FISH DEPARTMENT ANYTHING!!! THEY ARE NOT TRAINED!!!!

Answer 3

Wait till you have a noticeable bubble nest. The female sounds like she is ready but the male does not!

Once they are done mating, take the female out, or dad will attack her. Mating is very stressful on the female.

Dad is also aggressive towards the babies so he will also need a new bowl!

Good luck, I had many betta babies, but could never get them to grow up!

Answer 4

Put her into the tank and the nest will form with her in the tank. thats the best thing to do. but be extremly cautious and if something goes wrong move her out emmidiantly.
good luck =)

Answer 5

betta fish are very taratorial they will kill each other if they are put in the same tank to soon ask a pet store or someone at walmart