I have two Beta Fish, one female and one male. How do I breed them?

Question

I heard Beta fish will kill eachother if they are put in the same container. When is the breeding seson for Beta Fish? Also, how do i breed them without killing either of them?

Answer 1

They will fight if they aren't ready to breed or after they are finished breeding. Breeding season is yer round, anytime they are in condition. As long as they are well conditioned and ready they will breed after which you remove the female from the tank and no more fighting. Here's the method I use that has worked for me for decades.

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 separate 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 adding 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 success. 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 separate them. Once separated 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

The answer really is very carefully!


Here is a list of nine things you really must know about breeding Beta Fish.

(1) Learn to distinguish between mature male and female Bettas. Note that the males have much longer fins than the females.

(2) Male and female Bettas should not be kept together except for an hour or two in a fish bowl or small aquarium, while they spawn.

(3) Keep each male in its own fish bowl. Sometimes more than one Male Betta can live together in a large aquarium. But most experienced Betta Fish breeders keep each male in its own bowl.

(4) Female Bettas can be kept together in one aquarium. Some experienced Betta breeds keep a few mild tempered males together in large aquariums with or without females. But some males are too aggressive and cannot be kept with other Bettas, except for a short time for breeding with a female.

(5) Most of the time we feed floating pellet food labeled for Betta Fish and freeze dried blood worms, which are mosquito larvae, to our male and female Bettas.

When we're ready to spawn our female Bettas, we feed them the following foods each morning and each evening in the order listed: BettaMin, Freeze Dried Blood Worms, some live or frozen brine shrimp, then a few live Black Worms.

With good care and plenty of food the female Bettas will swell with eggs, and the good food will also encourage the Male Betta to build a big bubble nest. Sometimes I have been able to see pinkish eggs through the skin over the abdomen of plump females.

(6) Change 20% of the water each day in the bowls with the males and in the bowls or aquariums with females. This should stimulate the males to build bubble nests on the surface of the water along the edges of their bowls.

(7) Put your plumpest female in with the male that has built the biggest bubble. They will usually quarrel for a while. The male may rip the female's fins, she may nip him back, then he'll embrace her, and they'll spawn. You'll need to watch carefully to be sure that he doesn't hurt her too badly.

If they don't spawn, you should remove the female and put her back in the aquarium or fish bowl that she came from, or the male will probably hurt her. If they do spawn, you should still remove the female.


(8) The male Betta, not the female, will care for the eggs in the bubble nest. You will see him taking the eggs into his mouth where he cleans them with special natural chemicals in his mouth. Two days after spawning the chemicals in his mouth change and dissolve the outer layer of the eggs to release the fry.

(9) Now comes the difficult part. We were never able to raise the Betta fry in an aquarium or a bowl. Instead we put them in a pond. This only works when the water temperature is 68 degrees F. or warmer. The pond was often 70 degrees F. and warmer during the summer.

Answer 3

First, let the male and the female see each other (one way is by getting a water bottle cutting a whole in the bottom a sit it in the tank with the female in it and let the male swim around her and look at her then when he start making bubbles and wait approximately 3 minutes no less than let her our).
. Then, It would take a while so don't think ohh their not going to mate.When they do start he would start chasing her around the tank and it would look like their fighting but their not their starting.
. Then,The female and the
male would would curl into this lil ball and then the female would float to the top lifeless then the male would pick up the eggs in his mouth and put it in the bubble nest
. Then,take the female out IMMEDIATELY and leave the male in to protect the eggs.LEAVE THE MALE IN.

Answer 4

Maybe they like each other? A male should/ will have longer finnage than the female, brighter/ more vivid colour than the female, and last but not least, only the female will have a white dote under the stomach which the male don't have.. if unsure, you can ask the shopkeeper where you get you fish from anything you want to know.

Answer 5

If indeed one is male and the other is female--my dear nature will take it's course--I have never heard of BETA FISH killing each other otherwise the species would no longer exist.

Answer 6

Just put them in the tank together, the male betta will start building a bubble nest, then he and the female will mate. It is hard to keep the betta fry alive though, they are super small. Breeding guppies is super easy.

Answer 7

Beta males will kill beta males. I've heard they won't kill the female, but they will kill the babies after they hatch. Its actually the beta male that does the work, like penguins.

Answer 8

Here's the site I learned from, very descriptive with what to expect and what to look for. make sure you have a roomy enough tank to raise the fry.

http://www.ask-the-vet.com/breeding-betta-fish.htm

Answer 9

it's Betta, not Beta

Answer 10

psh i dont no...put on some romantic music. light a couple candles. dim tha lights. make a romantical dinner. hey it works for humans maybe it will for colorful fish that try to eat eachother. whatevs...maybe itll work...or theyll kill each other...