can you breed a female and a male betta in a gallon or more of water?

Answer 1

I would suggest you use at least a 10 gallon tank for the breeding tank so you won't have to move the young until they get some size on them. I have been breeding bettas for over 20 years and this is how I do it.

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 bettas before you know it!

MM

Answer 2

Beofre I answer, let me ask you this. Do you have a plan for the 100+ babies? Also, did you just grab your fish from a pet store? If you don't have a plan and if you DID buy from a pet store, don't breed them.

Pet store quality bettas will not produce quality bettas at all, and you'll be lucky if they even breed. Many males are already past their breeding prime when sold. There are a few specialty stores (like the one where I breed show-quality bettas) that DO sell breeding stock, but you will not be buying these fish for under five dollars. Breeding-quality bettas cost anywhere from $15-$150 PER FISH.

Now, if you have quality stock and have somewhere that will either buy your babies when they are old enough, then you want to breed in 5+ gallons. I breed in fives and tens, barebottom tanks with a slow sponge filter. You want lots of top-cover.

It may take weeks for the pair to breed, or they may just never do it. Sometimes your female will kill your male without hesitation. Sometimes your male is a complete idiot and cannot perform the mating embrace. There are a number of things that can go wrong.

Now, lets say everything happened correctly and, surprise! They laid eggs. These will be in the male's bubblenest. For a few days, leave the male, but when you see the eggs beginning to drop and spiral (hatching), remove the male. The babies may take a day or two to finish hatching, and not all eggs will hatch.

Now is my next big question: do you have the time and dedication to feed these babies 4-6 times daily? In the beginning, they will need to be fed Microworms and the hard-boiled yolk from an egg, which can be crushed between your fingers. You can buy a microworm culture at your local fish store, probably, and you will need to keep it alive with oatmeal. The store can instruct you on caring for a (very smelly) microworm culture. You need to feed them a MINIMUM of four times a day starting the day after they hatch. In two weeks, you will need to start hatching your own brine shrimp, which requires salt water, a five gallon bucket, brine shrimp eggs, and a sponge filter. I recommend two buckets because the brine are only good for the first twelve hours after they hatch, and after you feed them that day, you need to throw the bucket out and start hatching for the day after next. Microworms can continue to be fed at this point.

You can eventually move to larger brine shrimp, still feeding egg yolk and microworms. Now, let's say your babies are starting to get sixeable. What do you do now?

You need at least a 29 gallon tank to hold your babies in. You will either want to separate the smaller babies out by placing them in a separate smaller tank and continuing them on their small diet or culling them. I recommend putting them in a different tank, and sometimes their size takes OFF after you remove the larger bettas.

When you separate, the largest ones should be as long as your fingertip-knuckle on your pinky finger. Because they all grow at different rates, some will look as though they have hardly grown at all. This is normal; continue with brine and microworms. The larger ones can now be fed larger brine shrimp, blackworms (frozen), and small pellets like Micro-Wafers by Hikari.

It's a lot of work. Don't do it because you want to see what it's like--this is a major commitment. If you don't follow my guidelines, your bettas will turn out looking like hell and no one will take them, much less buy them. See my source list for sites that wil help you out and show you betta standard.

I breed bettas professionally, by the way.

Answer 3

You should do some reasearch before trying to breed them. That way you will no what to do and why and also what to expect. For example, did you know that sometimes the female needs to be "sqeezed" or massaged to get the eggs out? Do research or you could end up with a couple of dead fish.

Answer 4

I would take MM's advice. I have week old fry from my Betta's. It is alot of work making sure you have the right kind of food and enough of it. I learned alot from www.bettatalk.com.

Answer 5

i dont know but i dont think breeding bettas are a good idea.
they tend to fight when put together in the same place...
they HATE company..
i heard if yu put a mirror in front of the fish, it thinks its another fish and it will start attacking the mirror..-0-;;

Answer 6

if they want to they will if not they will not