I have a particularly beautiful female betta that I would like to breed...?

Question

I'm very new to breeding but know all the rules and necessary requirements, such as proper conditioning and raising of the fry. I don't need lessons, because I've read many books but maybe some special tips with experienced folk would help. The female I have has a fairly white body with some lavender (pale purple) iridescence on the body but the fins are completely covered with this color. She has black eyes, and there's no noticeable particular fin type, like double tail. I would like to breed her with a pure deep red veil tail male that I have, but I'm not sure if her lavender would be masked by his red. He's not a cherry red but a deep dark red and has red eyes. I have other males, but I can tell that these two like each other a lot through their interactions through the glass. Would they be appropriate or should I choose a different male?

Answer 1

I would suggest you select a different male. Your female is called a non-red cambodian in IBC speak. Red is actually dominate over any other color in bettas and to cross her with a red will cover the majority of her color in the majority of the F2 fish. Further, mixing her with anything that has a non-white body will cover that white body / colored fins that make her a cambodian.

There are some clues as to the tail type that you ca make out on females. Usually, if the fish is from a typical pet shop, super pet store like SuperPet, PetSmart or from Walmart then she will be a veil tailed female. Some of these places do carry crowntails and sometimes have crowntailed females even if they don't know it. Usually a female carrying crowntail will have some short extensions on her tail and anal fin, but don't just go by the anal fin as these extensions on the anal fin can exist on any tail type, just usually a bit more so on crowntailed females. Double tail, half moon and such are usually very evident in females as they will strongly show the trait. Here's a double tailed female of reasonable quality
http://www.flippersandfins.net/Images/BettaFemaleDoubleTail.jpg
Though not labeled as such, I feel this is a female half moon looking at the dorsal and anal fins.
http://www.flippersandfins.net/Images/BettaFAQMGFemale.jpg

Here's a link to some examples of various types of males and females on video clips.
http://216.168.47.67/rcb/Photos.htm

Hope that helps and feel free to email me with any betta or betta breeding questions

MM

Answer 2

Quick Question...did you buy these from a breeder or a petshop (Petco, Petsmart, Walmart)?

If they are not from a breeder, then it really does not matter...even breeding 2 red from anywhere but a breeder can give you blues, reds, greens, etc. because they were not selectively bred to produce true colors. If they are flirting with each other, then I'd use them. I do think that the red will probably be the domanint color, but that being said, you should still produce some fry with the color you want.

I have a Walmart Butterfly Veil tail that I spawned with a red female from Petco...so far (1.5 weeks old) 2 are showing orange/peach coloring?! I am hoping this will turn red in the weeks to come.

Do you have Micro-worms or such for fry food? You WILL need this...they grow faster on live food.

Good Luck on your spawn.

Answer 3

Go check out the links in the first answer - particularly the bettatalk one.

But please, be aware of what you are getting yourself into. Bettas can have up to 500 fry at a go if all eggs hatch. Out of that 500, you may get maybe half a dozen that will turn out the colouring you want.

Also, you have to have enough jars to be able to seperate the 500 fry as they get bigger and need to be seperated - this will happen BEFORE they are a saleable size. Then, you have to be able to find homes for those 500 fish - a pet store will usually only take one or two bettas at a time....

I'm not saying don't do it - I'm just saying do LOTS of reading , be prepared and aware of what you are getting yourself into.

She does sound like a pretty fish though!

Answer 4

http://www.bettatalk.com/breeding_bettas.htm
http://user.aol.com/andrerich/aquarium/breeding.htm
http://majesticbettas.com/breeding.htm

these are good places to go for information on breeding betta fish. Just make sure you have the same color male, they don't fight, and you have a large bowl.