i am clueless about my bettas!?

Question

heres the deal. i have a male betta. i figured to buy him a female one to breed. but when i put them together, the male keep spreading out its gills and chasing the girl. i dont know when they want to breed or not. when is it the right time? and I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO AT ALL!!!

Answer 1

I have been breeding bettas for show and for sale for over 20 years and this system works well for me.

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! Feel free to email me if I can help further or follow the link in my profile.

MM

Answer 2

Is your male betta ready to breed; as in, has he made a bubble nest yet? If he hasn't made his nest than maybe he isn't ready for the company of a female yet and that is why he is showing some hostility toward her.

This flaring could also be his way of courting her. Whatever you do make sure that after they breed that you separate the male and the female b/c there are instances where the male will kill the female after breeding.

Answer 3

If you don't know what you're doing, breeding is a bad idea. The male might kill the female, but even if they do breed, you'll have to take care of all those baby fish. I'd leave it to the experts.

Answer 4

The answer from magicman116 seems like very good advice, but consider this. Do you have the money or the means to take care of hundreds of Betta fry? It's a huge responsibility and it can be costly.

Also, I would find out in advance if you can sell or get credit for your young Betta from a pet store (local or chain store). A lot of pet stores only buy from commercial breeders who have licenses. Not from hobbyist who hatched hundreds of fry in their apartment and are trying to get rid of them. I know this personally through a friend who ran into the same issue.

I'm am not trying to discourage you, but please consider these things before you go through with magicman116's advice!

Answer 5

if you dont know what your doing ,breeding should be out of the question.

Certainly having a male and just going out and buying a female and adding her in was a mistake.

You will need to remove her as she isnt conditioned and they arent set-up for breeding. Breeding should never be done in a community tank.

You must take her out or he will end up killing her.

If you want to breed, you will need to get another tank around 10 gallons, set it up for breeding i.e bare with low water.

Condition both bettas for 2 weeks,

and research.

Research starts at my betta site http://www.bcaquatics.com

Answer 6

TAKE THEM OUT!!!!! he will kill her... there has to be a special chem in the water that the female secretes but domestic ones dont... Plus you have to have a licence if i am not mistaken cuz you have to know how to do it and if you are not careful the female will eat her eggs