Did my bettas breed?

Question

Yesterday, I put my male and female betta fish in together for almost a whole day. When I came back home from walking my dog(around mid-day) I saw the female had white stripes on her side. The male had already had a bubble nest when I put the female in. I left her in for a bit longer to be sure. I noticed the male was guarding the nest. The female was also digging in the rocks for something. The white lines on the female started to fade and I took her out. But... then the male kinda stopped guarding the nest. Did they breed? When will the babies hatch? I got baby fry food to be sure. I have never had baby fish before. Plz help.

Answer 1

You can tell for sure by looking for eggs in the bubblenest. They'll be slightly smaller than the bubbles with opaque centers like in this photo: http://www.ausfishforum.com/forum/files/bettaspawn2.jpg

Apparently you're new to breeding bettas - you should have a spawning tank without any gravel - then male needs to be able to see the eggs to pick them up and put them in the nest. If the female finds them, she'll more likely eat them, plus with gravel, some will fall betereen the gravel pieces where the male won't be able to get to them. If they're not put into the bubblenest, they won't hatch.

If you did get fertile eggs and the male put some in the nest, they should hatch in about a day, but it'll take a few days for the fry to absorb their yolk sacs so they won't eat right away.

When you say you got fry food, I hope you have microworms or vinegar eels, because betta fry don't eat the powdered/pelleted fry food - they need to see movement to stimulate them to eat. Baby brine shrimp (which you can hatch yourself) are too large for them at first, but you can start feeding these after they've been eating 3-5 days.

Another link with good info on breeding and raising the fry is this one:
http://www.bettatalk.com/

Even if you didn't get eggs or aren't successful on raising this batch of fry, you can read up on spawning and be prepared for future tries.

Answer 2

Here's a good site about breeding bettas:
http://www.bettacentral.com/breeding.htm

The eggs will begin to hatch within 24-36 hours. And once all the eggs have been picked up from the bottom and moved to the nest (the female digging in the rocks?), the male will try to keep the female away (guarding the nest?). One way to tell is by looking at the female's stomach. It will appear smaller and flatter than it was before.