Breeding Betta fish - I'm scared of it!

[BettaFishGirl]

I have 2 Betta fish that I might want to breed...one is a rescue male who is in a temporary planted 3 gallon (he is close to 4 inches, do you thinks he's a Giant Betta?), and a female Koi Halfmoon Betta that I got about a week ago. Pics attached. She's in a heavily planted 5 gallon. Both tanks are cycled and they are very happy. I was thinking of breeding them, but honestly I'm scared of breeding them. I hear its relatively easy, but if I do it I have some questions.

1. I just got Luna (the female Betta) about week ago, when do you think I could breed her?
2. Bubbles (the male Betta) is in a planted 3 gallon temporary tank, and he will be moved into a 7 gallon soon(ish). Would it be ok to breed him while he's still in that tank? Also, any idea what tail type he is? Maybe a double tail? The fins are still growing so they could look completely different in a month.
3. How big of a breeding tank would I need? I can't get anything over a 5g, could maybe a 3 gallon tub work? Would I need a heater and filter for it?

Now the fry...I really can't take on 100 baby Bettas, I was thinking of just keeping 5-10 and humanly euthanizing the rest with clove oil...is that cruel?

I'd also probably put them in half gallon deli cups/containers...is that ok? They are smaller so could that work when I'm raising them?

I'd get live or frozen baby brine shrimp...could they be raised on just that until they are big enough to eat flakes?

How fast do the fry grow? When do you think I could give them to my LFS?

Last thing - water changes. How many water changes would I have to do in a half gallon tank? I'd put floating plants and probably a little java fern or something..I was thinking every other day or could I get away with every 3-4 days? My tap water has .15 nitrite, and .50 ammonia, so I probably couldn't just do a water change with normal tap water...should I get a jug of of spring water and do the WC with that? Or use my cycled tanks water when I'm doing water changes on those? Or could I use the tap water?

Also, if you know a good Betta breeding guide it would be helpful!

Sorry for all the questions, I just wanted to ask some things! Also, I don't know if I'm going to do it, but if I do I will post the journey on here.

 

[Fishfur]

I have 2 Betta fish that I might want to breed...one is a rescue male who is in a temporary planted 3 gallon (he is close to 4 inches, do you thinks he's a Giant Betta?), and a female Koi Halfmoon Betta that I got about a week ago. Pics attached. She's in a heavily planted 5 gallon. Both tanks are cycled and they are very happy. I was thinking of breeding them, but honestly I'm scared of breeding them. I hear its relatively easy, but if I do it I have some questions.

1. I just got Luna (the female Betta) about week ago, when do you think I could breed her?
2. Bubbles (the male Betta) is in a planted 3 gallon temporary tank, and he will be moved into a 7 gallon soon(ish). Would it be ok to breed him while he's still in that tank? Also, any idea what tail type he is? Maybe a double tail? The fins are still growing so they could look completely different in a month.
3. How big of a breeding tank would I need? I can't get anything over a 5g, could maybe a 3 gallon tub work? Would I need a heater and filter for it?

Now the fry...I really can't take on 100 baby Bettas, I was thinking of just keeping 5-10 and humanly euthanizing the rest with clove oil...is that cruel?

I'd also probably put them in half gallon deli cups/containers...is that ok? They are smaller so could that work when I'm raising them?

I'd get live or frozen baby brine shrimp...could they be raised on just that until they are big enough to eat flakes?

How fast do the fry grow? When do you think I could give them to my LFS?

Last thing - water changes. How many water changes would I have to do in a half gallon tank? I'd put floating plants and probably a little java fern or something..I was thinking every other day or could I get away with every 3-4 days? My tap water has .15 nitrite, and .50 ammonia, so I probably couldn't just do a water change with normal tap water...should I get a jug of of spring water and do the WC with that? Or use my cycled tanks water when I'm doing water changes on those? Or could I use the tap water?

Also, if you know a good Betta breeding guide it would be helpful!

Sorry for all the questions, I just wanted to ask some things! Also, I don't know if I'm going to do it, but if I do I will post the journey on here.

Can you keep the water in the cups warm enough? Average room temperatures really aren’t warm enough unless you live somewhere fairly tropical and don’t use AC where the fish are.

Fry would need at least 3 months before they’d be big enough to sell and that’s assuming you get nice looking fry. They may not be as pretty as the ones the stores can get from the farms,.

But you won’t get any double tail fry - it is a recessive trait and I see that the male is a double tail. The female I can’t tell, she might be a half moon.

You also need to be prepared to find that this particular male and female won’t like each other. Fish can be very picky about their mates and bettas are more so, it seems. So you may find they will not mate. It happens.

But before you can even try to introduce them, they need to be very well fed for a month using live or frozen foods. It’s called conditioning the fish. While you do that, there are a good many sites that have decent information about how to introduce the fish and then raise the fry.

Baby brine are too big for them at first - they need infusoria or maybe vinegar eels the first week, after they start free swimming and until that time they don’t need feeding. Vinegar eels are handy because they’ll survive for days in the freshwater and swim at all tank levels so the fry can find them easily and you won’t have to feed them as often as you will with foods that die too soon or sink to the bottom, like microworms do.

You can’t give them frozen baby brine to start with either. Like a lot of fish when they’re very new fry, betta fry only eat food that’s alive and moving for the first few weeks. If it’s not swimming they are most unlikely to eat it - the movement triggers their feeding response. So you need to have an infusoria culture or vinegar eel culture all ready to go, or microworms or all of those and then you can hatch out some baby brine later - it’s not difficult to do and it’s cheaper than buying them frozen anyway.

 

[Lcc86]

Personally I wouldn't breed them if I didn't have room to keep the ones that survived. I don't know if this is common in the fishkeeping world but it doesn't sit well with me to euthanized healthy fish that you've deliberately bred.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Here you go

 

[BettaFishGirl]

Can you keep the water in the cups warm enough? Average room temperatures really aren’t warm enough unless you live somewhere fairly tropical and don’t use AC where the fish are.

If I breed them they would be in my bedroom, which is typically 73-74 degrees. They would go on a shelf right beneath my snakes enclosure which has a heat lamp, so maybe that would raise the temp a little.

But you won’t get any double tail fry - it is a recessive trait and I see that the male is a double tail. The female I can’t tell, she might be a half moon.

You also need to be prepared to find that this particular male and female won’t like each other. Fish can be very picky about their mates and bettas are more so, it seems. So you may find they will not mate. It happens.

But before you can even try to introduce them, they need to be very well fed for a month using live or frozen foods. It’s called conditioning the fish. While you do that, there are a good many sites that have decent information about how to introduce the fish and then raise the fry.

Yes, the female is a halfmoon. So if be getting all halfmoon babies? I really like the halfmoon tail so I'd be happy about it.

I have freeze dried bloodworms, freeze dried daphnia, and frozen brine shrimp, could those be good for conditioning?

I do have some java moss that I've noticed has a lot of little bugs in it...they kind of look like copepods...would those work? Then when do you think I could get them onto baby brine shrimp? I have BS eggs but I don't have a brine shrimp net, so separating the eggs would be a hassle. Sometimes I can just get my syringe and get just the brine shrimp but a lot of the saltwater get sucked up too.

Here you go

Thank you, that's a really great video! Definitely learned more on how to breed them!

Personally I wouldn't breed them if I didn't have room to keep the ones that survived. I don't know if this is common in the fishkeeping world but it doesn't sit well with me to euthanized healthy fish that you've deliberately bred.

This is what's been turning me off of breeding them. I know it won't be painful for them but still...it is common to cull deformed babies (like in fancy goldfish) but I don't know about bettas.