Betta Breeding Necessities

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Ethos

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Ok, so here's whats on my list so far -
Betta Breeding: What I need

• Atison's BettaAtison's Betta Fry Starter

• Insulated Shipping Boxes (Sturdy cardboard w/foam inserts)


• Plastic Shipping Bags (4"x12")


• Yellow Shipping Labels

• 35 Hrs. Heat Packs
• 400 ml Brine Shrimp Hatcher
• Atison's Betta Spa
• Large plastic fry tub
• Heaters for fry tub
• microworms (where do I get these?)
• Individual containers (Have some in mind)



Does this look ok so far?
What else do i need?
 
Only 1.
Atison's BettaAtison's Betta Fry Starter.
I don't know anything about the brine thingy, I just put it on the list because I've heard about it...
 
baby brine shrimp is on the list but i found even that was too big for some of my teeny fry, you'll need microworms too
and individual containers for the males when they start to get aggressive
 
Where do i get micro worms?
 
meh... I wouldn't worry about the shipping supplies already. There's no telling how many fry you will have to sell until they are about 1 month old - then, you have a pretty certain idea of the number, as you can lose lots of fry in the first 4 weeks.

For the spawn tank, you need a 10 gallon+ tub/tank, a 100w heater, a sponge filter or Penn Plax corner filter (these are the best, and they're sold at almost any pet or aquarium store), lots of bushy plants, just as basics. For the grow-out, you will need at least one 20+ gallon tub, a heater that correlates to the tank size, a power filter (for when the fry are 1 inch+), plenty of plants, loads of fry food AND back-up fry food, and loads of cleaning supplies. Here's some products I recommend to have on-hand, for the grow-out stages and even before then.

Hikari First Bites - my Bettas still love to graze on this, at 9 weeks. I had pretty good success at feeding this to 3 week-olds when my Microworm and BBS supply was low.

Microworm Culture - soooo easy. All you need is a jar with an inch of oatmeal in it, and a lid. Throw the culture in there, and it should be active within a week. MW's can be fed to newborns as a staple diet, and for older fry as a snack.

BBS Hatchery - don't buy a hatchery. A home-made hatchery works exactly the same. Get a 1-litre soda bottle, cut off the top, stick an airline in there connected to a pump and you have a $5 (or less) hatchery. You will also need aquarium salt and baking soda to treat the water, but you probably already have that on hand!

Basically every type of syphoning device out there!... get a big bundle of airline tubing for syphoning (costs $1), a small gravel vaccum, larger airline tubing, filter floss (to stuff into one end of the gravel vaccum... so fry don't get sucked up), a couple turkey basters, an eye dropper, and plenty of buckets or a large tub to age water in.

Get 2 LARGE bottles of Novaqua and Amquel. You will need them ;)! Doing 50+% water changes every day requires tons of treated, aged water.

Penn Plax corner filter, as I said before, is an awesome filter for the spawning tank. Equally awesome is the carbon/sponge "Small World" filter that is available at Petsmart and Petco. For grow-outs, I HIGHLY recommend a Penguin Mini Bio-Wheel filter. This really makes the water sparkly clean and totally cuts down your syphoning duties. You'll still need to do lots of water changes, but Penguin filters rock it!

Atison's Pro Betta food is a good continuation of the Starter food. I feed it to my 9 week-olds with good results... however, the granules are pretty much too big for fry that are under 2 months old. If you want a dry food for your fry between 4-8 weeks, I recommend Betta Bites because they're much smaller.

http://www.petdiscounters.com is the best! They sell all of the Atison products, along with Penguin Bio-wheel filters, at super good prices. I ordered lots of Atison's food, plus the Atison's water treatment stuff, plus a Penguin 100 Bio-Wheel Power Filter, and 3 other fish foods, all for $35 including shipping. I ordered it on a Saturday and it arrived Monday morning. It's definitely a great quality store... my Penguin filter cost about $15 from there, when it is over $30 at Petsmart.


Good luck getting ready for your spawn :thumbs: and be prepared to be broke.

Edit: to answer your question about Microworms, you can get a culture for just the cost of shipping from any of the breeders on this board, basically. Wuv has offered to send you a culture, and I could too!

PLEAAASE check the sticky thread about fry food. It explains Baby Brine Shrimp... All you need to hatch them is the 1 litre set-up I explained, water treated with 1 tbsp of salt per litre and 1/4 tbsp baking soda per litre, and lots of water current so you will need to hook up and airstone to a small air pump. Just add 1 tbsp of BBS eggs (they're actually cysts, you can buy them in jars at Petsmart) and within 24-48 hours, a percentage of the eggs will have hatched. Then, you will need to disconnect the air pump and shine a flashlight towards the bottom of the bottle... BBS are attracted to light, so the tiny shrimp will swim toward it. Using a turkey baster, suck out the BBS and drain out the salt water by putting it through a fine Brine Shrimp net. Rinse the net into a small cup of tank water and, using an eye dropper or a turkey baster, remove controlled numbers of the BBS. The ratio is about 3-4 BBS per fry, and you should avoid over-feeding at all costs. Do NOT continue to feed your fry until they look like their tummies are about to explode, or it could result in swim bladder issues.
 
So I got the feeding down - but I was told to breed in a 5G, then transfer the fry to the grow-out tank?
Thanks splashluff, your post was very informative!
 
So I got the feeding down - but I was told to breed in a 5G, then transfer the fry to the grow-out tank?
Thanks splashluff, your post was very informative!

True!

But what u should really be worrying about is mostly the food. I u get a betta fry to survive there first 6 weeks. They should turn up into nice juveniles :nod: . Microworms and Vinegar Eels are the best food for fry in there early week from week 1 to around week 3 then u start giving them BBS. After they hit there juvenile age Start feeding grindal worms and chopped up blackworms! :D
 
So I got the feeding down - but I was told to breed in a 5G, then transfer the fry to the grow-out tank?
Thanks splashluff, your post was very informative!
A 10 gallon would be better... more room for the female to hide and the water quality will be better longer.

Microworms and Vinegar Eels are the best food for fry in there early week from week 1 to around week 3 then u start giving them BBS..
You wait until week 3 to start feeding BBS?? :crazy:
I start taking them OFF BBS at week 4! They're perfectly capable of eating BBS after a couple of days, and it seems to trigger their feeding instinct better than microworms. I'd start them off on microworms, then start feeding BBS as soon as possible, but keep feeding microworms for a week or two as well so the smallest fry that may not be able to handle BBS yet can still eat. I've never gotten my fry to take anything that doesn't move until week 3-4, so for that period of time you're going to be depending primarily on BBS
 
So what do you feed them the first week? So you start feeding them MW at theend of week one. Then BBS when they're big enough untill week 4 or so...Then after BBS you can feed Hikari First Bites and Betta Bites?
Then you move on to chopped up bloodworms...right?
 
BBS until week 4 and then grindal worms and chopped black worms, and chopped frozen bloodworms.
Although, mine are 4 weeks old today and i still give BBS and microworms as snackfood.
 

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