Breeding Bettas

[doghoney2004]

Hi, i have been selling betta splendens for a few months. Yesterday, i decided i had enough of buying the fish to sell on at a profit, so bought 5 females. I know that housing males with females is not recomended, however, all my bettas have great personaliltys so i decided to try it. I have the 5 females mixed with one male in my communitiy tank, have seen no fighting or anything else.

I sort of know the basics of breeding and get how to do it, would it work like this? Other fish in the tank are :

Golden sucking loaches
Zebra danios
Neon Tetras
Glowlight tetres

Will the male just build a bubble nest and sort it out naturally? i have other tanks set up ready to move any aggresive fish as well as having breeding traps.

 

[Jaded12]

Its definatly not recommended to house males and females together, they may be a acting fine now but eventually you WILL end up with the dead fish. With the ratio you have chances are that the females will likey gang up on the male and kill him. That being said, breeding is a very involved process and can be quite expensive, bettas are definatly not fish that u can put a male and a female together and POOF get babies.

You'll need a quality pair, its definatly not recommended to breed pet store bettas as they have unknown genetics, and its even less recommended to breed veiltails, there are already so many unwanted veiltails out there, y would you want to create even more.

other supplies you'll need bsides the fish are:

10 gallon breeding tank fish about 6 inches with water. (no substrate)
A heater set at 80-82 degrees
a filter that can be adjusted to blow out 1-2 bubbles per second
Some sort of anchor for the male to attach his nest to (I use a piece of styrofoam)
a hidey hole for the female
IAL (indian almond leaves) always helps

Then don't forget food for the babies and extra protien for the parents

-bloodworms
-blackworms
-micro worms
-vinegar eels
-bbs


anymore questions please ask

 

[Amerce]

You can't successfully breed betta's in a community tank, you will need a breeding tank to house the male while he looks after the spawn for the first week or so of their lives as they are helpless and will be predated on by the rest of the tank mates.

As for a community tank with males and females, I would say no.

You don't say how big your tank is either but if you were to house them all together then you need a biggish tank with plenty of hiding places or the females will pack hunt the male down.

You also don't say what tail type you have, but if it is a long tail type like VT/SD/HM then the tetras are going to make mincemeat of them, or the betta's will attack the tetra's. Not a good recipe for breeding or anything else.

 

[devon_charm]

Hello, so you decided to come over to the dark side lol.

Amerce and Jaded12 are right you should never keep a male in with females he will end up dead trust me. You need to introduce the female to him slowly to give each time to get ready to spawn, I know that some people on here use a 1Ltr coke bottle with both ends removed put upright in the males tank with the female inside it. This allows hit to get all excited and build a nest and gives her time to get eggy and bar up. Have a quick read of the FAQ section on spawning, it really helps.

 

[jourdy288]

The problem with community breeding is that the male cares for the fry, and will attack other fish to protect them.

 

[doghoney2004]

Thanks for your help everyone. You were right!!

The females got all his fins well im guessing it was them

He is now in a fishbag with about 5 litres of water in and a big air gap, floating in one of my other tropical tanks just to isolate him. Hope he gets better soon

 

[groupiekilla06]

Poor guy! Those girls can be vicious too. My suggestion to prevent infection and help healing would be to add aquarium salt to a hospital tank for him. You have to take him out of the bag and isolate him in a tank to give him the best chance at recovery. I would say half a rounded teaspoon per gallon (3.8 liters) but make sure to dissolve it in a cup of aquarium water first and then add it slowly to his tank. Hope he makes it! Good luck!

Poor guy! Those girls can be vicious too. My suggestion to prevent infection and help healing would be to add aquarium salt to a hospital tank for him. You have to take him out of the bag and isolate him in a tank to give him the best chance at recovery. I would say half a rounded teaspoon per gallon (3.8 liters) but make sure to dissolve it in a cup of aquarium water first and then add it slowly to his tank. Hope he makes it! Good luck!

 

[MermaidMel]

I take your Ebaying wasn't going too well then?
There are some great sites on the internet for information on keeping. treating and breeding bettas, have a google around and see what you find, but it's nowhere near as simple as people think. I've been toying with breeding for about 2 months and still not had the balls to start.

 

[modaz]

it can be some what frustrating at times, with the things that can go wrong such as
your female is scared stiff of males and does nothing but hide
she decides that she has muscles beyond belief and has a go at your male
he decides he has bigger muscles and completely goes to town on her
he wont build a nest
he likes the taste of the eggs
she too likes them
he waits for the fry to hatch then eats them
she's battered so much that she may die afterwards or during spawning
some, if not most first spawns fail
the fry are not covered properly and perish from the chilled air when they take their first breath
they get hit with some sort of infection and die from cross contaminated tank utensils
the surviving fry get to 2 months and you realize that they arent growing as quickly as you wouldve expected so you start to panic
you dont have the time or resources to feed them correctly.

BUT if you take into consideration and do your best to avoid some of the things above that could go wrong, you end up with loads of fry and sods law you have 80% males are wonder where on earth your gunna put them once you need to seperate them.

OH the joys of spawning bettas