Breeding Dwarf Bettas

[castor]

i am working on breeding my second generation dwarf bettas rn. the first generation was my attempt to make halfmoon plakats and surprise surprise, all the bettas never grew past 2 inches. So i took the smallest male and smallest female and bred them. right now i am working on breeding the best ones in terms of health and size. If this goes well, i'll see what i can do to get them registered as a new type. my male is currently an inch and a quarter body wise(he has typical half moon fins in comparison to his body) and the female is an inch all together. Their aggression levels are fairly low too, so i am hoping to see if they can be good additions to nano aquariums.

some side notes- I raised them on heavy protein focused diets
they were all raised in a 40 gallon
weekly water changes of anywhere from 30-50%
temp stayed 78-79 F
First generation batch came from male plakat and female halfmoon( average sized adults)
first generation had a mix of koi or marbled bettas( did not use them for breeding, they were still small under 2 inches)
largest betta to come from batch is a male that 2.1 inches body length, largest female was 1.8
second generation i am trying to breed for will be by two bluish colored halfmoon from that batch
the male is 1.25-1.3 inches, female is under an inch

 

[hurgerburger]

woah that's cool

 

[castor]

Thanks , I was originally replying to some post about this ,but it got moved to a new one since the other one was so old . But my hopes for this is to make a betta capable of being in nano tanks . Aggression and health are the two biggest factors when I breed though . Good health is first . And very low aggression is second . That’s how I’ve always breed, so I can have my bettas with a variety of fish or with each other .

 

[castor]

Just had first successful breeding . Not many this time because I left the female in too long . Got crazy busy . Not good when breeding . But I’ll be able to see what comes from it and their health . Just got my male out and the fry are free swimming .I’ll let my adults rest for a couple weeks and condition again and hopefully have them breed again before two months

 

[castor]

There’s the father and mother . And my finger for size comparison . Both are a over 7 months

 

[castor]

My next project I’m working on is making some half suns with these two. Female is barely visible . I haven’t done half suns breeding line in about five years . I don’t have very good photos from that project of them though which sucks . But I’m hoping for a red black and blue color mixture . From the last time I did half suns ( my favorite type ) , it took two generations to get the fin type I wanted , some look like glorified crown tails and others look like half moons with some tips on the males . But after the second generation they start evening out and breeding the fin I’m looking for regularly. But that’s what I get for loving a hybrid fin type you can’t find for sale anywhere

 

[castor]

So the fry are almost big enough for brine shrimp now

 

[castor]

They are now at bbs feeding size

 

[castor]

So I’ve breed the bettas again a couple days ago and it turns out they only have small batches . So I wasn’t late into getting to the first batch . They just do not create very big batches . Maybe 40 eggs max .The first batch has grown big enough for me to look for defects and cull . Only a few were culled . Two had spine issues . One had a fan tail looking thing going on and a slightly shortened body . The last one I culled had a dent in its head . So I’m left with about 25 or more. They are showing more blue than anything else . But too soon to say what color they will be .

 

[Circus]

I am excited to see how they turn out!

 

[Sgooosh]

So then they can actually live in those glorified shot glasses that so many people keep them in!

This is an awesome project. I call dibs on the first one available to the public.

hmm, i think they still need like 5 gallons though, theyre still bettas

 

[Essjay]

I agree. Fish should not be kept in those tiny glasses no matter how small they are.

 

[EllRog]

@Flushable Pets was making a joke that as they're even smaller than normal bettas, they'd actually fit in the awfully misleading cups they're sold in. I know for a fact he doesn't belive that any animal can flourish confined to such small spaces. I think there has been a misinterpretation with his sarcasm, although I understand that it must be pointed out for any newbies that could be reading.

Awesome project, looking forward to following your adventure. Best of luck

 

[Essjay]

although I understand that it must be pointed out for any newbies that could be reading.

We do have to be careful that some comment made in jest is not taken seriously

 

[castor]

So I got some bad news , they got to half an inch and started getting colors and fins . But they all died . Spines were good . They swam fine . No bacterial or fungal infections that I could find . Water was stable the whole time . I think it may have been an internal organ problem . I still have the second batch so we will see . But it looks like I won’t be able to create a line of dwarf bettas