Breeding Betta Fish *should I Give It Up*

[FBTgirl2]

I have tried to breed my betta fish 4 times. 3 different pairs so it cannot be a pair of them. I am having different thoughts. I want to breed Betta fish so much, but I just cant get it down....Any thoughts on this?

 

[modaz]

I have tried to breed my betta fish 4 times. 3 different pairs so it cannot be a pair of them. I am having different thoughts. I want to breed Betta fish so much, but I just cant get it down....Any thoughts on this?

describe your breeding tank conidtions and how you condition the pair before breeding then we can see what could be wrong.

 

[FBTgirl2]

Okay, well.

I had a 10 gallon almost half filled. With a filter and lots of plants in the corner for the female. Conditioning, the first 2 times I fed them frozen baby brine shrimp, and after the second 2 times I would feed them guppy fry for about 2 weeks. The female would be plump with eggs and I let them together in the tank. Well not exactly, I would have the female in a huge jar for the male to see and build a nest for her. When his nest was built and she had breeding stripes I let them together. Once though, the male never built a nest. I have read tons about it, and one method was to keep them away from each other until conditioned and the other was to put them right next to each other. I tried both. Please point anything out the flawed my breeding routine. The water was kept at 77degrees in the breeding tank.

 

[AmberLynn]

hmmm im no expert at breeding (yet ) but did you give the male something to build his nest under or attach it to? Maybe add some IAL? Ive heard that helps to set the mood so to speak. And ive always read that the temp of the tank should be kept at 82 degrees.

 

[Gun]

Hi FBTgirl2

I'm interested in breeding betas aswell. I'm curious to what happened when after the female was plump and the male had built his nest you let them together? Did they just start fighting or something?

Edit:

I was planning on setting up an 18x11x7 or an 18x12x12 with a meshed partition in the middle. I would set it up best I could..giving the male what he needs, etc..then going from there...

Is this the correct route to take...?

 

[FBTgirl2]

2 of the times the male did attack the female. One time the female attacked the male Anyway, yes I had a Styrofoam cup for him.

 

[AmberLynn]

how long did you leave the male and the female together? Did any of them ever get to the point of wrapping? Its quite common for the male to attack the female quite a bit before they spawn, ive heard it can even take a few days before they spawn

 

[FBTgirl2]

None wrapped. One pair was left there for a week, nothing happened....

 

[AmberLynn]

Maybe you just need to condition them a bit more and keep trying, when I used to breed bettas I used to have that problem all the time, id put them together and nothing would happen. So i gave breeding a rest for a couple years and am ready to try it again. Sorry im not much help but Im sure netty or one of the other breeders will be happy to help you!

 

[Netty]

We actually spawn our Bettas at 86f so you would need to raise your temps but just make sure you do it gradually over a period of time. One tip that we have used in our last spawn was to release the female in the evening for 2-3 hours, then pop her back in the chimney overnight. We released her again the next day and she went straight under the nest and was nudging the male in his side to indicate she was ready. It was literally 5 - 10 mins from the time we released her, that he started wrapping her.

 

[newfishy]

what netty said about the release and re-release works well for me. I also use a 20long to spawn in, a massive clump of plants at one end and the nest at the other. I also, unless they are spawing right then, never leave a pair together alone overnight. I will release during the day and if nothings happened recatch her at night and give both bettas a meal while she is in the chimney.

 

[Gun]

what netty said about the release and re-release works well for me. I also use a 20long to spawn in, a massive clump of plants at one end and the nest at the other. I also, unless they are spawing right then, never leave a pair together alone overnight. I will release during the day and if nothings happened recatch her at night and give both bettas a meal while she is in the chimney.

Hi newfishy.

Ok, this seems easy enough..going to give it a go

I have an 18x12x12 or an 18x11x7 set aside for my attempt at beta breeding. My plan is to silicone a plastic runner vertically down the centre of the tank..front and back. Then cut a piece of glass to fit, this way seperating/introducing the fish is as simple as lifting the partition slightly.

 

[Netty]

Have you got anything bigger......that will be way to small if you end up with 100+ fry. We tend to use bigger spawning tanks so that we don't have to move the fry too early into a larger growout tank.

If you need more info on Breeding there is a section on our website giving instructions on how to breed and raise your Betta fry.

At present we have 40 babies that have been separated (20+ still in the growout tank)..........which means 40 separate containers all kept at the correct temps and water changes daily.

I certainly wouldn't call breeding Bettas easy lol......it takes alot of time and commitment and needs to be researched quite thoroughly before starting.

Once you have everything in preparation and know what to do then it's the most amazing things to see

 

[Gun]

Ok, cheers for that Netty, I'll give it a read.

When I said easy, I wasen't refering to the actual breeding/rearing of the fish...I was meaning the actual initial set-up of the tank.

Have you any pics, mate? Would be great to see all those betas/containers.

 

[Netty]

No probs It's just sometimes people think it's like breeding guppies

This is an old pic of our original set up which has changed alot..........we now have larger divided tanks to put the bigger babies in and the smaller aggressive males are jarred.....some are in breeding traps in the growout tanks too.

This is one of our divided tanks for the bigger babies.....we have about 3 this size and a few smaller ones