Girlfriend Time....

[mewhorse]

I have just a boring Petsmart veil-tail male (although a gorgeous purple that I've never seen before w/red & teeny bit of blue fins)....he is making a good bubble nest already and when I just went to see him he flared at me - very tough ya know! I think I'm gonna pick him up a girlfriend (Petsmart just got a shipment in past few days)....do I just add her to his tank or do I put her in a tank beside him first or what? I do have an empty 10 gallon so if it's successful fry have a big place to grow up...to dispose of grown fry (if successful) will see if family/friends need a few (sister/brother will for sure) plus will put an ad in bargain finder paper (free ad) to give away - or 50 cents each if they are pretty, or see if local LFS wants some (for credit or even free - if they provide baggies etc. for transport)....don't know what color girl will be...will see if they have some purplish females...they are under $5 each so might get 2 and put one in 37 gallon in case he detests one of them...boys can be picky ya know!

 

[Rediahs]

Don't breed them.

1) You need to know a lot to ensure that a spawn with bettas goes successfully and they dont' kill each other and the fry aren't deformed, etc. Spawns can have up to 1,000 fry (though this is rare), a more common number is 100, and it's not all that uncommon to get around 500 (check out Synirr's latest for an example). Males must be separated once they become rowdy, and females will require a large grow-out tank, so at the worst case scenario, you might end up with needing 500 jars for the males, and at least 300 gallons worth of tanks for the female sororities...

2) Breeding veiltails, or any petshop bettas, is a no-no. You don't know their lineage, you don't know what kind of mutt they are. It's irresponsible to introduce more of these mutts into the world.



If you want to breed, you must acquire a pair with a popular tail-type, i.e. crowntail (not petshop), doubletail, plakat, super-delta (halfmoon) from a qualified breeder, because only then will you know that you're passing on good genetics and good lines. You also must research the process of breeding, and make sure you have plenty of space for the babies.

 

[BWBettas]

from a qualified breeder

may i ask how you become a "qualified" breeder?? as far as i know you don't need to take a test to breed them

Bret

 

[catxx]

exactly what chrissy said. breeding bettas is hard, expensive, frustrating and tiring work. if you can't dedicate an entire room in your house to bettas, don't try it.

http/www.bettatalk.com

 

[corrosive]

If you want to go for it, do the appropriate research, take your time, make it work! Good luck. Just be watching so if something goes wrong you can fix it.

 

[OohFeeshy]

From another post you made, it seems to me you want to 'practise' with VT's before moving onto ther tailtypes? Don't. It's not you who needs practise, its the parents. Besides which, your male is most likely far too old for breeding.

Get yourself a nice pair (you like CTs). You can practise with the first few spawns of that pair- most likely their parenting skills will be a bit dodgy for the first few runs, meaning you have plenty of time to get it right yourself while the parents learn how to spawn properly. 'Practising' with VTs doesn't make you any better qualified to look after fry, it just means you're contributing more to unwanted VT mutts.

 

[CAC]

I do have an empty 10 gallon so if it's successful fry have a big place to grow up

From what i can remember, you need at least a 30-40 gallon tank for fry, they dont stay less than a cm for long...

And you need to do hours of reading up on it, which i presume you havent done, otherwise you wouldnt be considering breeding VTs

If you can get/do have a large tank and have read up properly and can find a nice pair, then i wish you all the best luck.

Mikey

 

[Rediahs]

from a qualified breeder

may i ask how you become a "qualified" breeder?? as far as i know you don't need to take a test to breed them

Bret

All I mean is... well... all bettas (in captivity) come from a "breeder", even the pet store ones. I meant a breeder who knows what they're doing.

 

[mewhorse]

Well, I had different ideas for the 10 gallon anyway so forget trying to even RAISE a few fry...they would work better as my original plan...as feeders...although (gasp) meat - eating fish?! How cruel...how can any of the LFS out there even stand to have those feeder goldfish/carnivores in their shops - what about the fishes lineage? and qualified breeders? And man - when I bred my grade pony mare to a connemara stallion for *gasp* $175 Canadian and me, an unqualified trainer broke him to ride & jump by myself, how could I even stand to look at the wallfull of ribbons I won, beating +$40,000 horses bred/trained by professionals, and how could I stand the 1,000s of dollars I sold him for?! I was getting sick of this forum anyway....so bye for a few years...

 

[catxx]

when you breed 2 horses you don't get 350 foals who'll kill each other if they're left in the same field when they get older.
but never mind.

you can listen to the people who've been there, done that and know what they're talking about when it comes to breeding bettas.

or listen to the voices in your head.

at the end of the day it's up to you, we're not going to lie to you and tell you it's ok to chuck 2 old pet store VTs together and you'll get lots of happy babies and make money out of it. it's not that easy. (i'm ignoring the bickering over the word "qualified" above) but if you don't want to listen to our advice, why ask?

 

[Kame-San]

Horses and fish are different.

And if you have so much money, why not use some of it to get the correct equipment and a nice pair?

And just because you can teach a horse to jump over a pole doesn't mean ANYTHING in the fish world.

If you knew there was a possibility you weren't going to like the answer you shouldn't have asked the question.

 

[Rediahs]

Well, I had different ideas for the 10 gallon anyway so forget trying to even RAISE a few fry...they would work better as my original plan...as feeders...although (gasp) meat - eating fish?! How cruel...how can any of the LFS out there even stand to have those feeder goldfish/carnivores in their shops - what about the fishes lineage? and qualified breeders? And man - when I bred my grade pony mare to a connemara stallion for *gasp* $175 Canadian and me, an unqualified trainer broke him to ride & jump by myself, how could I even stand to look at the wallfull of ribbons I won, beating +$40,000 horses bred/trained by professionals, and how could I stand the 1,000s of dollars I sold him for?! I was getting sick of this forum anyway....so bye for a few years...

What are you going on about?!?

People don't usually sell bettas as feeders. Why? Well, that finnage is just a waste... I don't know how tasty a tiny betta would be. And don't they usually stick feeders all together in a tank? You can't put bettas (at least not male ones) together, or you'll end up with a bunch of dead, beat up fish.

You are insane, you know that? We give you advice and you spit a bunch of ridiculous stuff back at us that we weren't even talking about. Fish are not horses. And nobody said anything about feeder fish. They don't use bettas as feeders.

If you want to equate fish to horses, then fine. I'll chop up a baby horse to feed to my oscar. Wait, no, I'll get a shark and feed it the horse live.

 

[Himmel]

Do not get a CT they seem to be way more delicate then VTs, and it depends on the fish if you breed VTs I did but thats becuase my male VT was over 6 inches long (he bred sucessfully at 2.5 years and I kept 1 of his young the rest were spoken for before there was even a female to breed him with)
got 75 fry

You do need to do alot of research and thingss acan and do go wrong with females.
and the CT thing may just be me as I cant keep a CT healthy for more then 48 hours it seems

Do not get a CT they seem to be way more delicate then VTs, and it depends on the fish if you breed VTs I did but thats becuase my male VT was over 6 inches long (he bred sucessfully at 2.5 years and I kept 1 of his young the rest were spoken for before there was even a female to breed him with)
got 75 fry

You do need to do alot of research and thingss acan and do go wrong with females.
and the CT thing may just be me as I cant keep a CT healthy for more then 48 hours it seems

ya know what I actually agree with ppl on here Horses what
feeder bettas thats definatly a new one dont breed your fish you dont knwo what you are doing or why you are doing it

 

[bUcky]

where do i take the test to be qualifyed? is there a university? or do i have to get a biology degree? id like to know. or does it take like 10 successful spawns before i am qualifyed? ahaha bret you 9 away!

oh btw when i first started not long ago, i was encouraged rather than just told no. he can breed vts all he wants, and kill lots of fish at the same time. why not just help him to do it the right way and not tell him, "no, dont do it, vts are....". maybe we would have 1 more betta lover in doing so. And giving the betta world that much more help.

i breed vts once, and scored major points with my gf mother. and gave the rest to my lfs who now cuts me deals on supplys and fish! worked out good for me.

 

[mewhorse]

Well, I wasn’t gonna even read this forum anymore – better ways to spend my time but got bored on my night off so here goes:

re horses: my goal was not to compare horses to fish in any way – I guess I should have brought up my successful breeding/sale of various types of finches, and purebred siamese cats, and mealworms/cricket feeders etc…my goal was simply to show that if I try something – I succeed way beyond expectations (I actually possess a rather high IQ and a very good work ethic and unfortunately do have issues with moronic individuals)

corrosive & bUcky – thank you for the sane comments…much appreciated

catxx – sure when you breed horses you only get 1 foal (often stillborn/absorbed fetus unfortunately) but even 2 foals out in the field can easily become aggressive and do some serious damage to each other even at a young age – only takes 1 good kick in the right spot - so much safer than bettas?? Tell that to my former coworker after his 3 week hospital ordeal from a 2 week old foal kick…and when exactly did I say I was planning to make money out of this? Maybe the giving away for free (or the huge price of $0.50!) that’ll put the pennies in the bank! Hmmm…And sure I wanted to listen to advice which was why I asked but how much ACTUAL advice did I get? Even if I got a pair of crowntails how successful would I be with all the “don’t do it†supposed advice?

Kame-San - I guess they should completely shut down the forum – anyone who posts a question may not like the advice they get (if any) so they better not post…horses and fish are different? Really? But I thought horses could breath/swim so well underwater and really get along with the corycats! Drool…

Chrissi…I guess the word ‘sarcasm’ is not in your vocabulary…but if they were just those veiltail mutts as feeders how would the finnage even be a waste? they are just mutts right? And if no male bettas can ever be together how do the teeny fry ever survive? And how can you even tell the difference between genders at such a young age? Did I even say that I would raise them to full size to use them? And feed to what size of fish (in a 10 gallon – how big could it even be? I’m sure a 4 foot red tail catfish would fit in there oh so comfortably with a few grown bala sharks, and oscars and a couple of arrowanas too but oh no – they might choke on those nasty pitiful fins) And what ADVICE did you give me other than that I am apparently insane? (drool some more) and if bettas from petstores come from a “breeder who knows what they’re doing†then how could they possibly justify breeding these horribly mutated nasty veiltails? I mean, who would possibly ever want one of these pitiful things?