HELP! What to do with baby Betta fish?

[BetteFishLover]

Ok, so I have a female betta fish that laid eggs. The fry (baby fish) are growing and developing but I the female laid more eggs than I thought she would and I don't have room for them all!!! I've posted on craigslist to see if people want them but no one wants them!! What should I do with the extra baby fish?? Soon they'll get bigger and I won't have room for them in my tank or in other tanks! Please help!

 

[Colin_T]

Get a heap of 2 litre icecream buckets and put the males in them. Keep the baby females in a 100 litre plastic storage crate and grow them all up until they are similar sized to the ones at the petshop. Then contact your local petshop and ask if they want to buy any Bettas. Tell them you have 50 or however many you have for sale and see if they want them. Most petshops will buy fish for cash or store credit. You usually get less for cash (about 1/3 retail price) and about half retail price for credit. That will vary from store to store but it is typical around where I live.

If one shop says they will take 5 red and 5 blue then take 5 red and 5 blue to them and get some cash for them or get credit and grab some plants, fish food or another tank Then ring a few more shops and see if they will take some.

Some shops will take large numbers but give you less because they are buying quantity. If you have 200 fish then try to find a shop that will take 200 of them.

Just make sure any fish you sell or trade are good quality and have 2 good eyes, full gill covers, nice fins and no missing parts. If the fish are deformed they should be destroyed to prevent the defect from passing on to future generations if they are bred.

 

[BetteFishLover]

Get a heap of 2 litre icecream buckets and put the males in them. Keep the baby females in a 100 litre plastic storage crate and grow them all up until they are similar sized to the ones at the petshop. Then contact your local petshop and ask if they want to buy any Bettas. Tell them you have 50 or however many you have for sale and see if they want them. Most petshops will buy fish for cash or store credit. You usually get less for cash (about 1/3 retail price) and about half retail price for credit. That will vary from store to store but it is typical around where I live.

If one shop says they will take 5 red and 5 blue then take 5 red and 5 blue to them and get some cash for them or get credit and grab some plants, fish food or another tank Then ring a few more shops and see if they will take some.

Some shops will take large numbers but give you less because they are buying quantity. If you have 200 fish then try to find a shop that will take 200 of them.

Just make sure any fish you sell or trade are good quality and have 2 good eyes, full gill covers, nice fins and no missing parts. If the fish are deformed they should be destroyed to prevent the defect from passing on to future generations if they are bred.

Thank you so much for the advice! Now, what should I do just in case the pet stores near me don't want any of my betta fish?

 

[NickAu]

Ok, so I have a female betta fish that laid eggs.

Well no she technically didnt lay eggs, The male squeezed them out of her during the mating process.

Male and female Bettas should not be kept in the same tank. Separate them.

 

[Colin_T]

Thank you so much for the advice! Now, what should I do just in case the pet stores near me don't want any of my betta fish?

If your local petshops don't buy fish I would be very surprised. However, in the event you can't find any local petshops to buy your surplus fish, take some along to your local aquarium society and sell or give them away there. Most aquarium societies have a raffle and you donate can fish, plants, etc to the table for other people to win.

If that isn't your cup of tea then use Ebay and say local pick up only, so people come and pick them up from your place. This means you don't have to organise shipping, which will probably cost more than the fish

But I think you should be able to find a petshop that will buy them off you.

 

[Demeter32]

Male and female bettas (betta splendens I presume?) should never be housed in the same tank. Males are very brutal when spawning and can kill/harm the females. Move the male to his own tank.

As for the fry, its not a bad idea to let nature take its course. Leave them all in the tank, if they get eaten by other fish then that's that. If some survive and you wish to give them away and/or sell them then do so.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

You could give away the bettas to all your friends on fishforums.net

Just sayin'....

 

[BetteFishLover]

Well no she technically didnt lay eggs, The male squeezed them out of her during the mating process.

Male and female Bettas should not be kept in the same tank. Separate them.

They are separated. I just put them together to mate in a mating tank but the female had a LOT more eggs than I thought she did.

 

[BetteFishLover]

If your local petshops don't buy fish I would be very surprised. However, in the event you can't find any local petshops to buy your surplus fish, take some along to your local aquarium society and sell or give them away there. Most aquarium societies have a raffle and you donate can fish, plants, etc to the table for other people to win.

If that isn't your cup of tea then use Ebay and say local pick up only, so people come and pick them up from your place. This means you don't have to organise shipping, which will probably cost more than the fish

But I think you should be able to find a petshop that will buy them off you.

TYSM!

 

[BetteFishLover]

Male and female bettas (betta splendens I presume?) should never be housed in the same tank. Males are very brutal when spawning and can kill/harm the females. Move the male to his own tank.

As for the fry, its not a bad idea to let nature take its course. Leave them all in the tank, if they get eaten by other fish then that's that. If some survive and you wish to give them away and/or sell them then do so.

Thanks for the advice but my male and female bettas are not together. I just took one of my females from the sorority tank I have and mated her with a male and after she "laid" the eggs I removed the male.

 

[BetteFishLover]

You could give away the bettas to all your friends on fishforums.net

Just sayin'....

Ok. Thanks

 

[Demeter32]

Not trying to sound mean, but if you purposely bred them then you should of known there might be well over a hundred fry. When breeding fish like bettas you must be aware of how many they produce and have a plan for all the fry. Getting fry to the free swimming stage is often the hardest part, but good job on getting so many to survive. I had a heck of a time getting my males to not eat the eggs/wigglers.

Culling some of the less than pretty and runty fry will help get to a manageable number that you should be able to sell off.

 

[NickAu]

Not trying to sound mean, but if you purposely bred them then you should of known there might be well over a hundred fry.

I agree, Before breeding any fish you should know what you are doing, how many fry to expect and what you are going to do with the fry.

How are you going to house all these fry when it comes time to separate then?

 

[Colin_T]

I think it's good you bred fish. Not enough people breed fish and the more you breed, the less crap we have to import from Asia. This means fewer introduced diseases and healthier fish because they aren't living in stagnant pools fed with sewerage, or being doped up with chemicals that were outlawed in most countries 50 years ago.

Having said that, Bettas are easy to sell but some fishes (mainly cichlids) can be hard to sell especially if you have lots of them. So you do have to make sure you only keep as many fry as you can sell or give away. But with your Bettas, go for it, breed them and supply the local fish shops. Hell I would much rather buy locally bred stock and imported fish any day.

 

[NickAu]

I do not think its a good idea, I also cant see any petshop buying 50 betta fish that are the same tail type and color and giving them away to friends wont work because you can only do it once maybe.

If you intend to breed Bettas do so for the right reason like breeding for form tail type and color, to do this you need high quality fish to start with and a place to house the males until they can be classed, Just throwing a random pet shop female in with a random pet shop male is a waste of time.

This is the type of set up you need to house the males from just 1 spawning.