how do i convince my parents to get me a betta pair instead of platies and guppies

[Rocky998]

Give what to him? All the males?

If you want to convince your parents that you can do this, you need to think through the whole set up and plan. You need a separate tank to use as mating tank. Somewhere to rear the fry until they're old enough to tell male from female, and they can't live with either parent, so where do you raise them? Do you have spare heaters, air pumps, filters? What about fry food? Most betta breeders I know of cultivate their own live food since betta fry are so tiny. Can you realistically do that along with rearing the fry?

Once the fry are old enough to sex, each male needs it's own little set up. Have seen people use 1 litre mason jars. Can you have and maintain dozens of those for the months it takes to raise them to rehoming age?

Also tell your parents EVERYTHING that you would need and are going to do to see if they are ok with it. You dont want them stopping you midway.

 

[lalaoal]

Give what to him? All the males?

If you want to convince your parents that you can do this, you need to think through the whole set up and plan. You need a separate tank to use as mating tank. Somewhere to rear the fry until they're old enough to tell male from female, and they can't live with either parent, so where do you raise them? Do you have spare heaters, air pumps, filters? What about fry food? Most betta breeders I know of cultivate their own live food since betta fry are so tiny. Can you realistically do that along with rearing the fry?

Once the fry are old enough to sex, each male needs it's own little set up. Have seen people use 1 litre mason jars. Can you have and maintain dozens of those for the months it takes to raise them to rehoming age?

for the first question, no i will give some to him

i have a spare sponge filter and a spare air pump and i live in a tropical country so heaters are not rlly needed unless for medications and i also have a mating tank and my friend also has live food that he sells for the fry to eat

we have alot of unused plastic jars so last part is already taken care of

 

[lalaoal]

Also tell your parents EVERYTHING that you would need and are going to do to see if they are ok with it. You dont want them stopping you midway.

i also asked my parents about this and they said that if i will keep two bettas, i must take proper care of them and their fry too

 

[Fishmanic]

It's time for a brief commercial:

Around the 12th of this month, we will be accepting entries for our Fish of the Month contest. For June, we will be featuring Bettas. If you have a Betta, take a good pic of your fish and be ready to enter the FOTM contest.

Now back to our regularly scheduled topic.

 

[itiwhetu]

I like your idea of breeding fish and selling a few. The problem I have is your choice of fish, think of another species. Something like White cloud mountain minnows or cherry barbs, even pygmy catfish but not Bettas.

 

[lalaoal]

I like your idea of breeding fish and selling a few. The problem I have is your choice of fish, think of another species. Something like White cloud mountain minnows or cherry barbs, even pygmy catfish but not Bettas.

all of those are good choices but when i searched about them, a website said their minimum tank size is 10 gallons and 25 gallons

 

[itiwhetu]

all of those are good choices but when i searched about them, a website said their minimum tank size is 10 gallons and 25 gallons

For breeding purposes, 5 g will be fine. Then put the fry in the pond outside.

 

[Colin_T]

Tell your parents

• Guppies and platies need a bigger tank than a 5 gallon.
• Guppies and platies are usually infected with intestinal worms and gill flukes, Bettas aren't. This means you will have to get deworming medication to treat the fish as soon as you get the fish.
• If you have soft water, then bettas will do better than guppies and platies.

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What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, most tetras, barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

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You might be able to find freshwater shrimp in local creeks and breed them, but there might not be a market for them.

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You know the basics of fish keeping.
You know there will be lots of young males that need to be kept separate.
You have a market for locally bred Bettas.
Do they want long or short fin Bettas?
Short fin (Plakat) Bettas are normally used for fighting. Long fin are used for display.
You have free heat and probably cheap water. If you have spare land, put some bigger ponds in (1000-2000 litre) and go for it. Even if you don't have spare land, go for it.
Breed the same colour fish with each other (red with red, blue with blue) so you have set colours to sell.

Keep the males and females separate and feed them 3-5 times a day for at least 2 (preferably 4) weeks before breeding. This lets the fish develop good quality gametes (eggs & sperm).

if possible, have a few females so the male can choose his partner.

Have the tanks next to each other and have a piece of cardboard between the tanks so the fish can't see each other. After the male builds his bubble nest, remove the cardboard so the fish can se each other and see how they react. If they show off to each other, try putting them together and see if they breed. If they do that is great. Leave them together until the female has finished releasing eggs and then put her back in her tank. Leave the babies with dad until they are swimming around on their own and he no longer looks after them. Then move the babies into the pond and pick out males as they appear.

The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish and is worth learning if you want to breed fish. Bettas and gouramis have very small fry and need infusoria and green water as a first food. If you can't get this, then use boiled egg yolk. There's directions in the link.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

The other way to breed your Bettas is to put the pr in the pond with a lot of floating plants and let them do their thing. You will end up with a number of young fish and won't have to do much to look after them. However, you will probably end up with lots of females and not many males due to each male wanting his own territory and fighting with other males.

 

[GaryE]

We get a lot of threads where kids want to know how to convince their parents of things. I wouldn't be convinced with the set up you have, or the plan. Still, lay it out to them and be prepared to accept if they don't buy in. There are always important bits of info never mentioned in these threads, and you have to be able to look at it from their point of view too.
Maybe they're right.

Sometimes you have to wait til you earn your own money to do these things.

 

[lalaoal]

finally i convinced them, to be honest this was actually our plan if i do get to sell all of my platies and guppies

 

[Back in the fold]

Accept the fish your parents buy you and take really good care of them. They'll come around. I think they want to see if your interest stays up. As for the Bettas you want, when you get them jump right in and breed them. It will work out or it won't. That don't matter because you will succeed . Why ? Because you want it.
Edit : just saw your last post. Get your fry foods , infusoria / paramecium , micro worms and baby brine shrimp going now.

 

[lalaoal]

Accept the fish your parents buy you and take really good care of them. They'll come around. I think they want to see if your interest stays up. As for the Bettas you want, when you get them jump right in and breed them. It will work out or it won't. That don't matter because you will succeed . Why ? Because you want it.
Edit : just saw your last post. Get your fry foods , infusoria / paramecium , micro worms and baby brine shrimp going now.

haha i will