I'm New In The Business

[haleystropicalfish]

I'm thinking about getting into the business of breeding and selling betta's. I currently have a small business but all I have it Fancy Guppies. I made a mitake when starting out with those because I just bought the prettiest ones the Tropical Pet Store had to offer. I didn't realize that in order to make any decent money I have to breed a pure strain, but I know that now.

I know all the care information about bettas, thats all taken care of. It's just that I'm not too sure about what battas to start with.

Should I buy a trio or a pair?
Should I get them from the pet store (plenty healthy, but not the high quality expenice ones)?
Should I order them offline?
If I do, do they ship well?
How many females is it safe to keep in what size bowl/tank?
What color or whatever should I get?
Being a first timer, if I spend more, will I really make more?

Also, if there's anything else you think I should know, please tell me!! The more info the better, even if I already know

 

[The_Dude]

I may have some information on the females. You can keep females together but in groups no less than 4, 6+ is better. There'll be enough of them then to distribute the aggression, like tetras. A group like that needs at least a 15 gallons, males, as I'm sure you know, need to be kept by themselves. The color doesn't matter as much as the tail type does. VT's are really common, so you should be able to sell them for pretty cheap. CT's aren't as common, so about twice as much as your VT's is fair. PK's are not too hard to find and most stores mislabel them as females, so watch out. HM's are beautiful fish, but EXPENSIVE! I've seen them priced up into the 100's before but the mid to low 20's is better as you'll sell more. RT's are rather hard to come by and need to by around HM price. I'm pretty sure if you can hook up with a breeder on this you can get good deals but make a killer profit as well. ST's are EXTREMELY HARD to find anymore, and most aren't even sure if the trait breeds true. Then there's the Combtails, which I'm sure if you've read up on them, are bettas with tiny ray extensions in the finnage that make it's fins have the appearance of the bristles of a comb. Crowntails (CT) have extreme extensions of the rays of the fin as well as shorter membrane giving them the appearance of "spikey" fins. Veiltails (VT) are your basic, most common betta, they have the fins that look like, you guessed it, wedding veils. Halfmoons (HM) are bettas whom have fins that flare to or past 180º and are truly stunning even when not flaring. Plakats (PK) are a slight modification of the wild form of the betta, the fins are short and rounded, these fish are built to be fast, tough, and meaner than your average betta. They have thicker bodies, sharper teeth, and are more aggressive.Then there is the Delta(D) , Super Delta (SD), and Double Tail (DT). The Delta has a triangular caudal (tail fin) that flares open to be less than 180º, the Super Delter, however, have a delta tail that opens to 180º and possibly farther. The difference between them and the HM is that the SD has a thicker body, and when not flaring tends to have more rigid fins, unlike the HM who appear to be an enhanced VT when not flaring. The Doubletail is a betta that has been slightly mutated to produce two caudal lobes. They are basically a fish with two tail fins. That help any?

 

[MaddieJ]

I havent bred before myself but can say this-

Should I buy a trio or a pair?- Depends on what tail type you get in what colours. If you can get a very nice male, id suggest getting two females of the same tail type. Colours depend on what you like and what you can find. Generaly speaking there are rarer set of colours, but you will pay a high price to buy these as they will likely be found online.

Should I get them from the pet store (plenty healthy, but not the high quality expenice ones)?- Again this depends on what your wanting to do. To breed the best-to make the most money-start with the best. But dont just buy them, speak with the breeder you buy from. Find out exactly what tail type he is and colour, then ask about his family history. Same with the girl/s you buy. This way you can better predict what spawn you will get. Among the other benefits of know a fishes history.

Should I order them offline?- Unless there is a breeder in your imediate area then I dont see why not.

If I do, do they ship well?-They may not need to be shipped over seas. But generaly speaking it depends on the fish and the shipper whether the fish survives or not. Many people will put some kind of garantee on, so im sure things would be ok.

How many females is it safe to keep in what size bowl/tank?-The more females the better and the more tank space the better. a 20g with 7,8,9,10 females would be fine and dandy, with plently of live and/or silk plants and some hideyholes.

What color or whatever should I get?-That entirely depends on you and your budget You can get allsorts! I dont know much about whatll sell best but there are some rarer patern and colours than others, so check around online.

Being a first timer, if I spend more, will I really make more?-Being a beginner is tough when it comes to anything, as you know with the guppies. You need to make sure you have enough room for them all and have homes lined up for them. Even if it is just the local fish store to you. But generaly speaking, if you get yourself some top Bettas, you should get back what you put in.

Hope this helps you, Good luck

 

[modaz]

well by starting of with gups that was a good idea, you now have the basics of experience to look into breeding other fish. even though betta are so different.

there is one main problem with raising the fry as you might already know, the space that is needed to grow the fry once they have to be seperated.
VT arent worth breeding as they are so easy to buy in LFS
whatever you decide to breed and to make this work to the capacity you want it to, you must search for the right fish, going on line is the best thing for you to do, this gives you the chance of finding a breeder that is local to you (country) who can give you the genetic history of your new bettas, you need to know what genotypes they are (what exact genes are present) to be able to create the disired ones that you would consider people would bite your arm off for.

having a trio would increase the amount of fry ofcourse so thats your choice.

everything that you will need to start spawning would have to be in place before you get the fish and a little more research will go in your favour, im not saying that you havent enough but even the experienced learn something new each time and somethings work different for different people.

ive never bred betta but i did think about it hard but the hard full time work involved put me off .

if it does put you off then maybe buying in some rare special gups from a thai source would be a good idea and restart that buisness

 

[mommyof2bettas]

Should I buy a trio or a pair?I would say trio, some bettas aren't a good pair-infact, it's even better to buy 2 pairs, so you can have more possibilities of a good spawn
Should I get them from the pet store (plenty healthy, but not the high quality expenice ones)?Imo, no. A good site to buy bettas from is aquabid.com, they have plenty of pretty, good quality bettas!
Should I order them offline?If you can find some good quality bettas, sure.
How many females is it safe to keep in what size bowl/tank?I would say a 10-20 gal tank with 5+females, you can have about 7 in a 10 gal so about 14 in a 20. If you want more females to choose from, get a 20 gallon because yu'll be able to keep more, if you want to save some money, get a 10 gal.
What color or whatever should I get?Totally up to you. Although, try not to mix crowntails with anything else because you'll end up with a spiky-tailed mutt, also, veiltails aren't that good of a choice either.
Being a first timer, if I spend more, will I really make more?You should be able to. Buying better quality bettas, with more pairs makes your outcome of pretty fry greater, and the more good equipment you buy, makes your first time more succesful.

 

[haleystropicalfish]

Thanks for the help, both of you!! I still have a slight problem though.

I have a small tropical fish business. VERY small. I have two tanks for my guppies and they both sit on my windowsill (my room has a bay window, about 45-50" long, just about 25" wide) and that leaves me with just under enough room to put another 10 gallon tank, much less a 15-20 gallon tank. I'm probably going to move downstairs where I will have a TON of room, but I'm pretty short on cash.

That leads to another problem. I have $10. Thats it. I might be able to do some more chores around the house to earn enough to get a trio from the local pet store, but thats it. Would it be ok to have just 2 females and a male and just breed those untill I have enough money and/or space to move up to a bigger tank? Oh, no wait, I might have a few more dollors since my oldest group of baby guppies are ready to go back to the pet store. They already offered to buy them, I just have to call, bag them up, and go sell em'. I don't know for how much I'll get yet though.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm a teenager? I just turned 14, lol, but I was tired of feeling like the prime of my life is waisting away and I'm not doing anything to make life better for myself. So, I started a business doing what I love most!!! I have made no money. Feels good, don't it? Oh well, my fish are all heathy and only 1 has EVER died under my care, and she died from old age. Because of my lack of income in the last 5 months, I decided to EXPAND!! Fun word. I get $25 dollors a month and so far that, along with internet-made money, is enough to pay for everything with no problem.

Well, basicly I just asked one wuestion there. Can I have 2 females and 1 male for now?

P.S. I'm just gonna go for the best of the ones at the fish store to start. I can always upgrade!!!

 

[K.J.]

Thanks for the help, both of you!! I still have a slight problem though.

I have a small tropical fish business. VERY small. I have two tanks for my guppies and they both sit on my windowsill (my room has a bay window, about 45-50" long, just about 25" wide) and that leaves me with just under enough room to put another 10 gallon tank, much less a 15-20 gallon tank. I'm probably going to move downstairs where I will have a TON of room, but I'm pretty short on cash.

That leads to another problem. I have $10. Thats it. I might be able to do some more chores around the house to earn enough to get a trio from the local pet store, but thats it. Would it be ok to have just 2 females and a male and just breed those untill I have enough money and/or space to move up to a bigger tank? Oh, no wait, I might have a few more dollors since my oldest group of baby guppies are ready to go back to the pet store. They already offered to buy them, I just have to call, bag them up, and go sell em'. I don't know for how much I'll get yet though.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm a teenager? I just turned 14, lol, but I was tired of feeling like the prime of my life is waisting away and I'm not doing anything to make life better for myself. So, I started a business doing what I love most!!! I have made no money. Feels good, don't it? Oh well, my fish are all heathy and only 1 has EVER died under my care, and she died from old age. Because of my lack of income in the last 5 months, I decided to EXPAND!! Fun word. I get $25 dollors a month and so far that, along with internet-made money, is enough to pay for everything with no problem.

Well, basicly I just asked one wuestion there. Can I have 2 females and 1 male for now?

P.S. I'm just gonna go for the best of the ones at the fish store to start. I can always upgrade!!!

Try doing chores around the house and then buy the fish off of aquabid. The problem is if you buy lower quality you'll be stuck with a bunch of lower quality fish, and won't make as much money. However buying an expensive pair off of aquabid, will probably get you 25$ a pair if you pick a good one. Getting usually at least 20 fish, that's a lot of money. But you also need a 10G breeding tank AND a 30 gallon growout tank plus numerous jars when the male gets older, so you might want to wait.

 

[haleystropicalfish]

Well that's a bummer. I'll have to earn about 200 or more dollors to get the basement all set up. Then there's more for the two tanks. I'm never gonna get bettas am I? I leanred to compramise with my guppies, they said get 13 tanks, I have 2. I think that I can do it! Haha, if you want to try to stop a deturmined teenager, you're gonna have to do better then that!!! Close though

 

[modaz]

theres nothing wrong with your age, i admire younger people doing things to make their lives better, wish i had that courage when i was your age lol
it sounds like you might have a space problem with raising your fry, sorry to say that but once the fry have to be seperated then it becomes so much hard work and you will find the water changes of all your fry really hard to keep up with 10 or 20 fry would be ok to deal with but what you gunna do if you ebd up with say 50 males that have to be seperated? trying to give you an honest opinion on the matter.

im not putting you off honestly, i think keeping on with your guppys whilst you have not much money would be a great idea, you could keep the the best gups you have that consist of the colour you want to create and the finnage you like the best and just breed them and if your really selective on these guppy you will find that in a short time you could end up with something very special that you could work on to keep that line going ,this would increase you selling tool of the gups. with these gups that are special and the speed they produce fry this would increase your income from selling them, you could put them on ebay and if you can offer something thats different to normal guppies then people will buy them, the good thing with this is,is that when you have a strain that you like you can actually sell the fry before they start to colour up b/c you will know for sure what type they will be and this will defo increase you sales.

im doing this with platys and have been doing it for only 4 months and already ive made enough money to buy another tank and some platys that i consider special enough to generate interest, i kept going into the LFS and finally found some strains that had leaked into the shop by accident so im now breeding these and sell the fry before they are 3 weeks old b/c i know what type they are, i sell in varied places eg LFS, friends, even family lol and have made a success on ebay in the recent weeks as well.

 

[haleystropicalfish]

I have plenty of jars and places to put them, but my selves wont hold tanks. I'll just try to do what you said, but I might get impatient. I'll keep you updadted and thanks so much for all the info!!!!

 

[modaz]

I have plenty of jars and places to put them, but my selves wont hold tanks. I'll just try to do what you said, but I might get impatient. I'll keep you updadted and thanks so much for all the info!!!!

your welcome

 

[haleystropicalfish]

hey, I just found some really pretty CT's!! What do you guys think?
http/www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auc...&1179539888

 

[modaz]

yep they are nice but common in colour, maybe something a little unsual would be better.

i see that your words
Quote
" if you want to try to stop a deturmined teenager, you're gonna have to do better then that!!! Close though "

are starting to ring true

 

[haleystropicalfish]

I told you! Now, on Aquabid.com, are there any deals where I can get a male and a female of the same type in one shipment? What kind of weird abriviation would I look for? LOL

 

[haleystropicalfish]

Nevermind, I just found it. And what do you think of this pair? They a beautiful, free shipping, and guaranteed to arrive alive. It also includes a heating pad. Bingo?

http/www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auc...&1179606633