Post
by ruthcatrin » Mon Aug 02, 2010 8:10 pm
have you done ANY research into what is involved with breeding bettas? the way you're asking questions makes me think you've not done much of any.
ok, before you go any further with even THINKING about breeding bettas you need to figure out what you're going to do with the babies. Betta's can have upwords of 100+ fry out of a single spawning, its unlikely with a newbie breeder, but it happens.
you can plan to use them for feeders once they're free swimming
you can raise them and attempt to sell them, or give them away
but you need to decide that first.
Most chain petstores (Petco/Petsmart/etc) do NOT buy from local breeders, they have a supplier they order from, Petco WILL occasionally take fish to adopt out, but you won't get anything for them and have no control over what happens to them once you hand them over, and there's no way they'll take more than a few at a time, and then only when they're near adult size. If you have a privately owned store nearby they MIGHT be willing to buy your bettas from you, but again, only once nearly full grown (at least 5months of age depending on rate of growth). If you're going to sell them online there's even more problems to consider.
To get bettas that look decent by the age of 4 to 5 months you'll need to be able to seperate out all the males, and possibly females, by the age of 3 months if not sooner, this generally means a ton of little containers scattered around the house that have to have 100% water changes EVERY DAY no exceptions. trust me this gets old really really quickly. If you don't you won't have very many surviving males, and the ones that did survive will look horrid.
Is your male a "petstore" betta? if so did you get him at Petco from a container labeled "halfmoon" or "delta" or just a regular cup? If not where did you get him from and what kind of fin is he? what color set is he?
If he's 2 he may be too old to breed, many bettas don't breed well when their first time is after the 1 to 1 1/2 year mark.
The female should be as close in size as possible while still being just a little bit smaller than him, for an ideal situation.
a 5g tank would work for a spawning tank, but keep in mind that you're most likely NOT going to be leaving dad in there for much more than a week after the spawning, and frankly, trying to spawn in dad's home tank is a good way to get mom killed.
Betta's should almost always be in a heated tank, though they'll tolerate temps down to mid 60's if they have to they are happiest at upper 70's to 80 degrees (F), chances of getting a pair of bettas happy enough to breed in a tank thats not warm enough are non-exsistant, the fry WILL need temps in the upper 70's to 80 period.
the chances of the male killing or seriously harming the female during, before, or after spawning are high, and almost gaurenteed if you don't introduce them correctly, and there's no way to promise the survival of either if you don't have seperate tanks for both, before and after spawning. Very rarely does a spawning occur with out at least SOME damage to one or both fish, yes the female will attack the male, females will even kill the males.
Breeding bettas that you plan to sell isn't like breeding any other fish I've run into, it takes ALOT of work, time and money or you're going to end up with runty little ragged fined things that no one will touch.
