Betta Breeding

Materials:
A Submersible Heater
A 10 or 20 Gallon tank
A Stryfoam Cup (cut in half up and down)
Some Plants (Java Moss is good)
No Gravel
A Clean Jar or Lantern
Cover/Saran Wrap (to put over top to keep humidity and to keep fish from jumping out)
A Sponge Filter(old/used/cycled)
Microworm Culture
Baby Brine Shrimp Hatchery
Brine Shimp Eggs
2 Pumps with airflow control


Set the Tank up as Below

Conditioning the Pair
Before the spawn, you should condition your spawning pair for 1-3 weeks. The more the better. Live foods are best for conditioning. If you aren't able to get your hands on live food, then frozen bloodworms or brine shrimp will be fine. No tubifex worms.

Put the male in the tank as you would any fish. Give him a couple days to adjust. Do this to the female in about 2 days. The female may be afraid of the male for a while. This is normal.
Make sure they are visible to each other. Do not release them until about 2 days later, or until the female shows the signs of readiness:

1. She developes vertical stripes. This represents submissiveness. If she developes horizontal stripes, it means she is afraid of the male.

2. She does not try to run away from the male. She may try to get to him, or even flare at him.

3. She gets fatter around the abdomen area. This means she is developing eggs to get ready for spawning.

4. The Head down dance. This is when the female puts her head down and kind of wiggles around when the male is around.

You should also make sure that the male has SOME sort of bubble nest. He may decide to add to it later, but if he has none at all and has no idea about what a bubble nest is, then bring some bubblenest from your other male bettas and just put it in his tank. This may encourage him to continue building it. Another way is to put another male beside his tank. This will encourage the 2 to compete building bubble nests.

Once the female is ready, you can let the female out. Most of the time, the male will chase the female around, nipping at her fins. This is ok, unless she looks really torn up and scared. This is why you should have plants in the tank, so the female can hide from the male. The male may return to building his bubble nest. Somewhere along the way, the female should overcome her fear of the male, and come out. She will check out the bubble nest. If she doesn't like it, she may destroy the nest or just leave to the other side of the tank. If it is late, then you should keep them separated. You don't want to wake up finding a dead betta in your tank. If she is ready to spawn, she will do the "Head-down dance" again under the bubble nest. The male will wrap himself around her and flip her upside down. On the first couple embraces, there may not be any eggs yet. Give them some time. He is fertilizing the eggs when he embraces with the female. Soon, the eggs will start dropping, and the male will release the female and start getting the eggs and blow them into the nest. This can take a long or short time. It all depends =] Once the male has gotten all the eggs out of the female, he will chase her away. This is when you should take the female out. There will be some fine tearage in her. You can treat her with MarOxy, Melafix, or Bettamax.

Sometimes the males will eat the eggs, but it is not common. Sometimes the male will take the eggs out of the nest to move them somewhere else. Once the eggs have hatched, the fry tend to wiggle out of the nest, and the daddy is very busy picking them up off the ground and blowing them back into the nest. If it looks like he is having trouble catching up with the falling fry, you can lower the water level by about 2-3 inches depending on the size of your tank. If the male is eating all the fry, remove the fry and lower the water level by about an inch. This really lowers the chances for the fry to survive. Once the fry are swimming themselves, or the daddy stops tending for them, then it is time to remove him and bring him back to his old tank. Add some salt if he was torn up badly.

If you notice the daddy eating the fry, remove him immediately and lower the water level by about 1-3 inches, so that they may swim back to the nest themselves. This will help with their chances of surviving. You can feed them:
Interprets Liquifry #1
Vinegar Eels
Baby Brine Shrimp
- see picture section
Microworms
Daphnia
Tetramin's Baby Fish Food 'E'
Infusoria-micro-organisms in the water produced by live plants and by adding a drop of Interprets Liquifry #1
Decapsulated Brine Shrimp Eggs

4-6 Weeks Old
Live/Frozen Foods:
Black Worms-small pieces
Frozen Beef Heart
Small Mosquito Larvae
Frozen Beef
Chicken Livers

More information at Bettas R' Us
See Link Section

Cleaning The Babies Tank
Start cleaning when they are 2 weeks old or so. When siphoning the bottom, hold your finger over the other end, so if you see a fry approaching the siphon, just plug the other end of the siphon and wait till he leaves. You have to be very careful as not to suck up any fry. Also siphon if you overfeed them.

Moving the Fry Out to a Bigger Tank
You may want to move the fry out to a bigger tank. Maybe a 20-30 galleon. It depends on how many fry there are in the spawn.

Separating the Fry
You should separate the males of the spawn when they are sexable (you can tell whether they are male or female) or when the males start to fight or nip at each other's fins. There is no harm to jarring them a little earlier. They can be jarred anywhere from 6 or 7 weeks to 4 months. You should keep the jarred males in a warm area, clean the water often, and feed them live foods. These three things promote healthy fast growing.

The Spawning Tank Setup

This is the brand of brine shrimp eggs that I used. It came in a packet of three with instructions and salt inside.

This is the sponge filter that I used in my spawning tank. It's the Hagen Bio-Foam sponge filter.