How exactly do I breed betas?

Be aware that this is an intensive thing, and involves time, effort, regular cleaning, culling (flushing) baby fish with defects, and having room to put everyone when they grow up.

Now that you're sure you want to do this and pay a heck of a lot of attention to the fish over the next few months, buy a tank that is at least AT LEAST five gallons. Bigger is better. No rocks in the tank, but a lot of plants. Also a styrofoam cut choped straight down in half when sitting on the counter helps as a place for the nest to be built if you secure it to the edge of the tank. Also, get some sort of clear tube open at both ends that is fish-safe.

Now go out and buy some more stuff. A microworm culture is great. Some vinager eels are good too. Maybe some small baby brine shrimp, too, but they are a bit more labor intensive. Get your cultures all nice and big and split them in half. Then grow them up again before you start breeding.

Now that you have food for the fry (baby fish) you can think about making them exist. Give the tank about six inches of treated, dechlorinated, lightly (aquarium) salted water, a heater and a filter that does not create a real big current. Don't forget all the plants. Let it sit for a few days, if not a week. In the mean time, feed Mrs. betta well, lots of bloodworms if you have them. Keep her in sight of the male, as well. When she's plump and has a little white dot poking out of her belly from between her fins then you can get down to business.

Put the male in the breeding tank. Leave him there for a day or so. Keep the female in sight. Keep the water clean by fishing out whatever he doesn't eat within a minute or two of giving it to him. He ought to build a nest. Keep feeding the girl, too.

Once he's settled in and everything, bring in the clear, fish-safe tube and put it in the tank with the male, away from the nest. He should be outside of it. Deposit the female on the inside. Give them a few hours to make faces at each other. From now on, the male should get NO FOOD untill you take him out.

After they get to know each other, take the tube out, letting the female into the rest of the tank. There will be some chacing and biting, but she should eventually inspect the nest. If there is more biting than anything else, put the girl back in the tube and try again later.

Eventually they will settle in and mate. A light should be left on at all times on the breeding tank untill the male is removed. Mating will take up to a few hours, and the female should be removed once it is over.

The light should be left on, and the male will take care of the fry on his own for a while. It looks like he's eating them, but he's just spitting them back into the nest.

Once the fry are trying to swim along on their own in a normal fish orientation (horizontal) you should take dad out and start feeding them, if not a little sooner. You might need a magnifying glass to see the little things.

Keep them clean and fed, and in enough water. You may need to move some into another, similarly set up tank if you have a really big spawn with a lot of fry. In a few months you should be able to start seeing the males develop pretty colors and fins. Once they start getting agressive, seperate them. The girls can be kept together.

http://bettacare101.com/

Eep!!!!!!!

Wrong way!

You need to separate the pair at first, but make sure they can see one another. And condition them for a good week or two, etc.

Breeding Bettas is no joke.

Really, if you're just gonna do this for fun, better back off now. It's not cheap, you need to invest a lot. You can end up with over 200 babies. Imagine if 100 of them are males. In a few months they will all need individual homes! And 100 females will need nothing less than a 300 gallon!

It usually tanks 24-48 hours of this type of behavior until breeding occurs. My bettas took about this long before I woke up and saw them laying eggs for me. It was long process but within 3 days of breeding i had little fry swimming about the tank. Observe them closely over this period and remove the female if there is no sign of breeding taken place after 48 hours. You don't want to risk losing the female. Check all environmental factors as well.

check bettatalk.com 's breeding section.

Bettas are very complicated to breed, you can't and shouldn't just drop them together, especially not pet shop bettas. Please realize that they could have hundreds of fry, imagine having 50 male bettas, you'd need a separate tank for each! And finding homes for all of them would be very difficult considering they're just common pet shop fish.

On top of that, betta fry need specific live food called microworms, which you can only buy online or from a good betta breeder. You also need a very large tank for the fry to be raised in, and once they've been bred, the male and female need separate tanks. Not to mention the male should raise the fry alone.

The two fish haven't bred because they aren't ready to. I'm surprised they haven't killed or injured each other yet, as males and females do not mix.

Please be responsible and do some research before breeding fish.

go to youtube