Breeding and Keeping Betta Fish (Siamese Fighting Fish)

So! Breeding Bettas sounds like a good idea eh? Well you're right! If you are a total fish geek such as I, then you are in for an awesome time. Seeing your new babies hatch for the first time will cause you to dance and jump aorund the house...or maybe that was just me. But here's the basics of what I did/do to get mine to spawn the teeny white specks that'll grow to betta size. Side note, all the places and things mentioned below that I use, if I bought them online, I'll include the links way below:)

First thing, you need a pair of bettas (duh). The popular theme seems to be a sibling pair. Sounds wierd I know, but for fish, it's not a big deal, not a huge genetic worrysome thing as in other animals. Breeding siblings together brings out the desirable traits from the parents and strengthens the line. So pick your pair wisely. I got my first pair from Mark D of Anubias Design (linked below) and I'm very happy! The male was a little teal thing that's turned into an awesome metalic teal with purple highlights handsome guy! (see his picture below) You can also get great pairs from different Betta Related Forums or Aquabid.com.

Okay, once you've got your pair in their homes and are ready to begin, the first thing yo uneed to do is for a few days condition them with great foods like frozen bloodworm, live black worm if you can get them, Mosquito larva and the like. This'll get her going with the egg production and put him in the mood. While you are doing this you can also start the breeding tank. Now each breeder seems to have a different way of doing this and all seems to work great. This is my way, take what you'd like from it:)

I set up a 10gallon tank with a sponge filter that's been seeded (meaning it's used in another tank and is full of the good bacteria that you need need need for your set up). Set that in the corner. Then I add a bit of Java Moss in a clump away from the sponge filter as it'll grow right into the filter if you're not careful (course that doesn't hurt anything if it does). I also add a few Marimo Balls that I get off ebay. These are basically algae balls that are great for fry feeding. Then I cut a styrofoam cup in half long ways and set that floating against the side where I can see into it. To hold that in place, I use a breeding trap that the pet stores sell to put the live bearing moms (guppies/platies/mollies) in while they have their babies. I press that trap against the facing wall of the tank right against the cup. Then fill up the tank to just over the sponge filter tube so there's bubbles but the tank is not full. (it's just about half way when I do this). Also put in a heater of course, the bettas for breeding (and for the babies) like it in the mid 80s F.

This too is when you need to be thinking about feeding the babies. If you are going to feed them micro worms, you need to be getting your cultures ready (more on that below) if you are using green water, also be getting it ready. You don't want your babies hatching with no food ready!

Okay, tank is ready to go. If you're on city water, this may mean to leave it sit a few days to get the stuff and things that the cities love to put in their water out. If you are on well water (like I'm lucky enough to be) it's pretty much ready to go when set up:) Put the male in the tank and the female in the breeding trap. You want them to see each other, but not be able to get to each other. You never know from fish to fish how they may act together. I've had males rip on the females and the other way around as well. Then when I add the pair, I also add an Indian Almond Leaf (also off ebay, from now on called IAL). This is a leaf from the Betta's natural setting and adds a lot of good stuff to the water. It's going to turn the water into a dark tea brown color. no worries, this is all good. There's breeding stimulants in the leaves and antibiotics and all sorts of good stuff. I also use these leaves when when a betta's not feeling good...they help. I add a small section in the trap with the female as it's a hiding place for her if she's not liking the male and a big peice in the main section as well. Then let them hang out like this for a while.

Now sometimes the male will go nuts and start building his bubble nest right away, others he'll go so nuts with the girl in there that he'll forget to build his nest till days later, you've just got to keep your eye out and be patient:) My male that's mentioned above (his name is Myrrdin for furture references) does a major dance when I put him in the tank. He flares like crazy at the female, runs to blow a few bubbles in the nest (which I forgot to say is 90% of the time under that styro cup) Then comes back and flares some more. This is fun to watch, take pics of and shoot major home theater video...okay you know what I mean, but you'll get a kick out of it:) Now if the female is receptive to his dancing, she's be flareing right back at him and wiggling around in her container. If she's not, she'll hide, clamp her fins and say no way! Be on the look out for that which will tell you when she's ready and you can add her.

When she is doing her dance as well and he's got a bubble nest started (doesn't have to be a huge one as he'll add to it when the females in his area) then you know it's time. Generally for me, I put them together in the evening only because I can shoot better pictures and my youtube vids if there's no other lights glaring on the tank...I know real scientific right? Keep an eye on them though as it can trun from nice play to messing each other up pretty quick. I've had males that have spawned before put back together with the same female and tried to kill her the second time, we're talking pieces of fins flying...I had to jump in that time really quick to get her out! So keep your eye on them. If in the first hour or so things seem fine, then you can leave them overnight with the light on or a nightlight by their tank.

When mine are ready to spawn, the music is on, the mood is just right and the flowers and candy given and they are ready, she'll go under the nest and sort of inspect it (you know how us females are), then he'll come up by her too and...well instead of writing out the fish love scene, I'll show you in my video below:)

Once the eggs are laid and she's done, she'll go away and hide or he'll start to chase her away from the nest if she comes even close. You need to get her out then or he might kill her. Put her back in her home with an extra IAL to get her back to her normal self and heal from any problems that may have occured.

Leave the male with the eggs, he'll take care of them as they hatch and and are wigglers. Now some people leave him in with them as the babies become freeswimming and longer, mine didn't like the freeswimming stage so I took him out then. He started to go nuts when they started swimming like a normal dad...Will you STAY PUT!!!

But let me go back a bit...once the eggs are laid, the dad will mouth them, keep the bubbles nice and any eggs that may fall out, he'll scoop them up in his mouth and blow them back into the nest. Feed him like normal, but nothing tiny as he may mistake the eggs then for food. He'll keep taking care of them and eat the unfertilized eggs (so no worries about fungus or anything like that!!!) until they are hatched. Mine hatched in about 3 days. They are tiny little white things no bigger than a grain of sand when hatched. They stay attached to the bubble nest or the side of the cup or the edge of the surface of the water for about a week. It's awesome to peek under the nest and see all these tiny tails sticking out:) Then suddenly you'll see one dart away. They become freeswimming quickly and are suddenly all over the tank. When you see the first one start to swim a bit, that's when you need to start feeding them (more on that with specifics below) I take the dad out at this point and put him in his own little home so breath a sigh of relief.

That's the basics of what I do for breeding. More on care of babies and stuff below:) I hope this helps!

Alright! you've done it, you've got little tiny white specks darting all over your tank! Well done:) hard part begins:)

Once you've taken out dad and the babies are free swimming you really need to keep good care of them for them to grow right. Feedings, water changes, grow out tanks...yeah sounds tough, but it's really not once you get into a routine.

First feeding ~ When they are just free swimming, they are so tiny that even a newly hatched brine shrimp will be too big. So there are things like green water that you can start, microworms they can nibble on and things like this. I myself have never tried the green water before, but will tell you the bit I know and you can google the rest. Green water is just as it sounds, it's water left outside (but not to where bugs and icky get into it) and left to algae out till it's green. The Insuforia lives in the algae that's causing the water to turn green and is small enough that the baby bettas can eat this. I get around that by having the java moss and marimo balls in my tank...the insuforia lives on those too.

I also feed micro worms...the wonder worm of the century! I'll add a bit below on micros from my angelfish lens on the how tos. They are small enough that the baby fish can get them.

Now 100% of the breeders out there will tell you that you need to have BBS (baby brine shrimp) hatched and ready to go for when they are about a week or so old. I've done both ways and agree that the bbs are the best way to go. I just haven't had time to hatch the darn little things and keep them going. So I've gotten around that by going to ebay and buying decapsulated bbs. These are dried not quite hatched brine shrimp that they took off the outer egg shell through a long process that I don't understand. I take a pinch of that in a cap full of water to rehydrate it and pop that stuff in...works great! I also now swear by fry powder food. I get mine from Steve of Angelsplus.com. His is perfect for the tiny mouths. It's geared to angelfish, but I use them for all my fry (fries???) no matter the type of fish and have had great success with it. I also bought from him a small bag of spyrolina (an aquatic plant) to mix with the fry powder to give them a bit more vits. I know that there are fry foods out there made me the Betta Spa people and Hikari, but I've not tried these yet. All in all, the fish will grow faster and larger if you feed live foods.

Then there's the wormy worms. I've only used Micros. I know there are others out there that have used others and they work well to, again this is only my experience:) Below is a the way to keep MWs so I won't go into that here. When it's time to feed these guys, I scrape my finger around the microworm container without hitting the culture at all (don't want that nasty stuff in there!) and get a good glob of them on my finger. No worries, it's not as bad as it sounds *grin* Then I swish my finger in the water and presto! Instant hunting food. Now the micros will go slowly down to the bottom and rest down there. I've heard there are other worms that won't do that but stay in the water column, I'm thinking of trying some of these the next time. When you use microworms...actually right when the babies go free swimming, one of the things I do is get ghost shrimp, the live feeder ones you can get at your local fish store. I toss in a male and a few females of these (males are much smaller is how I tell) and let them live with the bettas. They won't hurt the bettas, but keep the bottom much cleaner. My first mistake with the microworms is I fed my betta fry with these every day and the fish learned to swim on the bottom for their food...guess what was missing once they grew up a bit? The Ventrical fins of 50% of them were missing or missing one. It's because they were swimming where all the bacteria was at the bottom and grazing on the worms down there. So! the beauty of the ghost shrimp is that they'll eat the left overs on the bottom and they keep the betta fry from being on the bottom by scaring them up. Lesson learned for me I'll tell ya!

Once the babies are about the size of a baby guppy, I'll move them from the breeder/hatching tank into a 20 or 30 grow out. The cool thing about bettas compared to angels (see my other lens) is that they don't need quite as much room to grow out that the angels do *whew* I was getting over run! let them grow up in there till they are looking like bettas and showing their colors. Mostly with mine every baby (but for my whites) have been a blue color with dark stripes running down their body. They don't get their actual color till later, again, I'm sure there are ones that do, just mine that haven't:) At this point you can start feeding them crushed betta flakes, frozen daphnia and frozen cyclops...all of which mine love!

Then, as they are getting bigger, keep your eye on them and if you see some of the larger ones start to pick on the smaller, 'tis time to jar them! Females can go into tanks with other females, long as there's plenty of hiding places. Males of course have to be separated. I use like the larger spaghetti sauce jars (till I get my betta barracks, but more on this later) and have them, well pretty much all over the house:) You can feed at this point, betta flakes not crushed so much, but they still like them mouth sized. And they love froz blood worm by this point and I feed froz brine shrimp, froz glass worm, all the nice little frozen wormies that your spouse will hate to see in your freezer *grin*.

Once you can tell pretty darn sure which is male and female, it's time to sell/find homes for:) more on this below.

Now second part of care...water changes!

When they are in the hatching tank it's darn important to do daily water changes. Now the ghost shrimp make it so that if you miss one one day you're not going to kill the fry, but it's still important. Now remember, when you first take dad out, the water is still pretty much at half level in the tank. I do a 10% the first time and suction out the bottom....really really carefully as the tiny fry are easy to suck up and hard to see. Then add in fresh water (not with the tea of the IAL) and add 2xs as much as you took out so there's more water in the tank now. Then each time I do a water change, I add a bit more till the water is all clear of the tea and the tank full.

I use an air hose that comes with the air pumps to do my changes at this point. I suction the water into a clean bucket or my pitcher that I have designated for all my water changes. Then I slowly with my fingers right around the end of the tube suck off the bottom. I use my forefinger to carefully push at babies that just won't get out of the way, mostly a finger coming to them will cause them to dart away...other times it's like a "hey come here and get sucked up!" for all the times I've done that...lol But no worries, if you suck up a baby, it won't hurt them, just make sure to scope out the bucket very carefully to find any babies and I use the hose or a baby brine shrimp net (which you can get at Ken's linked below) and put them back in the tank.

Then to put the water back in, I use the same bucket (rinsed out) with fresh water and a few drops of conditioner (or if you're on city water, use aged water that's the same condition as the baby water) and put the bucket up higher than the tank and use the air tube as a drip system to put the clean water back in the tank. Just want to keep as much current gone as they still can't swim against it.

That's pretty much it:)

Here is a photo journey of the bettas from bubble nest to new adult betta! (not all from the same pair...lol)

Bubble Nest


Eggs in nest (the little sand/white things)


Just Hatched and still hanging on nest


Still Wigglers but starting to move around


Close up of a wiggler


'Nother close up of a wiggler/just starting to free swim


Close up of Free Swimmer


Bunch of Juvies


Close up of Juvie, just getting colors


2 months old here


Full out adult male ready to spawn


These are all my photos, please give credit if used in other places:)

(taken from my Angelfish Lens)

Alright! I know there's tons of info on the web about Microworms and the care of them and all the how tos which is awesome as that's how I learned. So here I'll put my own version of these white slimy things...well slimy isn't the right word.

Okay, of course you will first need a starter culture. I got mine first one off ebay. You can try your local fish club (if you've got one) or craig's list and see if there's anyone near by that wouldn't mind setting you up with a starter.

I use a friend's method of keeping care of my micros and they keep well enough so there's no smell and minimum losses (yes a culture can crash and die). (Thank you LadyOutlaw for the info!)

We use the smaller of the canning jars. poke a few holes in the lid. Then pour in 2 tbs of dry oatmeal, a pinch of brewers yeast, 2 tbs of water, and add the starter culture.

Then put in a lite, but not direct sunlite area.

You'll start to see white going up the side of the jar and your harvest is ready.

Now to feed...this is so darn easy, but not for the faint of heart...lol Once the wall of white starts to climb the sides, I wet my finger just a bit and run it along the inside of the jar, but not touching the culture it'self (then you are just getting worms and not the icky stuff). Then I swish my finger in the fry tank and watch the fun:) The fry love hunting these guys.

Now a little warning about them...if you feed too much (which is so easy to do, it's actually hard to feed the right amount) it's best to have something on the bottom of your tank to do the clean up work. Micros fall to the bottom of your tank which will make your fry go to the bottom to eat, if they stay on the bottom too much, it'll give them all sorts of problems...this goes for any fry, not just angels. I had a whole batch of betta fry that I learned this the hard way on...they all ended up without ventricals. So! keep your fry up off the bottom of the tank!

Now, to keep your culture going. Take the same jar as above, same ingredients as above, but run your finger around the old culture (without touching the culture, jsut get the worms) then pour the 2 tbs of water over your finger to wach the worms into the new culture. that's it!

Try to get a new jar for each week going. I lable the jars week 1, week 2 and so on. Then on Mondays of each week I rinse out the old of that week's jar, and redo a new culture with one of the existing. this way the cultures will never get old and smelly (and believe me, they can smell)! This way will also feed a vast amount of fry, so you'll never run out:)

Have fun!

Most of this below is going to be taken straight from the angelfish lens...no need to say it all new again for the...well you know:)

The next question is of course, what the heck do I do with all these babies? If you've got great parents and well set up and done things right, in time you'll have like 46 million fish in your house! There are ways to sell them and here's the things that I did personally and had way too much fun doing so!

First thing I did was to have my own personal website with pics of the parents and fry as they grew (a lot of which are here) and had my contact info. I would put my website url into everything i did fish related. If it was a forum, put your website in your sig, if it's email, again put it in your sig, you never know who will look and want some. If you are looking to get a website (yes I do that too) check out mine and I can help you with where to go, how to do it and all that - Penycat's Bettas

Next, I took a lot of youtubes of my bettas (as seen below) I get tons of responses on these. Most are just questions from people wondering the hows (in which case I send them here) but I have sold some of my fish because of what they saw on youtube.

Then of course if your local fish stores (lfs). Now most lfs will only give you credit for your fish. in our area, I've only got 2 that'll pay me cash for my fish and of course I go to them first:) Now the things with bettas that's different than other fish is generally the pet stores only sell the veiltails and are branching into crowns and things. They don't generally sell them above $3-5 each which means you won't be getting much for yours. If you are trying to sell them a Plakat, they go for more than the pet stores are mostly willing to sell them. I sell mine for about $10 each online, a lfs isn't going to pay you that much, so unless you're breeding veiltails just for the lfs, I wouldn't go there with the bettas. But aside from that, I've got 2 pet stores that offer me credit for my fish and that works too as I get my frozen fish food from them then, so the fish are sort of paying for themselves, 'tis a cool thing:) Then just ever week or so call the lfs and see if they need more. bag them up and deliver.

Then I did a lot of online searching for forums that had to do with bettas or my local area club. If you have a local fish club in your area, believe me, it's well worth the time and $$ to join them, not only for selling your babies, but also for the info they are give you and let you know you're not the only fish geek in the area:)! Then fish forums are great places to post your fish (and website) for sale. I sell a lot of fish that way...yes you have to ship:)

Lastly, I use Craig's List as a last resort. Breeders really aren't suppose to post in the pet section, but I figure that's more for dog and cat breeders (and they do too) as we really don't have much a problem having an over population of fish in shelters. So I've posted my bettas as adoptables with a fee. I sold many a fish that way too.

Oh yeah, can't forget AquaBid *blush* I've sold many a fish through there as well! (as well as bought...lol)

*also taken from the angelfish lens*

I get asked all the time, "how do you get your fish to the buyer?" and when I tell them that I ship them through the mail they get the deer in the headlight look...lol yes, you can ship fish through the mail! :)

First things first, it's a good idea to make sure with your local post office or USP or Fed Ex or whoever you're going to ship with that it's okay with them. The first time I tried to ship mine through my local post office (I mostly use the USPS), they looked at me like I was nuts. They lady went to the back to get the post mistress and they decided to take it. I had already had fish shipped in through them (they at the time weren't aware of that I guess). I heard the lady whisper to the other that no way would the fish make it. They were being shipped priority as that's what my customer had paid for which means about 3-4 days in their bag. A week later I came back to ship another box, told them that the previous box made it perfectly all fish safe and then they changed their tune...lol The main lady started talking very loudly about how shipping through the USPS was the best and they even handled fish with such great care and everything. I must admit I laughed when I got back in the car:) So far I've shipped a few dozen times and not had a loss yet *crosses fingers*

Now know too before we get into it here, that no matter how perfectly you package your fish, losses can and will happen. Once they are out of your hands, they are literally out of your hands and there's nothing you can do but offer your customer new fish. Packages do get lost, heat or cold happen, drivers that have a hard time reading that the package is fragile and perishable...well yeah. So just be aware of that.

The things you'll need are as follows:
(you can get these things from Ken's fish supplies linked above)
~ Shipping box - a bit bigger than you'll think
~ Styrofoam cut to fit inside the box (more on this)
~ 2 bags per fish / group of fish - I like the 3mil 8"x20" ones from Ken (I've heard mixed things on the breather bags with bettas...I've not used them so will not comment)
~ Heat pack / Cold pack
~ Rubber Bands
~ Newspaper / filler
Optional:
~ Polyfiber (You can get these at most fish stores, Generally it's used in a filter to pull out unwanteds in your water like ammonia and stuff, I was recomended to by a fellow fish geek to use a small square of this in each bag as it helps during the shipping time to keep the ammonia out of the water).
~ Bag buddies (quote from Ken's site - "The first water conditioner with fish calmer that comes in easy-to-use, mess free tablets. Protects fish by reducing stress, promoting slime coat, removing chlorine, neutralizing harmful metals and adding beneficial electrolytes. Plus, with the added fish calmer, fish stress is further reduced. Just one tablet in fish bag water also releases oxygen into the fish bag and ensures fish arrive home safely, in quality condition and better overall health. This is a must when shipping fish!")

A little thing that I do to make this all easier for me is I go to my local fish stores and ask them what they do with their shipping boxes when they get their fish. A lot of the stores just toss them and if I'm there when they get their fish and can hang around a bit, I get them for free *grin* Otherwise you'll want to make sure to get strong boxes and either shipping styro or 1-2 inch thick styro you can cut.

First thing...you'll want to stop feeding the fish to be shipped 24-48 hours before you bag. This will get anything out of their system to keep the water cleaner and help them not be so stressed.

Now get your box set up with a piece of styro to fit along the bottom, all 4 sides and the top with a bit of room between where the bag(s) will be and the sides and tops (so bigger box than you may first think). Then depending on the weather in my area and what's going on in the customer's area will tell me if I need a heat pack or cold pack. (that goes in last though so no worries till everything else is in)

Okay so first bag up your fish. One fish per bag of course, 'specially if they are still a bit young to be 100% on sex. I take minimal water, like 1/4-1/2 cup of clean aged water, add the polyfiber bit if you are going to use it and a bag buddy. Then pop in the fish and tie the bag up right away so there's a nice round ball of air at the top, 2xs the amount of water. Once it's tied up with the rubber band (or tied, up to you) Then take the second bag and put the first in upside down so the top of the first bag is at the bottom of the second. Tie off the second bag so there's no corners for the betta to get caught in and you've got a nice ball shaped bag. The second bag first insures there's no corners, but also protects in case of any tiny holes in one or the other.

Now lay them inside the box and pad all around them with the newspaper. lay a thick layer at the top. Then take the heat/cold pack that's been wrapped in newspaper and tape it with strong stuff to the underneath of the top layer of stryo. this keeps it in place as you don't want it having direct contact with the bags of fish. Then tape the whole thing closed and address.

Now I've heard both sides of this part, some people write live fish all over the outside so that the shippers know to be careful with it. The problem with this (I've not come across it myself, but others have) along the way you can get a shipper that won't deal with the live fish knowing what's in there. Either the fish just stops and sits for too long or they'll send it back and either way it might not make it back safely. I put perishable and fragile all over mine. this way they know to take care with the package and that it's got a time limit, but not know it's a live thing and freak out. Up to you:)

Also little end note: make sure to have your customer add to the shipping cost, or you add at the beginning a confirmation request. You'll want to know where your fish is and when it gets there. You can do both with the conf. request. I track my fish online and see where they are and know right away when they arrive. This way too you'll know if the fish get there at like 3:pm but the customer tried to pull something saying a fish died but it's much later. Just gives you a safety buffer:)

I hope that helps too!

Alright I say x because of what happened...lol read on.

1/6 ~ put together a 10g breeding tank as stated above. Put my black male plakat/roundtail (he was sold to me as a round tail, but I'm darn sure he's plakat) His name is Fuin which is Tolkin's Elvish for Darkness. Then put in my black plakat female in her little area and left them alone. Started to feed blood worm (more than my normal that I do each week) and brine shrimp. He started to work on this bubble nest big time almost right away. Flaring at his woman, going to blow a few more bubbles, back to flaring back to the nest...it's fun to watch:)

1/7 ~ I let the female loose as his nest is nice and thick. But she decided to hide and show no interest in him at all. He took a small chunk out of her bottom fin as she ran from him so I put her after a few hours of nothing back in her container.

1/17 ~ Alright after over a week of nothing from her and he's lost interest in her and the nest, I took her out. Now to jump back a bit, I had set up another breeding tank same time as this one with my male metallic teal (Myrrdin) and a female teal dragon (Malina) She barred up right away and flirted with him big time. He never built a nest but flared back at her, so after a day I let her loose. Well they lived together like an old happy couple till today. But never spawned, she was ready, egg spot showing and everything, but he refused to build a nest. I hope he's not too old already! he's my favorite male!!! So I put him back in his home tank, the black female back in the sheila tank and Malina in with Fuin in a container. Right away he started to build up his nest again.

1/20 ~ Fuin's nest is awesome and Malina's all egged and ready, so I let her lose........NOTHING!!! what's with these fish??? Well this day I also got a shipment of fish from Mark D (Thank you!) 2 of which were plecos for a friend of mine. They weren't happy in the container I had them in so since the bettas weren't doing anything, I tossed the plecos in the breeder tank for the day since my friend was coming to get them the nest day. Within an hour of me tossing in the plecos, the bettas started to spawn! ROTFLOL I've got a short vid of it - Here. Took Malina out right when they were done.

1/23 ~ Babies are hatched and wrigglers. Fuin's not taking care of his nest very well, he's going after the babies that fall and in constant motion taking care of them, but not remembering to keep up with the nest. This is his first, so hopefully we won't loose all the babies.

1/26 ~ Like clockwork, there are free swimmers! not many, but hey, I'm happy. So Fuin's out now and in his home tank. I started to feed the babies with Atison's betta fry food. Never used this before, so it's a bit of an experiment. I mixed in some decaps bbs as well just to give a bit of extra. So far so good!:)

2/8 ~ Not much to mention. I feed 2-3 times a day with the fry food. I'm also mixing in a bit of vinegar eels, but have yet to master the harvesting of...lol I did their first water change yesterday. I think I've got between 10-15 babies, so not many, but for a first spawn, hopefully he'll do better next time.