A Guide to Breeding Betta Fish

Betta Fish Breeding Guide

Breeding betta fish can be somewhat difficult. Especially with male Bettas, as they tend to be aggressive towards each other. However, the following steps will show you what you need to do in order to successfully breed your Betta fish.
To begin, you will need the following (consult this as a check-list):

• Male and Female Betta Fish
• 10 Gallon Tank
• Aquarium Sponge Filter
• Aquarium Air Pump (the one with Pressure Valve is best)
• Aquarium Cover
• Food for Baby Bettas (Fry)
• Aquarium Heater (Submersible)
• Containers for as many as 100 baby fish

For a start, you need a female betta fish. These are pretty hard to come by. Most petstores only stock the more flamboyant male bettas. However, if you search hard enough on the net, or ask your local pet store nicely, they will probably be pointed in the right direction. Online ordering is OK! Bettas ship very good, do not be afraid to have the fish shipped to you. Female betta fish are pretty dull compared to their male counterparts.

Once you have your Betta fish pair you will need to condition the fish for breeding. This is a 2 week process of feeding your Bettas high quality foods. Start to feed them both good quality betta fish food. Just as in nature, no animal in its right mind is going to be reproducing when food is scarce and if they have poor body condition, no female betta fish will produce eggs if she's not given the best in the food area.

During the conditioning of your Betta fish pair you will want to setup your breeding tank. Make sure your tank is clean. Washing it with very hot water is a good precaution; do not use soap to clean your tank. The Betta fish will begin to show signs when they are ready to mate; the male will make a bubble nest at the top of his tank where he will eventually place the eggs, and the female can develop colorful stripes.

You will want to create hiding spots for your female Betta fish. Live plants are best, but fake plants will work as well. Place them on the opposite corner of the floating cup.

Your breeding tank should be kept at 80-82 degrees for the baby fish to best survive.

Expect the female betta fish to get a bit battered and bruised - which is why you need to be attentive and fish her out if she doesn't like his 'amorous' activities. Give her a few days to recover and try one more time.

Betta fish can release hundreds of eggs, while some have been known to release close to a thousand. Her job done, the female will then hide and the male will take over the caring of the young. In the next 2-3 days, the male betta will be looking after the brood and scooping whatever eggs fall out of the bubble nest and returning them to the surface again.

Once the fish have hatched and are swimming freely, take the male out of the tank as well or he may begin to eat his young.

It is now time to start feeding your tiny Betta fry. Microworms will do just fine. You can order this food online. The baby fry should be feed every 4-6 hours. Give the babies about two weeks before you change their water, and be careful that you don’t overfeed them or the tank could become cloudy.

After about 2 weeks or so, your baby bettas can move on to other stuff like finely crushed flake food. A tiny pinch a day is more than enough.

By about 7 weeks, when young Bettas achieve 1 inch in size, it's time to move them to individual bowls.

As you see, betta fish breeding is a fascinating hobby!

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