So, you want to breed bettas…
Most people have no idea where to start when it comes to breeding bettas, so this comprehensive guide will cover everything you need to know when it comes to breeding Betta splendens.
Betta care
Betta splendens are the most commonly available Betta species that are found in just about every pet store. They have been selectively bred to produce a massive variety of colors, though some strains are more prone to certain health problems due to inbreeding, such as how certain dog breeds are more prone to tumors or heart disease.
Bettas should be kept in a tank of at least 5 gallons that is filtered and cycled. Just like every other labyrinth fish, they prefer low flow, so sponge filters are often used. A labyrinth fish is a fish that possess an organ similar to a lung, called a labyrinth organ, which allows them to breathe from the air. It is essential that bettas have access to both the air and well oxygenated water, as they cannot survive if they only depend on either the labyrinth organ or their gills. They should be kept at 77-80 degrees Fahrenheit and be fed a staple pellet twice a day. They should only be fed an amount of food the same size as their eye, since their stomach and eye are the same size, and overfeeding leads to dangerous bloat in Bettas.
Since many Betta keepers are beginner aquarists, most are not aware of the nitrogen cycle. Lack of knowledge of the nitrogen cycle is one of the leading causes of pet fish death. An aquarium is a closed system; everything that goes in, stays in, until we remove it with water changes. This applies to food as well. Bettas produce waste, which is converted to ammonia, which burns off their fins, gills, and scales. It is toxic in any amount over 0ppm, so if it is present, it is harming your fish.
After one to three weeks, a bacteria species comes along and converts ammonia to nitrite, which prevents hemoglobin in the blood from carrying oxygen, so the fish suffocates. It is also toxic over 0ppm and is more dangerous than ammonia. After another one to three weeks, the last bacteria species comes along and converts nitrites to nitrates, which lower the immune system of a fish over time and should be kept below 20ppm.
The essential bacteria which convert harmful nitrogen compounds to less harmful ones live in your filter media. This means you should never throw away your filter cartridges or rinse it in tap water, as this will kill your cycle. Why is this important to betta breeding? If fry are faced with even 0.25 ppm ammonia or nitrite, or nitrate over 10 ppm, most, if not all, will die. It is essential to be aware of how to cycle your tank and what the cycle does in order to breed bettas.
Picking Your Pair
The first step to breeding Bettas is to make sure you have a male and female. The females tend to be more drab in color, but the best indicator that you have a female is the ovipositor. The ovipositor looks like a white dot between the two ventral fins. This is the tube that the female will lay eggs from, sometimes over 300 in one spawn, though young females will not lay this many.
Male bettas will have much longer and more colorful fins than female bettas and tend to be more aggressive. However, sometimes the female will be much more aggressive than the male, especially during spawning. Also, please be aware that young males between the ages of 2-6 months can develop a false ovipositor, but their fins will always be longer and more colorful.
The male and female you pick should be of the same tail type and color, in order to ensure you will have sellable fry. Breeding veil tails is discouraged, as the veil tail is a dominant trait, and these are the most common betta tail type. This means it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find homes for 300 veil tail bettas. Additionally, it is a very bad idea to breed together two double tail bettas, as almost all the fry will end up deformed. If you want to breed bettas to get a double tail, only one of the parents should have this tail type.
Male bettas can breed from ages 4-14 months old, while females can breed for a few months after this time period. If you can find two bettas with strong, robust coloring and health, then you are on the right track.
Conditioning
Conditioning Bettas is an essential piece of breeding them. Conditioning involves separating them and feeding high protein food for two weeks. You must make sure that they are ready to breed and in the best health, as the Betta spawning process is extremely harsh. Be aware that both will sustain injuries, and it is possible that one, or both, will die from said injuries.
Conditioning often involves live food, and I have found live food to be the best method for conditioning them. The male and female should already be in separate tanks, but you must now ensure that they cannot see one another. Feed them 2-3 times a day and feed a wide variety of live and frozen live food. Do not overfeed bloodworms, as they are extremely fatty and should only be fed one to two times a week.
In my experience, the best live food is California blackworms, hands down. I had a pair spawning in three days after a few feedings of these, and they produced almost the maximum amount of fry during their first spawn. White worms are a good alternative, though blackworms still seem to work better. Daphnia and fruit flies can also be used as live food.
Frozen food can include daphnia, baby brine shrimp, some bloodworms, and other shrimp, such as Mysis shrimp. They should still be fed a commercial pellet during this time period, as the pellets provide essential micronutrients and macronutrients that are not found in other foods.
Breeding and Fry Tank Setup
The breeding tank should be at least 10 gallons and have a heater set at 82 degrees Fahrenheit and a small, cycled, sponge filter. Any other filters will suck up fry and grind them up in the impeller. The tank also needs to have several sight breaks and hides, so that a Betta can escape if the partner is too aggressive. Substrate cannot be used in the breeding tank, as the fry will fall and get stuck between the substrate. Many recommend lowering the water level to 6-8 inches, but as long as the water level is 12 inches or lower, the Bettas will still successfully spawn.
There needs to be an extremely tight-fitting lid, and saran wrap with a few holes poked in it is often used. Since Bettas are bubble nesters, which means they create a bubble nest that floats on the surface of the water, their nests will pop if there is not enough moisture, and without a nest, the fry will die.
The final component of the breeding tank is some kind of floating object for the male to build his nest around. This can be in the form of floating plants (I personally use red root floaters), an Indian Almond Leaf, or a Styrofoam cup cut in half. It must be an object that will remain floating for at least 3 days and will not leach anything harmful into the tank.
The fry tanks should be set up in the same manner, though they do not need decorations or anything floating, and the temperature can be dropped to 78-80 degrees. Multiple fry tanks are often necessary, since a spawn can produce over 300 fry. Fry tanks range from 10-gallons to 75-gallons, though 20-gallon and 40-gallon tanks are used most often.
Spawning
After conditioning the two bettas for two weeks and setting up the fry and breeding tanks, you’re ready to get started! Introduce the male to the breeding tanks for several hours. After that, add in a glass vase that is taller than the top of the water, and pour some water into it. Add the female into the glass vase and watch them closely.
The male will flare for the female to show off for her. The female should develop vertical breeding stripes, which light colored males will also show. If the female bends her head down at a 45-degree angle, this means she is receptive to the male. The male should build a bubble nest once he sees the female, as this is essential to the breeding process. If these three conditions are met, release the female into the tank.
Instead of putting the vase and female in before the male makes a bubble nest, some breeders put the male in the breeding tank for several days until he makes a bubble nest. Either way works, as long as there is an established bubble nest before the female is released.
Once the female is in the tank, the male will flare at her and try to draw her towards the bubble nest. The female will likely inspect the tank for several hours before spawning. Once she is receptive and the bubble nest is to her liking, they will “embrace”. The male will wrap around the female and the female will release eggs while the male fertilizes them. The female will appear lifeless and unmoving for a few minutes while the male gathers all the eggs and brings them to the bubble nest.
This process will be repeated over the next few hours. Try to disturb them as little as possible during this time. Once the female released all her eggs, she will try and find somewhere to hide, as the male becomes very aggressive over the nest at this point. You should see the male hovering under the nest, picking up any eggs or babies that fall out. Remove the female at this point but be careful not to let out too much moisture or disturb the nest.
The male will guard the fry for the next week or so, but if he feels threatened, he will eat them. I normally leave my male with the fry for roughly five days. The fry are free swimming at this point, but the male will continue trying to bring them back to the nest, which is stressful for both the male and fry. Most fry are free swimming at around three days, but there are always some late bloomers, so I recommend leaving the male in to take care of them.
Feeding the Fry
Betta fry are different from most other fry in terms of their size; they’re tiny! They are also carnivores, and for the first one to two months of their lives, they will only accept live food. This means you will have to start several live food cultures, at least four or five, in order to feed these hungry little buggers.
The cultures I strongly recommend are: microworms, vinegar eels, baby brine shrimp, white worms, black worms, and springtails. The white worms and springtails are terrestrial, and I house mine in coconut husk. They need a very moist environment, but they will eat just about anything from table scraps to aquarium plant clippings, but they enjoy cat food the most. I keep microworms in an instant potato and oatmeal mixture and replace half the substrate every three to four weeks.
Vinegar eels are kept in unfiltered vinegar and must be rinsed before being fed. There are thousands of guides available for keeping baby brine shrimp, and essentially all you need is a pack of brine shrimp eggs, a light, and pickling or aquarium salt. These must also be rinsed before feeding to avoid getting salt in the tank, as Betta splendens is salt sensitive, unlike some of the other Betta species.
I occasionally rinse the white worms, but only if I am spot feeding a few of the larger fry. Otherwise, I simply dig out a clump of worms from under a cat food pellet and toss it in the tank since coconut husk won’t mess up the water quality.
For the first 3-5 days after they become free swimming, you should feed a mix of vinegar eels and microworms. After the first few days, start feeding baby brine shrimp. You can continue feeding microworms and vinegar eels as well, but the nematodes will no longer provide enough nutrition.
Once they get a bit larger, you can try sprinkling a few springtails on the top of the water and adding in some smaller white worms and black worms, in addition to the main meal of brine shrimp. They can eat worms longer than their body, so don’t underestimate them! The sooner you start feeding worms, the faster they will grow. Around the end of the first month, you can start trying to feed them crushed pellets or fry food by sprinkling it on the surface. It will take a few tries before they start understanding that it’s food, but once they do, they will get a serious growth spurt.
Jarring
Baby bettas become aggressive towards one another as they grow, and the more aggressive ones must be separated out before they kill their siblings. The normal method for this is “jarring” in which a rack of jars (one half gallon minimum) is set up in a heated room which keeps the water temperature at 78 degrees. The aggressive bettas (not just males) are moved to individual jars without filters or heaters, hence heating the room.
The only way to combat ammonia or nitrite from killing the fry is by doing 50% water changes on every jar once or twice every day. Some also set up a sump system that connects all the jars, and they heat the sump instead of the room, and the sump filters the jars.
When to Sell
Baby bettas are generally sold when they are three to four months old, which is a time in which they will be displaying their colors. For those without the marble gene, these colors will be the ones they keep for life.
Pricing depends on the type of betta being bred. For example, breeders often don’t make more than a dollar, if that, for selling veil tails, but if you sell a male and female pair, they often go for $20-200, depending on the type and quality. You can also offer exclusive sorority deals for those wanting a betta sorority tank. A betta sorority tank is a tank that houses multiple female bettas, between 5-30 depending on tank size, though these often fail. The best chance to get one to thrive is to create one with a group of siblings that were raised together, something only breeders like you can provide.