Breeding Bettas and Rising the Fry
By Evelyn
Copyright 2007

What I will need before breeding them

• a breeding pair of course

• 10 gallon tank as breeding tank

• a sponge filter

• a heater, the temp should be around 80 F - 85 F, but not lower then that

• a thermometer to check temperature constantly

• a Styrofoam cup for the betta to make his bubble nest under

• a vase where you put your female into, which you will be put into the breeding tank for the male to see her

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQn19Vdj4Z4&mode=related&search=

• only 6 inch of water for the breeding tank

• live plants for the female to hide away when spawning them

• optimal pH is 7.0

What to do before breeding them

Conditioning is where you prepare your bettas for spawning. The conditioning process is the time during which the female produces eggs. The longer the conditioning processes the more eggs she produces. During conditioning you need to do the following things:

- position the male and females tanks so they can see each other (this is what promotes the female to produce eggs)

- feed them nutritious foods such as frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp, etc. you can also feed them live foods for conditioning

- keep the water in their tanks clean

- The female should be submissive and display vertical stripes and an egg spot shown here

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb53/evelynmarch26/ovipositor1.jpg

You should condition your bettas for 1-2 weeks before spawning.

The spawning process

The spawning process takes about 2-3 hours, never leave the couple together to long
You will know when they are done, when you see the male protecting his brood and chasing away the female.
That's the time you need to take out the female and put her into a hospital tank to treat her for frayed fins usually

Here is a great video that shows the spawning process and one with laying the eggs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x47LAmgKJTw&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke3t8xmTNGw&mode=related&search=

Raising the fry

Site note
Raising Baby Brine Shrimp

• Whatever container you use, you should fill it 3/4 of the way with salted water (1 tbsp of salt per quart) and add about a 1/2 tsp to a tsp of eggs, depending on your feeding needs.

• A little of this stuff goes a long way, but its better to make too much than too little - you can always freeze the leftovers.

• You'll need to connect an air stone to a pump to keep the water aerated and circulated.

• The eggs should be kept suspended at all times, and make sure the air stone is at the bottom and is making enough movement in the water so that all of the eggs are moving around.

• The eggs will hatch in 18-48 hours, depending on water temperature. You should be able to tell when they hatch, because the water will look more reddish-colored than it did before.

• Stop the airflow into the hatchery, shine a light up toward the bottom, and wait 15 minutes for the empty eggs to float to the surface and the shrimp to congregate near the light source on the bottom.

• They can now be siphoned out with a turkey buster or the airline tubing siphon that you use for the fry tanks.

• Strain them through a brine shrimp net. If you don't have one, a coffee filter works well, but my favorite thing to use is the cut-off toe of a pair of white little girls' stockings.

• The brine shrimp are orange-red in color, and very small. Rinse them well under the faucet, and then feed them to the fry.

• You can swirl the net around in the water of the fry tank to feed, but its easier inverting it and swirling it around in a cup of fresh water, then feeding it to the fry with a medicine dropper. This method is visually easier to control, and decreases the chance of overfeeding.

Here is a great video that shows the male tending to his brood from being eggs to free swimming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gs7JDAK_fw&mode=related&search=

You need to take out the male as soon as the fry is free swimming or he will eat them.

Weeks 1&2

• The eggs hatch in 24-48 hours, depending on the temperature and water, and the new fry hang tail-down in the nest for another couple of days, gradually taking on a horizontal swimming position.

• Sometimes their wriggling will cause them to fall from the nest, and their father will catch them and replace them.
  The male is usually kept very busy during this time, and sometimes a lot of fry will lie on the bottom waiting to be found. Lying on the bottom doesn't hurt them, and they will eventually dart back up to the nest themselves, or just lie there until they can swim away.

• It isn't necessary to feed the fry while they are still tail-down in the nest, as they are living off of their yolk sacs. Once they start swimming horizontally, they will escape the nest and go on the prowl for food.

• The male will try his dangest to keep them all in the nest, but his job becomes harder and harder as 50+ fry all make a break for it as soon as his back is turned.

• Most breeders remove the male at this point, as he is likely to become frustrated with his children and decide to make his job easier by eating a few of them.

• Use care when catching the male that you don't accidentally net fry or decimate the bubble nest. You can lure him away with some food and either net him or scoop him into a cup. I do it both ways, depending on whether the net or the cup is closer at the time. When using a net, it's a good idea to hold it near the surface (still immersed in water) after you catch the male, so that any fry he has in his mouth can be spit out.

• If scooping him up with a cup, wait a few minutes before pouring him into his jar, and then check him again. If you see fry swimming around in the cup with him, dump them all back into the spawning tank and scoop the male up again.
  It's a good idea to treat him with Bettamax for a few days, as some males go into depression when they are separated from their fry, and are more vulnerable to illness and disease.

• You can start feeding the fry as soon as you see them swimming horizontally.

• They do this at different times, so don't make the mistake of thinking that just because there are still fry hanging in the nest, you don't have to feed them. Fry will starve to death if something to eat is not immediately available.

• For the first week, you should feed your fry infusoria three times a day, and egg yolk once a day. They grow well on egg yolk, and its simple to make - just hard-boil an egg, and then break off a tiny piece of yolk (about the size of a grain of rice) and mash it in some water, then just feed to the fry with an eyedropper. It makes a suspension liquid of tiny particles of yolk that even the smallest fry can eat. The downside is, it starts to rot and pollute the water pretty quickly. The best thing to do, instead of scattering the yolk throughout the tank, you should put a few drops in fry 'hot spots' - where they like to gather - and then siphon out the uneaten portions. For simplicity's sake, feed them egg yolk in the morning, and then siphon leftovers out right before you go to bed. This gives them all day to pick at it.

• Other first foods for fry include Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, Golden Pearls, NABBS, vinegar eels, paramecium, green water, micro worms and Liquifry for Egg layers #1

Weeks 3&4

• When the fry are two weeks old, they should all be large enough to start eating baby brine shrimp, or BBS.

• Feed BBS to the 2-3 week old fry once a day, in the morning. Around noon offer a dry food like Golden Pearls or NABBS, and in the evening siphon off the uneaten food (if needed). This routine continues to end of the 3rd week and beginning of the 4th. Around the end of Week Three offer frozen/live daphnia and discontinue the BBS.

• When breeding in a half-full ten gallon tank, you will want to start siphoning the tank and replacing about twice as much water as you take until the container is full. The siphoning and replacing will need to be done every other day, or, at the least, twice a week. Depending on the size of your spawn, you may decide to do the water changing more or less often.

• Daily removal of uneaten food is highly recommended

• Somewhere around 3-5 weeks old, you should see your fry come to the surface for a gulp of air. For this reason, you should make sure the surface of the water is clear, an air stone can help to keep it clear from any substances keep the setting low enough, just for breaking the water surface

• When your fry is around 4 weeks old you will see them developing their own personalities and appearances

Weeks 5&6, that's the stage they become little juveniles

• It's a good idea to separate the fry at 4 weeks of age, since some of them are bigger and will start eating the smaller and weaker ones

• The best thing to do is putting the bigger ones in a 20 gallon tank and keep the smaller ones in the original breeding tank, that ensures that all of them will grow and have a change to survive

• Between the ages of 4-6 weeks, the fry should be gradually weaned off BBS and other small food, and offered a wide variety of dried, freeze-dried, pelleted, and frozen foods.

• Reduce their feeding of BBS to once a day, or perhaps once every other day, and start offering them chopped frozen bloodworms, small granules of HBH Betta Bites, grindal worms, and frozen/live daphnia. The smaller fry however will still need the BBS for another 2 weeks or less

• Between now and eight weeks of age you should start catching and jarring the largest or most aggressive fry to minimize the amount of torn fins in the grow out tank.
  
  A betta baby's growth
  
  a betta egg is 0.03 in diameter
  
  http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb53/evelynmarch26/betta%20fish%20growing/?action=view&current=13b26228.pbw
  
  http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb53/evelynmarch26/betta%20fish%20growing/?action=view&current=eec919e2.pbw