Breeding Betta in captivity

One of the easiest fish to maintain, Betta is also easy to breed in captivity. In fact the process is quite interesting. The male Betta builds a bubble nest at the water surface and indicates its readiness to mate. The female then lays the eggs and the male scoops them in his mouth. He spits them into the bubble nest where they remain till they hatch. Once the fry hatch, they have to be separated from the male who may eat them.

You must know the following things about Betta breeding before you start:
     1. Sex of the fish: It is important to know the male from the female. Whereas two males will fight to death, females can stay together. Also, male has much longer fins than the female.

     2. It’s best to keep male and female Betta in separate tanks except for a few hours when they spawn.

     3. During courtship the color of the finnage in both sexes will be brilliant.

     4. Keep one male in each bowl.

     5. Feed floating pellet food or frozen bloodworms to your fish. During spawning, you should change the diet and include BettaMin, Freeze Dried Blood Worms, some live or frozen brine shrimp and a few live Black Worms. Good food helps the female to produce eggs and males encouraged to build big bubble nest.

     6. Change 20% water from the fish bowl daily to stimulate the male to build the nest near the edge of the bowl.
     7. A good breed can be devised by putting the plumpest female with the male that builds the biggest nest. After nipping and quarreling for a while, the pair will get along and spawn. Observe carefully that the male doesn’t hurt the female too badly. If they don’t spawn separate them and try making another pair. After spawning separate them.

     8. Sometimes, the male will not build the nest during courtship. You can provide an artificial nest by placing a cut Styrofoam cup in the water. The edges of the cup draw the eggs towards itself.

     9. The Male cares for the eggs and the special chemicals in his mouth dissolve the outer layer of the eggs and help hatching of the fry.

     10. Raising the fry is a tough job. It is difficult in captivity and better results have been obtained in ponds where temperature is between 68 to 70 degrees F. The pond should not contain any fish that would eat the fry.

The fry grows quickly and within days they will start eating powdered food. Soon the fry will be ready to be rehabilitated as adult Betta in other tanks. Betta is delightful specie of fish to have in your aquarium and breeding them can be a very fulfilling experience, so long as you are able to separate the two sexes and the fry in time.

Losing fry to hungry parents, especially males can be avoided by feeding the male just as soon as the fry hatch. In any case, you will learn as you go along and breed a few generations!