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Once you have chosen your male and female betta splendens that you wish to breed (spawn) then the first step is to condition them.
Conditioning
This is an important phase in the breeding of bettas, it is partly made up by physical conditioning (see feeding section) and partly by behavioural conditioning.To condition the behaviour of the bettas you have to introduce the prospective pair to each other in a safe manner.This is done by placing each of them into their own jar and placing a piece of card between the jars, at periods during each day removing this card and allowing them to see each other, this allows them to flirt and become familiar with each other, it also helps to trigger the hormones for breeding and reduce aggression in both genders slightly.This regime continues over a period of 2 weeks, then you will see the female becoming fatter due to the eggs, underneath the female you will see a white spot.
Breeding Set-Ups
A 5 imperial gallon aquarium is okay for a breeding tank, although you can use other sizes, I have used from a 2-30 gallon without any problems. I tend to use some 6.6 gallon ones now as I can fit 2 rows of 4 per shelf of these on each breeding rack as it was custom designed for this size of tank, so I give them the extra space.
You need the tank set up with a lid, a heater (temperature of 29C), and no filter running .
Fill the tank to a depth of about 6 inches of water.
Before we go any further, it is important that you have a lid with a good fit, as once the fry hatch, during their first 4-6 weeks, some fry will develop slower or faster than this, the fry develop their labyrinth organ, it is important for the air temperature above the water to be stable and humid as you then know there aren't any drafts, unstable air temperature above the waters surface at this stage can kill the fry, and all your efforts of breeding will have been in vain, so it is one of the most important things when breeding bettas.
In the water you can place something to help the male secure his bubblenests structure to, such as a floating live plant /artificial plant, a lid off of a drinks carton or a half of a stryofoam drinks cup (cut lengthwise), that said I have had several males decide to build their bubblenest where the heater cable exits the water in the corner of the tank.
Introductions
Firstly you will add the male betta into the breeding tank, float him in a bottle or bag first, like when you buy a fish, to acclimatize him to the temperature of the water as it will be slightly higher than his usual water temperature. I usually leave the male for a day in the breeding tank alone and allow him to make his bubblenest. I place the females jar next to the tank front every so often, for a few minutes about 15, to encourage him to do his work on the nest.
Bubblenest built by one of my Crowntail Males
When he has built a nice nest I then place the bottle containing the female into the breeding tank and secure it to the end of the tank with a couple of pegs from the clothes line, I make the water in her bottle a little deeper than the water in the breeding tank, as if she is a nervous female this allows her to swim up above the level of the water in which the male is, I have found this makes her more relaxed.
The pair will flare at each other extending their tail fins out in a fan like pose and push out their gills like a hood on a cobra.
After some time on darker females you will notice she has a dark vertical banding on her body, on pale females this is difficult to see if at all possible, then when the male flares the female responds by doing a headstand, this is her passive pose , then its time to release her into the spawning tank.
To move the male and female you should use a fine holed mesh net that is soft so as not to injure them.There are also wooden scoops that are traditionally used for picking up bettas and there modern resin/plastic counterparts, there use takes a little practice and until proficient you may cause harm to the fish when using a solid instrument to seperate them compared with the softer net, so it is best to use a net until you are confident and have practiced with a scoop.
Once you have trained and bonded with your betta you will be able to pick them up with your wet hand by making your hand into a scoop, you should always cover the hand containing the betta as should something startle him he may jump.
My bettas are Fighting
Once the female is released you will notice the male and female chase each other a bit, during this the male often hits the female with his lips, it can on first observing be mistaken for him biting her, but he is just nudging her, she may swim away or she may bite out some of his fins then swim away, he may also bite out some of her fins, this is normal breeding behaviour.
If you start seeing biting with scales dropping off onto the tank bottom, or the fish lock mouths and start playing tug of war in the tank, then its pretty much time to remove one of them, allow them to recover, recondition them for a few weeks then try again, sometimes pairs are just incompatible.
The females are pretty tough and can often give as good as they get during the breeding process, a nervous or first time breeding female can sometimes be very aggressive and may beat up a male pretty badly.
You have to expect, and should prepare yourself, that you will see torn fins, and you shouldn't seperate them at that time, as its perfectly normal, but you do have to also draw a line if either fish is getting beat on badly by the other.
Breeding Process
Once the sparring is over, the male will swim up and wait under the bubblenest for the female to come to him.
If she doesn't, he may get impatient and go and bite her or bang into her side a few times, she will then go and inspect the nest, if it is up to her standard then she will spawn, if not she will either swim away and the male will build more onto the nest or she may even destroy the nest by flicking with her tail or fins.
Once she is happy with the nest she will swim up to where the male is and he will embrace her, he folds his body across hers, he then squeezes her and the eggs drop out.
At this stage the female is stunned and will look like she is dead for a few seconds then she will wake and swim a little.
During the time the female is stunned the male swims down and collects up all the eggs in his mouth, it may take him several journeys to do this each time, he then takes the eggs back to the nest and spits each one inside a bubble.
Sometimes the female may awake before he has finished doing this and may help in this process.
The embrace and egg collection is repeated many times it can take anything from 1-2 hours upto 6 or more hours.
Once this is completed the female will usually go and hide in the lower corner furthest from the nest, at this stage it is best to remove her or the male may perceive her as a threat to the nest/eggs and kill her to protect them.
Paternal Instinct
The male is left with the nest and he guards it and tends it, adjusting bubbles here and there adding new bubbles as he sees fit.
Crowntail Male guarding his Bubblenest
When the male goes to the surface to take air, to make the bubbles, he adds a mucus that is secreted inside his mouth, this coats the bubble as he blows it, this has anti-bacterial properties and is why sometimes the nest has 30 eggs and 300 bubbles, its because the male believes that much anti-bacterial agent is required in that specific water at that time.The males evolved this way as in the wild the pools they spawn in, due to the heat and other factors were high in bacterial life, he needs to judge how much to secrete, and as this can vary from day to day, adding or removing bubbles is the way the levels are controlled. He also wishes not to kill off all the bacteria as he knows the fry are going to need food.
After 2 days the fry begin hatching and you can see the little tail hanging down from the bubbles wiggling away, sometimes a wiggler will drop down out of the bubblenest and dart about, swiming vertically in a stop start motion, the male will swim down and pick them up in his mouth and take them back to the nest, this is a busy time for him as for each 3 he replaces another 10 may drop, even when none are dropping he is constantly scouring the tank looking for any strays to bring home.
You should feed the male some dry food at this time as he will be hungry, some males may refuse to eat it, that is why conditioning with food is important as he could become weak due to all the energy he is using up at this time. Be careful not to over feed and foul the tank water.
After another few days the fry will start swimming horizontally in a normal fish manner, it is now time to remove the male as he may see them as a food source.
Some people do leave the male with the fry much longer, I haven't tried this myself.
Caring for the fry
When the fry are first wiggling is the time to start adding a couple of drops of Liquifry #1 to the water each day.
Droplet of Liquifry #1
If you have live plants or a bit of plant floating in the tank from the begining this will help, the Liquifry #1 feeds the Infusoria which is what the fry will eat as their first food, some will also eat the Liquifry #1, this is because it contains eggs.
As an alternative to Liquifry #1 you can feed the fry with a tiny piece of hard boiled egg yolk sieved through a cloth into the water instead, both foul the tank and good hygiene and water change practice is needed to keep the tank in pristine condition at this time.
An alternative to the single celled infusoria is the multi celled rotifers these feed on single cell algae and are found in green water. This is why some breeders either feed green water into the tank or they breed in tanks with green water, I have not tried using green water myself.
Once the fry are free swimming horizontally you can add half the recommended dose on the bottle of Liquifry #1 for your water volume and a half dose of Liquifry #3 "baby plus" Powder, it's a powder designed for feeding the fry of egg laying fish. It is a good idea to use a turkey baster or a syringe with some airline to "inject" a cloud of baby plus mixed with tank water below the waters surface across the tank, as the fry may have difficulty at first in breaking the waters surface, this is where the falacy that live food is a must for betta splendens fry arose, some people had a lack of success with dried foods in comparison to livefoods, they believed it was due to the dry food being inferior, whereas the facts are the weakness was in the technique being used to supply the food to the fry, not in the food itself.
At about 5 days you stop using the Liquifry #1 and just use the Liquifry #3 in an increased amount, you need to syphon out all the excess every day and change 10% of the water with treated new water that is of the same temperature.
Crowntail Betta splendens fry 6 days old
From about 6 weeks old you will need to place the fry into a larger growout tank 20 or 30 gallons atleast, or you can split them across several smaller tanks depending upon their numbers. At this stage I add a sponge filter, I use filters in the growout tanks only.
Veiltail Betta splendens fry 33 days old
You continue feeding them the Liquifry #3 and also begin to add a small amount of flake food rubbed to a grit like size between your fingers, this gives food for the various sizes of fry.
At 2-4 months old, depending upon development, you will need to begin seperating out the larger males of the fry, as otherwise fin nipping and even cannibalism may occur.You can jar them into pint containers at this stage individually.
Feeding Fry BBS
It is often recommended to feed fry on BBS (baby brine shrimp).
Why is BBS good as a food source ?
When BBS hatches it has an oil sac much like the egg sac on a newborn fry.
When fry eat BBS the oil sac is what is of nutritional value to the fry.
During the first 8 hours of the BBS life its sole source of food is the oil sac which it absorbs.
After the 8 hours when the oil has been absorbed much if not all has been used by the BBS for its own growth, it will be slightly larger but at this stage it is far inferior to other livefoods & quality dried food designed for fry growth.
BBS needs to be fed to fish fry upon hatching ,from that moment onwards it is losing nutritional value, from 8 hours onwards unless BBS is being fed then it is slowly starving to death and is malnourished and a poor food source.
To get 2 feeds for 1 days fry food you would need to be there at the moment of BBS hatching and feed the fry, then within 8 hours feed the other half of the BBS, which ofcourse will have used most of its oil sac, you will then need to replicate this scenario each day.
I have heard many saying they put the BBS in the fridge and it keeps for a few days as its metabolism is slower, how this affects the proteins in the oil sac I don't know.
I do not recommend this particular livefood method for fry.
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