Anyone On Here Keep or Breed Bettas??? *Pics Welcome* Betta Thread

[The Wolf Queen]

Here are my 4

Peacock: Turquoise Butterfly Deltatail.
I dunno why, but in the pics the white on the ends of his fins doesn't show almost or not at all and it doesn't help that he was the hardest to photograph lol

Below you can see his BF markings a little bit more.

Rosie: Unknown Color Crowntail

Indigo: Unknown colored Deltatail
He is a medium shade of purple just barely more purple than the color Indigo with darker purple spots on his fins. He showed up way bluer than he is, in the pics I took.

Purple People Eater: Unknown Colored Veiltail
Shez almost exactly the same color as Indigo, spots and all cept she has those stripes running along her body from head to tail and is slightly darker. She also looks more blue than she really is in the photo.

 

[WIChookchick]

Quote:
Wolf Queen, I love your avatar, is it by Dark Natasha or by Golden Wolf??

 

[The Wolf Queen]

Golden Wolf. I think its called Echo

 

[RiverOtter]

To buy live food, see if your local petstore will order brine shrimp eggs and live cultures for you. If that won't work, you can buy them on both Ebay and Aquabid

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

I have an odd question, do any of you ever ship your "culls" to sell them?

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I'm very jealous over some of these gorgeous bettas! Even the females are gorgeous! If I didn't have to travel back and forth with all my pets every few weekends from college, I'd certainly have more bettas. Right now I just have one guy who's getting up there in age.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Most pet stores sell brine shrimp eggs. That's where I used to buy mine. You can get them from lots of places on the internet that sell fish food. They need to be hatched and live in salt water. After they hatch, you feed them to the fish. Since they are going from salt water to fresh water, you don't want to put in more than the fish will eat, as they will die and decay in a short amount of time.

www.aquabid.com is an excellent source of many live food cultures. I've also ordered daphnia directly from www.dallasdiscus.com. There are several different types of daphnia available, that are slightly different sizes. I usually order live cultures in spring or fall, so they don't freeze or cook on the way here. I've had live fish shipped to me during those times, too. Shippers can use heat packs or cold packs, but I like to choose more moderate weather for shipping, to decrease the chance of problems during shipment.

You could also see if there's a club in your area for fish hobbyists. They often have members with live cultures, too. www.google.com is great for looking up clubs and retailers.

 

[babyblue]

most bigger pet/fish stores sell cannisters or smaller packages of brine shrimp eggs. they are often hatched and feed for marine tanks so you may have to go to a store that carrys marine products. you can buy and order cultures of worms and such off aquabid, but I didnt really need to.

to hatch the bbs I used a large jar, aquarium salt, a air stone with a air pump and you will need a brine shrimp net.

fill large jar with warm water, add a handful or so of aquarium salt, mix in like a half a teaspoon bbs eggs and plop the air stone in and let that agitate the water for about 24 hours. after about 24 hours turn the bubbler off and let the water settle. the dry brown egg shells will float to the top and if you look carefully you will see the orange colored bbs swimming around. its like watch dusts specks swim. I would then take a small bit of air line tubing and siphon out the bbs from the bottom, leaving the brown shells on the top. you do not want to put the shells in with your fry because they could choke and die. after you have siphoned out the bbs only over the sink pour the bbs and salty water threw the bbs net, you will loose a little bit of bbs but there are plenty trust me. then very gently give the bbs a little rinse... you dont want a ton of aquarium salt in with your very fragile betta fry and feed bbs to fry. I would rehatch bbs daily to give the fry the freshed live food possible, because its not all that hard to hatch plus I think its a pain to keep bbs alive.


the best age to start breeding is more then 4 months and under one year. if males are older they seem to have a harder time getting their act together. most male bettas you see in stores are close to a year anyways to develop those long pretty fins. males that are good dads can breed past a year, but the whole process is stressful and I wouldn't breed constantly. the male and female need to be fairly well matched in size or they wont be able to spawn properly.


I did attempt to breed the lovely mg female, she was just one crazy B*itch. and instead of even attempting to spawn she would just rip the males fins off and eat them.




to actually breed this is what I did and used.

20 gallon long tank, water level at 6 inches no higher, hurricane glass chimney, heater turned to 82 degrees, plenty of silk plants for them to hide from each other, a styrofoam cup cut in half and floated on the surface (males adore building nests under these) and because the water in my area is super hard Indian almond leaves, they lower the ph a bit, turn the water a tea color and encourage the fish to spawn. where bettas come from these trees drop leave into the water all the time. the male and female are conditioned for two weeks at least prior to breeding by feeding good food, I did blood worm and adult brine shrimp 3 times a day. you can get all of this at a petsmart.

put male in tank with fresh water, styrofoam cup at one end, silk plants at other glass chimney in middle and just drop the ial (Indian almond leaf) int he tank. leave him go about a day to get settled, my males would start building a nest right away. because they knew what the big tank was for. next day add female INSIDE the glass chimney. so the fish can see and interact without being able to physically get to each other. I would leave them like this for at the very least a day. they are ready when the male builds a big nest, they female looks quite fat with eggs. the female if she is dark colored may present with breeding bars lines going across body like this IIIII. these are not stress stripes. stress stripes go from head to tail like this===== and mean the fish is upset, ticked or just stressed. they should flair and do little happy dances, the female may do a little head pointed down dance, a good indicator she is ready.


when they are ready, net in hand carefully raise the glass chimney and let males and female together. watch them CAREFULLY. some bettas spawn well right away, some decide to kill and eat each other even if they have spawned many times before. they are called fighting fish for a reason. there should be some chasing and flairing and even nipped fins. this is normal. it may take several days for them to start, I would re chimney the female overnight when I couldn't keep an eye on them. the male will then lead the female to the nest, wrap himself around her and squeeze out the eggs and fertilize them. both fish will look paralyzed for a moment.... do not worry they are not dead. they will come around the male will pick up eggs and spit them into the nest, the female will more then likely eat any she can catch. this will repeat many times till the female is out of eggs. once she is done the female will go and hide in the plants and the male will guard the nest. you MUST take the female out to her own tank and let her rest. once they are done spawning the male will kill her to protect his eggs. no loud noises, no commotion around tank, or the male may freak out and eat his eggs.


I then leave the male totally alone, do not feed him, put a small light next to the tank so over night he can see any eggs that fall. the males will then for about 2 days guard the eggs, clean them in his mouth, and pick them up when they fall. the eggs hatch and they will look like tiny specks with tails. their heads point up and they cant swim yet on their own. the male must pick them up and place them back in the nest or they will drown. after about 2 more days the babies can swim and go from looking like 9 9 9 to looking like o-- o-- o--
this is time to take dad out to rest and give the babies their first feeding. dad may freak out and panic a bit when you move him, but he will get over it.


if the dad is an idiot egg eater or I really really wanted the spawn I would siphon up a few eggs with some air line tubing into a cup with about 1/2 inch of water and float this on the surface, you can get a few fry to live this way and you simple wait till they are free swimming o-- o-- o-- and then them they go in the tank.


betta fry need very clean water, I would tie panty hose over the end of airline tubing and siphon out and replace water very very gently and slowly twice a day. the water changes must be same temp about 25% at a time or you will stress the fry and kill them.



just typing this out makes me really miss my bettas

 

[Attack Chicken]

ETA: Finally found another way to upload!

My boys:

And the girls

I'd really love to get a different type of these. Let me know if you have some up for sale once. Might try breeding this summer.

 

[The Wolf Queen]

Quote:
Attack Chicken love the male in the 3rd pic

. Can you get some close ups of your girls? Back when I had more than one female I tryed to introduce a new one to my old female and she, the older one, almost killed her xP. How is it I get the only female aggressive female in the world lol. Pity they would have looked really nice in the same tank. Then I moved the older betta into a tank with my guppies and goldfishs and she lived in there till she died xP