# Spawning bettas/siamese fighters



## Kitah (Sep 30, 2009)

Hey guys  This is my second attempt to spawn a pair of my fish; the first didnt succeed, because he failed to ever make a nest and I chickened out and pulled the girl. This time I floated the girl for just 5 mins so they didn't loose interest, then released her. I left them in overnight, and woke up at 10am this morning, went straight in there and saw 10 eggs; "hey, thats not... EGGS! THERES EGGS!"... I looked down and the pair are below the eggs in the 'nest', ready to spawn again. I watched a few wraps then left them at it, will check back soon to remove the female when they're done

The boy: As you know, camera's can't capture the colour purple properly... In real life this boy looks nearly completely purple, except for his white tipped tail and the red ventrals. 














The girl; She's still purple, but has more blue in her. again, pics don't show her true colour. this pic was taken yesterday, you can see part of her breeding stripes (vertical pale stripes)






Crappy spawning pics; don't want to disturb them too much so haven't used the flash = crap photos! normally I wouldnt post pics of this quality, but they're the only ones I have  Taken lots of videos though! 

ready for a wrap





wrap









the good daddy retrieving the eggs


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## pyrodarknessanny (Sep 30, 2009)

good luck with that, should get some intresting looking fry, 
do you have a live food culture set up for them yet?


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## Kitah (Sep 30, 2009)

I've got infusoria, and the local fish store sells baby brine shrimp for $1 a bag, so going to go with those 

I'm hoping to get some purple bubs, though not sure. This is my first spawn so hoping I don't screw it up too badly!

Forgot to mention; the male is (obviously) a crowntail, the girl is a combtail (so should throw ~50% crowns, ~50% combs)


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## Ishah (Sep 30, 2009)

Usually, you just put the female in there to "wrap" once, then you take her out soon after, because she will go eat and all the eggs... They arent good mothers with maternal natures at all... the Father's are the ones with the "maternal" instinct and are very paternal or whatever...

Letting them "wrap" once, gives you hundreds of eggs, and keeping the female in there any longer than that, increases stress and all sorts usually... In my experience, the female got stressed badly enough with just being in there to "wrap" once...Let alone being left in there overnight.... She'd get her stressed colours and stripes of being pretty much pale white with two lateral dark stripes going the length of her body...

They are pretty hard to raise imo, and we really only got one or two babies to grow to the size of a pea? Speaking of which, once the babies can swim and get air on their own, and dont need to be picked up and put back in the bubble nest all the time, thats when you should get them a tank of their own, because the male will turn on them too and start eating them also...

They are a LOT of work to raise, I was going to try again at uni, but the stupid pet stores kept selling me short finned males as females! :evil: So I ended up having 4 males including my crowntail male, and so gave up trying to do it all again...Sadly...


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## Kitah (Sep 30, 2009)

From every other reference and advice I have read, you let them wrap as many times as they want, until the male starts chasing the female away; each wrap is currently only producing about 5 eggs. I do know it is the male that tends the nest and eggs, and she isn't +hasn't been stressed (yes, I know about the horizontal lateral stripes). She's been brightly coloured the entire time, always maintaining her vertical breeding stripes. 

This spawn is in a seperate 50L vessel; as soon as they've finished spawning I will carefully net the female out and put her into her normal tank with a tiny bit of salt (fins have been nipped a bit) and about 2days after the fry hatch (i.e. when free swimming) I will also remove the male. 

I've spent months researching it and trying to find a girl that would suit what I'm after; I know its my first spawn, so its still a bit of trial and error, but I've done a hell of a lot of research into it, I haven't just stumbled in blindly


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## Ishah (Sep 30, 2009)

All good, just going off my experience, and the females we had mustn't have been as randy as yours lol and just must have had a lot more eggs in their bellies to pop out in one time - get it over and done with once instead of prolonging it lol... I think we may have even let them wrap twice? Definately not more than 4 anyways... It was a few years ago... And we used that tube of fry food stuff to feed the fry... You can get it for live bearers or egg layers I think... and you just really put one drop in each day, and they smash it! (the adults LOVE it too!  hahaha)


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## Kitah (Sep 30, 2009)

She did seem pretty ready to get going  When prepping the fish to breed, you've got to condition them up with high quality foods (live foods best, I've been using blood worms), and the female will get very bloated looking as she's packed full of eggs. When you later spawn them, the male will wrap and only a few eggs are supposed to fall out at a time, which are fertilised by the male, drop to the bottom and the male goes and retrieves them, spitting them into the nest.  

Also, I'm pretty sure you need to feed 3+ times a day, as a lot of sites etc say that the fry can quickly die due to lack of food. they are tiny after all. I've lined up baby brine shrimps for the bubs. May also try a bit of boiled egg yolk to start with, as well as the infusoria, and then onto BBS. I did buy the liquid fry food, but not sure if I'll use it as everyone says the fry grow far better with live foods. 

Jeeze this is going to be one hell of an experience lol!


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## Ishah (Sep 30, 2009)

Haha yeh, now that you mention it, I think it was 3 times a day give or take with the liquid food, depending on how fast they ate it... Otherwise the left over food makes the water yuck if they dont eat it (I think I got over excited and keen a couple times lol)... And that is an absolute PAIN in the butt to clean the baby tank with all the babies and trying not to tip them down the sink with water changes etc... It was a while ago... You're definately going to have your work cut out for you!  We really only tried it 3-6times, each time with the females looking full of eggs first, then gave up, it was soooo much work!!! 

I've got rid of all my fish now... But I did love to breed live bearers the most! Might get back into it when I get my own place and have more space and time...

Good luck with it! Let us know how you go


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## Kitah (Sep 30, 2009)

Thanks  Hopefully in a few days I'll be able to post some pics of some tiny fry  

Bit of an update; Just removed the female; she was on the opposite side of the tank, still with her breeding stripes, but away from the male. The male is guarding the nest, and has been moving a few eggs around. He's just sitting there like a good dad  There are WAY more eggs there now, he's gonna have his work cut out too!


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## Kitah (Oct 1, 2009)

its now about 29hours since the first eggs were produced. The male is doing a fairly good job of looking after the eggs and he doesn't seem to be eating any which is good! I'm expecting to see tails soon (if they're not already present- not at home)


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## pythons73 (Oct 1, 2009)

Ive got 3 male fighters in seperate tanks,im thinking of buying a couple females,one each for the males,how long is appropiate to keep the female in with the male,and how long if all is successful she lays eggs...Obviuosly the male gets taken straight out from the female and eggs...This is the first time im going to attempt this...MARK


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## Kitah (Oct 1, 2009)

Actually no, the female gets removed first. You need to condition both the male and female for about 2 weeks prior to trying to spawn them; you do this with various live foods, e.g. bloodworms. I let the girl see my male every now and then to get her eggy (i.e. produce lots of eggs to the extent that she looked really bloated). While you're conditioning the adults, you'll need to prepare a ~40L tank for breeding; it'll need lots of floating plants to provide places for the female to hide from the male, a heater and a sponge filter when the bubs have hatched and have grown a little. Indian almond leaves are great to add to the water as well, helps the bubbles stick together for the nest and simulates the bettas 'wild' environment. The male should be allowed in this tank for at least 24hours so he can get used to it, claim it as his territory etc. Then float the girl in a see-through vessel so they can see each other; the male should build a nest (if not, he may be like my boy and build it during the spawning process). When the girl is really brightly coloured, has vertical breeding stripes and swims on an angle with her head down, release her. At this stage its best to leave tehm be and not watch/disturb them. Expect fighting, expect the girl to get nipped fins etc. After spawning, the female will either leave the nest of her own accord, or will be chased away by the male. At this stage you need to really carefully remove her, put her in a heated, clean tank with a bit of salt and keep her in pristine water until her nipped fins etc. heal. Meanwhile, the male is left in the tank to maintain the eggs. At about 24-36 hours the eggs will 'hatch' and tails will be visible hanging down from the nest; as of yet, the fry are unable to swim, and are still cared for by the father, who keeps returning them back to the nest. Once fry are able to swim horizontally (~4-5 days after the eggs are produced) the male is removed, and the fry can be fed infusoria or boiled egg yolk etc- live foods are best, as they promote more rapid growth of the fry, and stimulates their 'instincts' to feed as they catch the live food. Also, while the male is tending the eggs + then fry before they can swim, a light must stay on for 24hours a day (virtually 24hrs a day for 4-5 days) so the male can see the fry or eggs and return them to the nest as needed. The male is ESSENTIAL as he plays a role in cleaning the eggs, keeping them off the floor of the tank etc. As the fry grow, they are fed progressively larger live foods, including baby brine shrimp and bloodworms. at 6-8 weeks they'll need to be 'jarred' /kept seperate as they'll begin to fight; imagine doing the water changes on all of these! 

Please read up on breeding bettas and try to learn as much as possible; it is very time consuming, can go wrong in so many places, and is simply a LOT of work; when these guys get to 6-8 weeks of age they'll have to be kept in seperate tanks as they'll fight, and it takes a long time until they colour up and gain enough size to re-home, sell to pet stores etc. 

I'm not saying your not capable of breeding them, just warning you- its challenging, extremely time consuming and may not be for most people.

forgot to mention; in a successful spawn, and if the male manages to raise the fry to the free swimming stage without eating them etc, you can get 100-300 fry per spawn... Also, if you really want to breed, I'd recommend you check out http://www.ultimatebettas.com/, the guys on there are great and there's a lot of awesome info


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## crocdoc (Oct 1, 2009)

I used to breed gouramis and bettas many years ago. You seem to have done all of the research!

One thing I may recommend, though, is that when the fry are around three weeks old they switch from mainly gill breathing to labyrinth organ breathing. If the air above the water is noticeably cooler than the water temperature, those first breaths will pretty much kill them from shock. Make sure the tank is well sealed so that the air above the water is warm and humid.


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## Kitah (Oct 1, 2009)

Yup, covered that too crocdoc  The tank has a lid, and glad wrap oer the top of that too. Theres about 10 small holes to let a tiny bit of air flow through for them though. Thanks


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## Kitah (Oct 2, 2009)

New update! I can see some tails from the nest! The first bub I spotted, a few hours ago, even did a strange swimming pattern; swam down really rapidly about 15mm and then back up into the nest! 

Dad's still doing a fantastic job so far, hope he doesn't decide the bubs look tasty!


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## euphorion (Oct 2, 2009)

grats and have fun! i had a lot of fun breeding them back in the day, had some strunning fish shipped in from Thailand, but that was before i had a stupid number of reptiles.... so the fish got the boot, hehe. do still breeding bristlenose, not intentionally the buggers just go for it  

one bit of advice, keep the tank as clean as you can, the fry will grow much quicker if the water is good but pretty much just roll over and die if you let water condition get away from you. also, when adding new water to the tank, use a drip system so that it enters the tank at a rate of only 1 to 3ml a second. the shock from change of water quality at a faster rate can kill the fry very quickly.

good luck! what other pairs are you thinking of crossing? check aquabid (google it) if you're interested in getting solid lines of tail types or colour, pet shop bettas are typically just mongrels that will throw all sorts of random tails and colours. don't get me wrong, they're gorgeous non the less but don't reliably produce young that look like the adults. especially with the red wash ventrals, they're hard to breed out!


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## Kitah (Oct 2, 2009)

Yup, just waiting till the bubs are free swimming and I've removed the dad to really carefully do the first siphon  

I know pet store bettas aren't stunning generally, but this is just my first 'test' type spawn to see what this male produces (he looks way better in person). I've been on aquabid and they have STUNNING fish on there, simply incredible! 

I don't think I'll breed any of my others just yet  The other few fish that I would possibly consider, though, are a black orchid super delta male, clean yellow cambodian female, and a red/black doubletail (looks like she's a combtail doubletail). Though don't have any other pairs that would 'match' kinda like this pair (i.e. tail types or colours)

Shooshoo, feel like posting some piccies of your old fish?


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## euphorion (Oct 2, 2009)

i tried to find pics and then i remembered my mum fried my last computer and i lost all those pics  i know i'll find good representative images on aquabid for you, and i may have some on my old forum, i'll see what i can do!


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## Kitah (Oct 2, 2009)

Aww pitty you lost the pics! What types did you breed? HM, PK, DT/sDT, CT, cT, VT?

Update; its MUCH easier to see the bubs now, their bodies have gotten darker and you can see their eyes. Still hanging from the nest but getting a lot more active. 

You should be able to see em in these pics (kinda... lol) the bubs are the dark blobs lol. Don't wanna use a light or flash on them, so this is all I can get lol


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## Kitah (Oct 4, 2009)

Pics of bubs. Had to remove the dad early as he started eating bubs, and had serious issues with water quality (plants had started to rot due to the humidity (had the tank covered) and found a fairly large cluster of eggs that the male missed that had grown fungus. I know it's not advisible at this age but I very carefully caught the bubs and moved them into a smaller container, to allow me to empty the breeding tank and re-fill it- it was beyond the stage of simply removing the affected areas and siphoning... It took me literally all day to painstakingly go through the tank catching the bubs out with a small measuring cup... and going through all the plants! 

Anyway, after the dads meal theres a total of 19 (give or take 1 bub, forgot what I was up to at one stage) bubs, now in a perfectly clean tank. The infusoria culture failed, so am currently using boiled egg yolk for a few days, and have BBS on hand now as well. 

These pics were taken in the small container (that I put the bubs into from the spawning tank) where I tried to feed them, hence all the little particles everywhere. They were then moved into the clean tank after a long acclimatisation period. 

'monobrow' baby (lol...)


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## craig.a.c (Oct 4, 2009)

I used to keep bettas about 9 years ago. I had 4 males and 6 females. I managed to get them to breed many times but could never get the babies to survive past 1 week.


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## euphorion (Oct 4, 2009)

yeah i was sad when i lost those pics  i was breeding HM and PK, had far too many VT's that i got simply because they were pretty  but only bred my HM and HMPK. Colours were (in the HM) strawberry butterfly, black orchid and copper. in the HMPK i had platinum, marble monster with blue base, orange gas and full faced royal blue. god i loved those fish, and i loved looking at their tanks. they always looked so funny as i never used anything in the bottom of the tanks to keep them cleaner, but i made up for it with all the plants. my little buggers had bananna lillies, java moss, duck weeds and thin corkscrew val, and fed them my own veggie mash and live blood worms. *i'm starting to want a betta again, oh NO!* hehe, might go see fishchick next week  i even remember feeding one little guy on mashed peas to clear his guts as i thought he had a blockage in his belly, turned out to be a tumor and he passed away after months of not being able to eat  funny how even a fish can affect you emotionally too hey? 

anywho... good luck with the bubs!


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## Kitah (Oct 4, 2009)

I know, people think I'm insane, but they're awesome to keep! I think out of the ones you mentioned, I think I'd love all of the HM's (Love butterflys, love black orchids and I love coppers! lol), and from the HMPK I'd probably pinch your platinum and orange gas  

I think having live plants in the tanks is fantastic, the fish really seem to like them! And I've had to feed a bit of mashed pea before, with my first ever betta- he always had problems, had a twisted spine, always had fin problems etc though I kept him exactly the same as my current guys (8 adults) and they have never had issues. The pea was to 'clear him out', poor guy. Sorry to hear about the one you lost to the tumour, I know I get really attached to mine 

Go on, get another betta, you won't regret it! lol. or would you rather I try to convince you against it? lol.


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## Kitah (Oct 9, 2009)

Update! 9 days old! Theres already quite a significant size difference between some of the fry.

Piccies!



















size difference in fry; its not actually THIS much, the fish weren't perfectly side by side 





Some pics to give you an idea of size; these measurements are in millimetres. These aren't necesarilly the biggest fry, either- there's some larger ones in the main tank that are even bigger  at just 9 days, theyre at or over the size of 2 week olds


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## Cuddly_pony (Oct 10, 2009)

Oh what a beautiful male you have there absolutely gorgeous!!!!!
I had bettas a couple of times unfortunately passed  I always saved them from commiting suicide because they always used to jump out when I was cleaning there tank it was ridiculous one minute I was at the sink I then turned around to see the fish flopping around on the bench!!! I thought for sure hed die from it but he kept going it was amazing!!!


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## Kitah (Oct 10, 2009)

Thats why you've got to keep betta tanks covered, and keep them covered when doing water changes  They are superb jumpers and don't particularly like confined spaces, so are more likely to jump during water changes etc. When in their main tanks (12-13L/fish) mine don't jump unless its to get food, but they will all try to jump during water changes. 

And thanks  I'm hoping that the fry will be purple


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## beckyreptilegirl (Oct 10, 2009)

dont put your self through this, i did it and it was the worst mistake of my life, lol. but good luck anyway. i hated having to feed the spawn 4 times a day on newly born brine shrimp. it sucked big time


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## Kitah (Oct 11, 2009)

Doesn't bother me at all, I quite enjoy feeding them actually  11 days old today!


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## Dragon1 (Oct 11, 2009)

Very cute!
We've got a male Beta, tried breeding once but didn't even get eggs.
Good luck with yours! They look a bit like tadpoles...


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## euphorion (Oct 11, 2009)

looking good shadow! i did love my HM's but found i preferred the HMPK more, just seem to prefer the short fins  i am actually looking for another betta now  but i am very very picky, currently trying to get a HMPK marble monster with blue base, just a male. i know where i can get one, just a challenge getting out there  heh.


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## Kitah (Oct 12, 2009)

Jeeze that sounds like fun, I gather its a breeder that has them? 

A local aquarium currently has more giants in; one is absolutely HUGE! about 9.5cm+ body length. Bright turquoise colour. I was more interested in one of the others though, dark body, bright red fins that were black edged. 

I really want the little black orchid crowntail they have.. he's been there for months, had 2 or 3 bouts of fungus on his fins, has more fungus now, has a red spot on his anal fin... he started off as $45 and is now down to $20, I am so tempted to get him but because of this spawn, I want to keep one male from it so won't have any spare tanks for this black boy.


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## Kitah (Oct 12, 2009)

Another new update... WE HAVE DORSALS! woohoo!


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