Breeding Betta Fish - Discover How to Breed the Most Astonishing Betta Fish

Breeding Betta Fish is such a vast topic in itself, and you could write a whole book on the subject – Indeed some people have! However, I’m going to give you a brief overview of the breeding process by answering 2 very important questions…

1. How Do You Know When Your Betta Fish is Ready to Breed

In my opinion the ideal time to breed your Betta Fish is when they are between 6 to 12 months of age.

You will know when a male is ready to begin breeding because he will begin making his bubble nest, this usually takes 1-2 days until completion of the nest. You can’t miss the bubble nest when it starts to happen, it is as its name suggests, a nest that looks like a group of bubbles that floats in the water.

To tell when a female is ready to spawn you will notice vertical stripes appearing on her sides. Don’t get vertical stripes mixed up with horizontal ones, because horizontal stripes mean they are stressed. Also, a female will start to become swollen near the white spot on her belly (ovipositor) when she is getting broody! :-)

2. How do you Breed Betta Fish?

Start, by creating a separate breeding tank. The water in the tank should be about 5 to 6 inches deep and at a temperature of (75-80 Fahrenheit). You will also want to add some large leaves to aid in the building of the bubble nest and to help the female hide when the male gets aggressive.

You then want to gradually introduce the fish. To do this either put a divider into a tank separating the two fish, obviously, a male and a female Betta! ;-) or keep them in different tanks but so they can see each other.

Whilst introducing them you should begin feeding the Betta live food to prepare them for breeding. Such food could be live brine shrimp, freezed blood worms or black worms (also known as Tubifex worms) – I must admit this isn’t my cup of tea but Betta’s love this stuff! After 10-14 days of doing this you can place them in the breeding tank together…

However, make sure you supervise when you do this otherwise the male might become too aggressive towards the female. There will obviously be some aggression and nipping as they get to know each other. However, if you think it gets too serious then remove the female and try again in a couple of days.

Once, your Betta’s have gotten to know each other and decide to breed the male will wrap himself around the female, often called an “embrace”. The female will then release her eggs into the bubble nest or the male will collect them and put them into the bubble nest. The female can release anything from 500-750 eggs so the embrace is usually performed several times.

When the female has finished laying her eggs remove her from the tank shortly afterwards because the male Betta will become very protective of his bubble nest and aggressive, and she could become fish food (kind of like brine shrimp if you know what I mean!?).

After this process has finished the male will takeover fertilizing, cleaning and looking after the eggs by keeping them within the bubble nest. Approx. 2-3 days later the eggs will hatch and the Fry (Baby Betta’s) are released.

Another 3-5 days later the Fry will begin swimming. At this stage you should remove the male Betta from the nest to avoid the Fry becoming fish food. You should feed the Fry with baby brine shrimp or daphnia three times a day. After 14 days you can begin feeding them flake or powder food but in small quantities until they are big enough.

Around 4-5 weeks later you will be able to identify the males and the females. Separate the males from each other before the fighting begins because there is always a loser!

This article should have given you a good overview of the breeding process and with this information you will be well on your way to achieving astonishing Betta Fish displaying the most magnificent colour and fin structure that will make your Friends gasp in amazement when they see your tank!

Breeding Betta Fish