Betta Breeding for the first time

[Adrian Rodriguez]

On 7/26/2021 at 12:20 AM, Crabby said:

Thank you so much for your advice mate. I really appreciate your time. 
Breeding fish is one of my favourite parts of the hobby, and bettas seem to have such a fascinating breeding process that I’m certainly going to keep trying until I get a successful spawn, at least. I actually started off breeding apistos, and they’re super cool in their own way, especially with their courtship and parenting. I hate to have favourites… but my apistogramma nijsseni pair are totally my favourite fish. What types of apistos did/do you keep and breed?

I regret not trying to breed immediately when I saw her dropping eggs. I did try maybe 12 hours later, but by then she was really exhausted and freaked out, and my male didn’t have time to build a bubble nest in the breeding tank. I think my takeaway from that experience is that I should simply introduce the fish to each other with a divider and it should be inside the breeding tank so that as soon as they’re ready to go, I am too. Your advice has been really helpful regarding this spawn attempt, and I reckon with your tips in mind I should be able to get a successful spawn next time.

Cheers!

Yeah, I really cant have just a tank with fish, I need to be doing something with it. I started breeding bettas actually so its kind of the opposite. I have been looking to purchase a pair of apistos online because here they haven’t come for a while in the fishstore and when they do some one beats me and gets them before I get them. But I recently bought a pair of apistogramma panduro but the one I think is the male is way smaller and younguer then the female so I got to grow him up before I try breeding them and to confirm that he is a male cause after I put him in the tank I thought it was a female because of the colors... but now he seems like a male so hopefully he is acclimating and is a male after all. But yeah after bettas I wanted to start to sell fish as a hobby to keep growing and being able to keep investing in this so now I breed guppies, shrimp, angels, rams and hopefully some apistos in the near future. Have you breed apistos in bare bottom tanks?

Yes, put the divider in the same tank so you just gotta pull it out and let them do their thing.

No problem, any time man if you need a tip or a doubt that I might know let me knowits fun to talk with others who are also into fish since not a lot of people here truly understands my obsesion.

[Crabby]

On 7/26/2021 at 3:09 PM, Adrian Rodriguez said:

Yeah, I really cant have just a tank with fish, I need to be doing something with it. I started breeding bettas actually so its kind of the opposite. I have been looking to purchase a pair of apistos online because here they haven’t come for a while in the fishstore and when they do some one beats me and gets them before I get them. But I recently bought a pair of apistogramma panduro but the one I think is the male is way smaller and younguer then the female so I got to grow him up before I try breeding them and to confirm that he is a male cause after I put him in the tank I thought it was a female because of the colors... but now he seems like a male so hopefully he is acclimating and is a male after all. But yeah after bettas I wanted to start to sell fish as a hobby to keep growing and being able to keep investing in this so now I breed guppies, shrimp, angels, rams and hopefully some apistos in the near future. Have you breed apistos in bare bottom tanks?

Yes, put the divider in the same tank so you just gotta pull it out and let them do their thing.

No problem, any time man if you need a tip or a doubt that I might know let me knowits fun to talk with others who are also into fish since not a lot of people here truly understands my obsesion.

Oh, panduro are beautiful. I think there’s actually quite a bit of similarity between panduro, nijsseni and baenschi (inka 50), so if you want I could confirm for you whether it’s a male or not. Apistos can be a bit difficult with their colour changing tendencies. But it’s all worth it in the end. 
 

I’ve only bred mine in their community tank (planted and scaped, with substrate), and raised the fry in there too. I think the planted tank is actually the best way to do it, and it looks so much better as well. I think if you were looking to actually make some money off breeding apistos, you’d want to seperate the fry from the parents maybe a couple weeks in? The mum takes very good care of the fry, but to grow them fast I would seperate them from the parents and raise them in bare bottom tanks. Indian almond leaves are key for apistos too; mine bred at 5.5 pH with very soft water and low TDS, so lots of IAL and driftwood will create the perfect environment.

Good luck!

Edited July 26, 2021 by Crabby

[Adrian Rodriguez]

On 7/26/2021 at 1:32 AM, Crabby said:

Oh, panduro are beautiful. I think there’s actually quite a bit of similarity between panduro, nijsseni and baenschi (inka 50), so if you want I could confirm for you whether it’s a male or not. Apistos can be a bit difficult with their colour changing tendencies. But it’s all worth it in the end. 
 

I’ve only bred mine in their community tank (planted and scaped, with substrate), and raised the fry in there too. I think the planted tank is actually the best way to do it, and it looks so much better as well. I think if you were looking to actually make some money off breeding apistos, you’d want to seperate the fry from the parents maybe a couple weeks in? The mum takes very good care of the fry, but to grow them fast I would seperate them from the parents and raise them in bare bottom tanks. Indian almond leaves are key for apistos too; mine bred at 5.5 pH with very soft water and low TDS, so lots of IAL and driftwood will create the perfect environment.

Good luck!

yeah thanks and I’ll follow your tips to see if they breed.that one should be the male (this is an emergency tank that I had to set up for some angels and it’s literally on the floor outside in the storage shed so thats why its so dirty and all) and this one should be a female what do you think? its been real difficult cause today he is like that and tomorrow he has a black dot and female colors🤷‍♂️😂

[Crabby]

On 7/26/2021 at 3:48 PM, Adrian Rodriguez said:

yeah thanks and I’ll follow your tips to see if they breed.that one should be the male (this is an emergency tank that I had to set up for some angels and it’s literally on the floor outside in the storage shed so thats why its so dirty and all) and this one should be a female what do you think? its been real difficult cause today he is like that and tomorrow he has a black dot and female colors🤷‍♂️😂

Ahaha I see where the difficulty would be if he keeps getting that black dot back! 😂 

Female is definitely a female. The male looks a lot like a male in that image, but if you’re not sure then my personal favourite way to tell is using the ventral fins. It’s not the same for all apistos, but certainly for nijsseni, panduro and similar looking types, the males will have ventral fins that are clear at the top and yellow at the bottom, while a female will have thicker ventrals that have black at the top and yellow at the bottom. You can use this to tell their sex from only a couple months old. 
 

If you’d like, I think I still have a breeding log or something like that that documented my spawn and the conditions. Got most of it in the old noggin but if you wanna have a look at that I’d be happy to go find it and post it as an article or something.

edit: apparently this forum doesn’t use articles. A bit of a shame. They’re a pretty useful feature for finding undiluted information. I guess I would post it as an informational topic then 🤷‍♂️

Edited July 26, 2021 by Crabby

[Adrian Rodriguez]

On 7/26/2021 at 3:21 AM, Crabby said:

Ahaha I see where the difficulty would be if he keeps getting that black dot back! 😂 

Female is definitely a female. The male looks a lot like a male in that image, but if you’re not sure then my personal favourite way to tell is using the ventral fins. It’s not the same for all apistos, but certainly for nijsseni, panduro and similar looking types, the males will have ventral fins that are clear at the top and yellow at the bottom, while a female will have thicker ventrals that have black at the top and yellow at the bottom. You can use this to tell their sex from only a couple months old. 
 

If you’d like, I think I still have a breeding log or something like that that documented my spawn and the conditions. Got most of it in the old noggin but if you wanna have a look at that I’d be happy to go find it and post it as an article or something.

edit: apparently this forum doesn’t use articles. A bit of a shame. They’re a pretty useful feature for finding undiluted information. I guess I would post it as an informational topic then 🤷‍♂️

like a day after I got them the male had the black and yellow on the ventrals. But I bought it as a pair so Im going to give it time before I assume its a male😂

[Crabby]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:07 PM, Adrian Rodriguez said:

like a day after I got them the male had the black and yellow on the ventrals. But I bought it as a pair so Im going to give it time before I assume its a male😂

Ahaha oh man that’s hard. How annoying. Totally looks like one of my female fry in the second pic 😂

In the first pic he looks male just from body shape. But I guess you’re right, you’ll just have to wait and see. 

[Adrian Rodriguez]

@Crabby Since you had been having a little bit of trouble I thought it would be a good idea to show you how exactly I do it. Today I went to buy a new male betta since I had some females that my uncle gave me but no males. 

then since he is new I feed hime some fish flakes and put him in a bucket outside with water from one of my guppy ponds. I don’t have enough guppy grass because Im using it in my shrimp tanks and I don’t have that many so I didn’t put anything else but two almond leaves for now. I will add water lettuce today or tomorrow . After I selected my female and put her in a jar.

as you can see the yellow belly full of eggs and thats what you wana see on a female betta before breeding. She should be fat and with a little dot popping out a little bit under her belly. Next I place a small plastic container lid that floats and lets me see through to see when they have laid eggs. after this I covered the bucket with a plastic lid and an hour and about 15 minutes the male was already making a nest. This is a good sing. Now I leave the bucket covered for about two days and if the male needs more time to do a nest i’ll give him three days. After this time passes I release the female and if she doesn’t lay in 24 hours and the male is beating her I remove her if there is not that much aggression and breeding behavior I’ll give them more time. After this its all down the hill.

[Crabby]

That’s a beautiful male! Very surprised at how simple your setup is. Thanks for detailing all this for me, so kind of you. I really like the plastic lid idea, I’m gonna give that a go as well as the styrofoam I’m using just so I can see more easily.

[Adrian Rodriguez]

@Crabby heres the update. After I waited two days I released the female about 2 or 3 pm the second day and the male ran her all day, every time I checked the female was backed on the side not moving so the male wouldn’t come. I left her there and the next day I went in the morning and they were laying eggs so I left her there until around 3 pm or maybe more. 

the mote white part are eggs. This breeding was done without checking water, putting additives, heaters just water almond leaves, a lid, plants and a jar. Just put them wait two days, release and wait and nature will do the rest(remember that they were in the bucket with the lid on the bucket always). I tell you this because when I started I was very worried and tried to make everything perfect and did like the internet said and all but it didn’t work at first but then after you understand what you need it doesn’t matter if in a book or in a youtube video says you can’t do it because its probably posible. Hope this helps you on your betta breeding proyect.👍

[Crabby]

@Adrian Rodriguez Wow! Easy as that, hey?! That’s really cool. Can’t wait to see the fry!

I put my female back in the tank today with a divider. Waiting on the male to build a bubble nest again. Unfortunately I haven’t got my live bloodworm and mosquito larvae bucket pumping food out yet, so I had to condition without live foods, but they both look ready to go. 
This is my setup:

Male on the left, female on the right. 2 almond leaves, some Java moss, a piece of styrofoam and a plastic lid for the bubble nest, with a heater and sponge filter just cuz it’s been pretty cold, and I wanted to keep the male in there while the female was reconditioning. Cling wrap over the top to maintain humidity. It’s a 5 gallon tank, cuz that was the easiest thing for me to set it all up in. Not paying much attention to any parameters besides keeping the temp roughly in the 26° ballpark. The water is pretty thick with tannic acid. Should I try putting some sort of sheet or something over the tank so it’s a bit darker? I assume you wouldn’t have any light in your buckets with the lids on.

Cheers mate! 

[Crabby]

Eek!
@Adrian RodriguezI just found my female on the opposite side of the divider! I have no clue how she got through it though - too high to jump over, and there’s no space on the sides or bottom! I checked for eggs but I can’t see anything like what you had. I decided to just remove the divider like I was going to, and I’ll see if it still goes okay.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Crabbythey can jump quite high or if she wanted to and you left any room she’ll squeeze through a divider. Sounds like she’s ready even if he’s not. 

[Crabby]

On 8/3/2021 at 3:30 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Crabbythey can jump quite high or if she wanted to and you left any room she’ll squeeze through a divider. Sounds like she’s ready even if he’s not. 

She must’ve somehow squeezed through, as I have a piece of cling wrap on top that covers the whole tank and rests on the divider.

I’m wondering whether to take her out, because she’s very despondent right now, just sitting at the surface of the water not really doing anything. No interest in the male whatsoever right now. Clearly she did want to get in with him and try to breed, but I’m not sure what’s happened, and why she’s acting like this now (or what to do about it).

Edited August 3, 2021 by Crabby

[Crabby]

Argh she has a big chunk taken out of her caudal fin. Pulled her of course. Why can’t it just be easy??

[Crabby]

It’s okay, my calico bristlenose just spawned for the first time kinda out of the blue, and I’ve raised them since they were only an inch long. I feel better now 😂

[Keeg]

@Crabby I just found your thread. I love that you're breeding bettas, its such a rewarding experience. I also see that you're a little hesitant on breeding, which is 100% okay and understandable. I too had a female that released eggs before they were ready, she never went on to pass down her genes unfortunately because of this. After years of trying, I found a way that has worked 3/3 times with the same male and different females. I have my female in her standard tank, then I put my male in one of those clear floating breeder boxes. The female can hide if she so chooses but them male is releasing pheromones into the water further conditioning them. I usually leave them like that for around a couple weeks or more. When I decide I want to breed them, I set up a small tank with 3 USA cups of tannin water from boiled drift wood and the rest with regular water, only going to around 6 inches in height. Then I add around 2 square inches of bubble wrap bubble side down, some giant duck weed, and a bunch of octopus plant cuttings. Then I put the male in and let him explore the tank for an hour, then using a water bottle with holes, I put the female in the bottle in the tank so the male can still "smell" her. I wait for two things in the next 3 days, a bubble nest and signs of interest by both parties. The male will shimmy and the female will flare and or show vertical stripes. Once I see these two things, I feed them both heavily and let the female go and the take the bottle out carefully to not break the nest. I use a lamp that isn't too bright to light the tank and I cover the whole thing in a towel. I only check on them at the end of the day of releasing the female (assuming you released the female in the morning), and that night I look for eggs. No eggs= feed more food and turn off the light for the night. Turning it on in the morning. usually a day and a half goes by until they start to embrace. After they're done and the male wants her gone, I remove the female and let her rest. This is where I feed the male one final time before the fry are free swimming, that's when I remove it.

Things to note:1 my male is the most gentle fish during breeding, hasn't damaged a female he's interested in, only chases. 2 I let my male betta live with a group of the females before breeding so that he could get used to all the females I wanted him to breed with. 3 making sure your male is a good dad is absolutely key, I don't think I would've had this much success without him being the way he is. 

Best of luck to you and your fish, they're gorgeous by the way 😍

[Taco Playz]

@Adrian RodriguezThat betta is amazing! Can’t wait to see if you get any fry.