Betta Breeding Project

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I know Gianne’s talk has led to lots of us either internally or on the forum having conversations and thinking about breeding setups for bettas. I’ve been contemplating what my breeding setup will be as even before her talk my wife and I had been looking at different types of bettas and thinking about which types interested us.

 I already have two 3 gallon tall acrylic tanks I’m thinking of using as permanent homes for female bettas. I am contemplating a 2.5 gallon display in our bedroom heavily planted for a male betta, I’d then get a another male and put him in a 3-5 g to be purchased as part of the fish wall expansion. I’d use plastic sterilite shoe boxes and half filled 17 g totes for breeding similar to setups that I’ve seen Gianne doing and KeepingFishSimple on YouTube.

The Bettas I’m looking for more are the crosses done with wild types, not straight fancy types: aliens, copper, imbelis and Smaragdina crosses. I’ve been perusing eBay, Aquabid, Coast Gem and Wild Betta farm. 

Would love feedback on 1) breeding setup plastic totes vs glass tanks primarily is my question 2)betta types and breeding stock should I throw some fancy betta dna in or just stick with these “wild” types 3)sources of quality bettas. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@Beardedbillygoat1975 Gianne’s talk got me thinking about betta projects as well. I expect the third Saturday of every month will add to my projects moving forward; I expect to be similarly improving my corydoras efforts, aquascaping, adding a mormyrids colony, and working with rare east african cichlids starting on the 3rd Sunday of the next 4 months 🙂. I am likely going to try some smaller mouthbrooders in a tank with the catfish tank just because it gets low 60s for unheated tanks in the house in winter here; I believe its because of the thinner air not retaining heat somehow because the house itself is comfortable.

1) I currently breed in polycarbonate food totes basically like deans fry rack containers but the larger version used in restaurant soup and vegetable storage. I have done the Betta Macrostoma "Brunei Beauty" Mouthbrooder in a 40 breeder with tons of plants a while ago though fairly unintentional I did get some fry out of them with nothing special done tannin wise. I would run betta in anything you like / have in terms of glass or plastic but would expect that clear square containers maybe be better for photographs if that is a consideration.

2) I would personally keep the options open and run pure wild and cross lines to have the most enjoyment out of trying crossing and developing a line of those crosses on my own 

3) I have no idea where to get the quality ones but purchased the macrostoma online through a retailer who occasionally posts to aquabid. Aquahuna has a pretty nice livestream of betta now where you order the splendens you like the most and they walk over and pull it.  

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@mountaintoppufferkeeperthanks for the reply. I think I’ve seen the Aquabidder you speak of - loads of cool wild bettas. I’ll look again. I think having a stable of wild males and a mix of wild and fancy females could be cool. May need to a lot for 4 females instead of 2. I was basing number on what Gianne had recommended to start.