®
 ™ 
|
SPAWNING BETTAS When choosing a breeding pair, young bettas (5 months to 1 year)are preferable. Some say that choosing a young pair may help make spawning quicker. Although the spawns can be smaller, the fry are generally stronger. Conditioning the pair can take 1 to 2 weeks. You should feed the female high protein food; brine shrimp, blood worms, black worms, but the best, when available, is mosquito larvae [frozen/live]. The male should also be fed a good amount as well. He will most likely fast after spawning with the female. Although some people will feed the male a little, most will not. Some think that feeding the male while he is on egg duty will stimulate his appetite and others say it will stop him from snacking on the eggs. I believe the male will not eat them if he knows what he doing. Good luck! How do you know when the Female is ready to MATE? When a female is ready to mate, she will have a small white spot between her ventral fins and her stomach will be abnormally large (full of eggs). How she gets this way is by conditioning her with plenty of nutritious food for a few weeks.  In this picture, you can see the white spot behind the female's ventral fins which shows she is ready to mate. You can also see how large her stomach is full of eggs. How do you know when the Male is ready to MATE? The male, he will usually blow a large bubble nest. If he does not, you may be able to spoon up another betta’s bubble nest to start him off with. He will usually think the bubbles are his and will add his own bubbles to it. When the two are ready, the female will go underneath the bubble nest where she and the male will come together to spawn. The male will squeeze the female releasing his sperm as the eggs come out of the female. The female will seem to have fainted from this while the male picks up the eggs and put them in the bubble nest. Sometimes, the male will ignore the eggs, eat them or later on eat the fry, and or simply don't have a clue what to do with them. “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.? It will take time for him to become a good, attentive father. But than I've had some males where I had to retire them early from breeding because it never worked out. The female on the other hand, having a much smaller instinctual program to follow, they usually don’t mess up their first time. Sometimes the female will even help the male pick up the eggs and put then in the bubble nest. And there are times when the female herself, will eat the eggs. Hopefully the male will pick up the eggs super fast to prevent this from happening. **This might be why the male beat up on the female afterwards. Do be aware that even though your male might seem to be the boss in the tank, it is not uncommon for males to get shredded up by the female or even beaten severely to death. It has been my experience that the older/larger the female is, the higher the chance of her ripping up, or killing the male. If you spent a lot of money on the male you might want to separate her from the male overnight. How big does the tank have to be? I usually use a 5 or 10 gallon tank to breed the bettas. Preferably a 10 gallon tank will be much better; less cleaning and more space for the fry. The water should be filled to about 6 inches. The water should be maintained at about 80 degrees with a heater that can be totally submerged. An air stone or sponge filter should be inserted into the tank to break up the surface tension of the water, though it should not be turned on till the fry can swim; be sure to turn down the bubble flow to a few bubbles per minuet. If a pair is reluctant to spawn you might want to add more vegetation and if that doesn’t work, try adding a bit of gravel. Most breeders do not use gravel because finding the eggs/fry can be more difficult for the male. If still this does not work, you may try raising the water temperature up to as high as 90 plus degrees but as soon as they spawn, lower it to 85 or the fry will hatch in less than 24 hours and be very weak and frail. During the courtship, the male will work on his nest and swim to her and back to the nest displaying for the female. Sometimes he will display for several days before getting serious about a nest all the while displaying aggressively from time to time. During this time, make sure to keep the female in a protected container within the breeding tank. If the male does not seem interested in the female, you can try adding another male’s tank/jar beside the breeding take to make him more territorial which might stimulate him to want to spawn. If this does not work, you’ll just have to be patient or try another pair/male/female. When the female is ready, she will show vertical lines behind the head around the belly area. She will flare at him from time to time as well. As for the white and opaque females, their stripes will probably not show at all but both will be swimming towards the male with their head down at a 45-degree to display they are ready for his embrace.  If the pair are ready, release the female from her jar/container. Make sure not to damage the bubble nest. If the male has built his nest against the jar, tip the female out of the jar carefully but leave it in the tank. Any damage to the nest will be repaired quickly so don't sweat it. Sometimes they will spawn right away and other times the male takes off after the female with blood in his eye, especially when she approaches the nest. In this case he's not ready and you have to return her to the safety of her jar. And sometimes they totally ignore each other. Spawning takes place under the nest. The female will usually go there first with heads down. The male comes to her, nudges her gently then moves over her, rolling her over until she is upside down and he is wrapped around her. Other times, they are both very excited and seem like they are going to fight but don’t. Their embrace is not always perfect and when it is, the eggs will be released. This is difficult to describe, but if you can watch them spawn, you will see when this happens. MAKE SURE NOT TO BOTHER THEM! If the embrace is right, their ventral openings are in close proximity, and actual mating takes place. Held firmly by the male, the female will releases ten to twenty eggs, and the male simultaneous releases sperm, fertilizing them. Once the eggs are released, the male moves away from the motionless female who floats as though fainted (still curved in an 'S' shape). The male grabs the slowly sinking eggs, milk white and easily seen, in his mouth. After he has taken in all that he can find, he swims back to the nest and puts them in with the sticky bubbles. He may pause here to add a few more bubbles to the nest and add them around the now invisible eggs. By then the female should have recovered. She will go nosing around for any eggs the male may have missed, (most females will eat the eggs; some will help the male place the eggs in the nest) gets air, then goes back under the nest to resume spawning. The spawning usually takes a 2-10 hours to complete. During this time they don't pause to rest, or display, or fight.    When they are done, the female is immediately chased away from the nest and the eggs become his only interest. This is when the female needs to be removed or the male will certainly kill her. To catch her, I use a small net and wait until she comes to the surface to breath or lure her in with a little food. Take a little water from the breeding tank with some new water (aged water) and add some bettamax, to prevent her injured fins/body from getting infected. There can be a total of 500+ eggs after the spawning depending how big your female is but usually around a few hundred is common. The male will move the eggs around the bubble nest. This is normal and is good for the eggs (egg cleaning). At 80 to 85 degrees the eggs acquire tails in 24 hours. You may not be able to see this unless they fall from the bubble nest. But in 48 hours they are moving around and more and more fall from the nest, which keeps the male very busy. I usually leave the lights on 20 hours a day and let him sleep 4 hours. When the eggs hatch and the nest if full of clumsy fry, I leave the light on 24 hours a day for about 3 days (until the fry are free swimmers) so the male can find and pick up all the fallen fry. After the fry become free swimmers and making the father’s work unbearable, I take out the father and do the same to him as I did to the female (throwing him a huge feast, that’s if he didn’t already fill up on baby fry first…jk). Make sure to cover the breeding tank. The slightest temperature change or gust of wind can kill your fry. Once they become free swimmers, their yoke should be absorbed entirely. The fry then start to search for food. You can then start to feed the newborn fry liquidfry or microworms. They should be fed twice daily. I like using the worms because they will live for several days in the water, wiggling enticingly on the bottom, and not pollute the water. But the brine shrimp will usually not live longer then six or eight hours and after they die, they will pollute the water pretty quick. A “couple?snails will help keep the tank clean. Do not change the water for the next month unless the water is really really dirty (didn’t I tell you only feed them 2 times a day). The fry begin to breath air when they are about a month old and this can be the most dangerous time of their lives. No matter how warm the water is, if the air they breath is cooler, they will die. So if the room is cool, keep a full lid on the fry tank with a light on to keep the air warm. After two months old, the fry are moved into larger quarters. I still feed them brine shrimp and start introducing dry food. At 10 and 12 weeks of age, I start to jar the bigger bettas. You want to start jarring them before they start fighting. Once the fins are torn, they will not heal straight. They will grow faster after jarring, but of course it will be a lot more work for you. Remember, many breeders use different methods. If you find one that works for you, you should keep it.
|
|
