SPAWNING BETTAS

The betta splendens is the first fish I ever spawned that required more attention then simply placing a handful of fish in water and collecting fry. I was fifteen the first time I did it and while for the past thirty-five years I've spawned splendens more than I care to count, I've never lost my fascination with the complex instincts that directs their lives.

In choosing my breeding pair, I prefer young fish, the males between 5 and 6 months old, and the females a little younger, around 4 months. (If a small white spot, her ovipositor, can be seen between her ventral fins, she is sexually mature.) I like young fish because they are more vigorous, usually getting the job done quicker and while the spawns can be smaller, the fry are generally stronger.

Sometimes, on their first spawn or two, young males ignore the eggs, or eat them or the fry, or simply don't have a clue what to do with them. But, usually, by the third attempt, they get it all together and become good, attentive fathers. The females have a much smaller instinctual program to follow so they usually perform well their first time. It has been my experience the older the female the more pugnacious, and the higher the chance of her ripping up, or killing the male. If you have a lot of time or money behind any given male, it can be heartbreaking to have them injured or killed by an old, nasty minded female.
The colors of the pair, unless you are breeding for a particular color, is immaterial.

To set up my chosen pair to spawn I use a five gallon tank that has been thoroughly cleaned. I then fill it half to 2/3 full of tap water to which I add less than 1/4 tes. of Shieldx, 1/2 tes. of Molly Bright, 1/2 tes. of Woundease, and, most important, 1 tablespoon of salt. I use canning/pickling salt as it contains nothing else but salt. The disease called 'velvet' will kill the betta fry faster than anything I know of, and salt prevents it from ever getting started.

In the tank I now place a rock that has holes or niches in it to allow the female a place to hide, a small floating plant, like water sprite, as a base for the bubble nest, and an air stone. I have a fish hatchery that is maintained at 80 degrees so I don't need a heater. I use the air stone, with just a few bubbles released at a time, to break up the surface tension of the water. If you do not have a very warm room to spawn the bettas in you'll need to add a heater set between 80 and 85 degrees. In this case, arrange the airstone directly under the heater to disperse the warmed water. You'll also need a cover to keep the heat in and the cool air out. Now you're ready to add the fish.

I keep the males in half quart plastic containers. I only clean them about once every two weeks so a degree of debris builds up. After adjusting temperature, I pour betta, water and debris into the breeding tank. This may seem strange however I've taken a sterile tank and introduced the ammonia eating bacteria and infusoria nurturing debris living in the male's container. By the time the fry are free swimming there will be no ammonia in the breeding tank, and a small culture of infusoria for them to eat. I place the chosen female in a pint jar filled half full with water from the breeding tank and float her in with the male.

A young, healthy, well conditioned male betta, in a tank held between 80 and 85 degrees should build a serviceable bubble nest inside of two hours. They do this by taking air from the surface, coating it with saliva and releasing it under the leaf. Sometimes their own enthusiasm in displaying will shred the nest but they will rebuild it time after time. These nests are usually 2 inches across and a quarter inch thick but I have had bettas build nests three times as big, and some that placed three hundred eggs nestled among a countable number of bubbles. So if your male doesn't perform per average don't think the spawn won't succeed. A couple interesting asides here: If you spawn bettas in acid water the fry will be predominately male. If a pair is reluctant to spawn you can raise the temperature up to as high as 95 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 wimpy. Bettas can be conditioned to spawn with any type of high protein food; brine shrimp, blood worms, black worms, but the best, when available, is mosquito larvae.

The male will work on his nest, then display for the female, then go back to his nest. Sometimes he will display for several days before getting serious about a nest. And sometimes he won't seem particular interested in anything for a week or more. Be patient.

After the male has built his nest and continually returns to the jar with the female to display, he is ready. The female signals her readiness by several methods. In dark colored red, blue or green females, horizontal fear stripes are replaced by two or three vertical lines behind the head, in the belly area. They will also assume a forty- five degree, head down position. So by color and body language, they signal willingness to spawn. A pale bodied fish will be unable to display the pattern change but they will assume the head down angle. This is the time to release the female from her jar, taking care 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. Besides, any damage to the nest will be repaired quickly so don't sweat it.)

Up to this point you could get away by glancing at the pair on occasion to check on the romantic developments, and to feed them. Now however, to prevent murder and mayhem, they need to be watched. Sometimes they get along just fine and spawning takes place post-haste. Sometimes 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. I've had fish slash at each other until they don't have much fin left, then spawn. I've had fish that swim together peacefully for weeks, then finally, gently, spawn. And, I've had fish that do it by the book. So they have to be watched.

Spawning takes place under the nest. The female will go there first, her body dark, her fins clamped, head down, vertical lines just visible as slashes of red. 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. There is a point in the embrace, when it is right. that the male's body appears to 'click' in place. This is difficult to describe, but if you can watch them spawn, you will see this point. If it doesn't happen, the embrace is not held and they swim apart without releasing eggs. If the embrace is right, their ventral openings are in close proximity, and actual mating takes place. The female, held firmly by the male, releases ten to twenty eggs, and the male simultaneous releases sperm, fertilizing them.

Now the male relaxes and moves away from the female who floats as though stunned, her body still curved in an 'S' shape, fins clamped, unmoving. 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 now the female has recovered, and, after nosing around for any eggs the male may have missed, (which she will eat) she goes to the surface for air, then goes back under the nest.

The spawning usually takes a couple hours to complete. During this time they don't pause to rest, or display, or fight and little can happen outside the tank that will distract them. When they're done however, the female is immediately chased away from the nest and that and the eggs becomes his only interest. Now the female needs to be removed or he will certainly kill her. I use a small net and wait until she comes to the surface to breath to catch her. This seems to disturb the nest the least I place her back in her jar and add a drop or two of Woundease to help her recover from her injures.

There can be anywhere from 200 to 400 eggs in the nest and the male is busy blowing more bubbles around and under them. He may move them to another location in the nest and he may put so many bubbles around them they aren't even in the water anymore, but don1t worry, if they're fertile, they'll hatch.

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 nest and before the attentive male catches them. But in 48 hours they are moving around and more and more fall from the nest, keeping the male very busy. (Note: the fish need light to induce them to spawn, nice bright light seems to inspire them. But I turn off the light at night otherwise the male would get no rest at all.)

About four days after spawning the fry are moving around more and are able to swim from the bottom to the top of the water. When I see this, I remove the male. It is at this stage, frustrated by not able to keep them in the nest, that he may eat them. I put him back in his container and he usually collapses on the bottom, totally exhausted. I put a few drops of Woundease in his water also as he could have rips in his fins.

The fry are not really swimming much and are not eating, but I put a little Artificial Plankton/Rodifer powder in just in case the stronger ones want to pick at something

. By day five I am feeding the APR twice a day plus microworms. I have read many articles about bettas that says you can start feeding with newly hatched brine shrimp. You can do this if you only want a few fry, there are always some that are stronger than the rest. But by starting with APR and microworms I normally raise 200 to 300 fry per spawn. (When I'm breeding for color, I chose to do the culling, not chance.)

I usually only feed APR for two days, then microworms twice a day for another three or four days, adding just a few baby brine shrimp for the stronger ones. By the time the fry are 10 to 12 days old I am feeding primarily baby shrimp and adding just a little of the microworms for the smaller ones.

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 assist in shrimp clean up.) So I don't do any water changes until after I start feeding the shrimp, then I usually only do a five percent every other day in the course of vacuuming out the dead shrimp. (Don't forget to add a little salt to replace what you've removed with the water.)

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.

Before the fry are two months old they are moved into larger quarters, a couple tens or a twenty. They are still eating the baby brine shrimp augmented with fine flake. I also use a razor blade to shave frozen adult brine shrimp for them, but care has to be taken that the food offered is not too large or they will choke to death on it. It is at this age I start offering them my favorite food for bettas and one they will grow like crazy on; hard cooked egg yoke. I throw small pieces in their tank where they will sink to the bottom and the young fish will pick on it until it's gone. It will be messy, but I have yet to find anything that induces growth like egg yoke.

I usually start jarring the males between 10 and 12 weeks of age, they're easy to spot and they usually haven't begun fighting yet. (Once the fins are torn, they will not heal straight.) They will grow faster after jarring, but of course they are a lot more work to maintain.

Well, that's how I do it. Just keep in mind that like most things about this hobby, it's not written in stone. I love to do bettas because, unless you are sure of their genetic background, you never know exactly what colors you're going to get.

Like I said at the beginning, the imbellis spawn exactly the same. The only difference I noticed was that the males did not fight with each other as they started to mature. In some ways they were like cichlids who are crowded together, only the most dominate male fish developed breeding colors, while the rest of the males remained colored like females until moved to a separate tank.