Breeding technique

A number of enquiry came about breeding techniques. You may want to read our spawning 101, that should get you started. The problem with us at the moment is that we've spawn successfully so many times that we forgot how to make failed spawning, so bare with us when we retrace our steps.

For start, conditioning. Nothing really special that need to be done. if you feed your fish with frozen, flake, or live foods, then keep it up. We usually prefer live food, a lot easier to handle and less cleaning. Make sure the male doesn't see any females for couple of days or weeks prior the spawning. Do the same to the female, don't allow her to see any males (she can live in community tank, no biggy)

Tank size, between 5x to 10x the length of your fish, with width about 3x to 5x. Usually we do spawning in 16" tank, but 12" is ok too, so long your fish comfy.

Many people made mistake of spawning their fish in established tank. While this is sometimes ok, we usually spawn our fish in a brand new established tank. The water has to be aged (or dechlorinated) but typically the tank is newly established. Remember that we don't use gravel, plants, etc, hence this kind of setup is fairly easy to do.

Selection of males and females. Of course you need to get 2 healthy ones. Males need to be able to make bubblenest, and very active. If he's not active, you need to find ways to make him active. If your tank is too cold, or too hot, males won't be happy there. So, a nice 25-27C temperature is good. Nothing more important than getting your male comfy. If he's eager, you are half-way through already. Next get eager female too. Female size should be wrappable by the male. Too larger female is no good. Too young bettas also not good, they lack the readiness or experience. Usually a 4 or 5 months bettas would be best, they're more than ready.

Introduce and cage the female. You need to pay attention to see whether the male and female are interested on each other. Male should be making nice bubblenest in 1 or 2 days time, if he's not, then you know he's not ready yet. Female needs to be flaring back to the male, that means she's interested. If she's not, you are not going to get successful spawning unless the male extra super agressive.

Some females will jump up and down the tank when chased. That's normal. Make sure you *don't* have anything for her to anchor into. For instance, if she's scared of the male, she will have tendency to jump over a leaf, or anything above water. If she gets to this mode already, and you do not stop her (by removing those objects that she can anchor to), then you will *not* get successful spawn. Why is that? Well, because the female is too young ! She's still immature and scare of the males. She doesn't know what to do but running away.

If you follow the above technique, hopefully you get good successful spawn. If you want big large spawn, then feed them a lot, extend the introduction period. If you want "manageable" spawn, then you can simply introduce the female right away, knowing she has sufficient eggs there and she's healthy.

In most cases, the female will be torn to pieces, unless you've got very gentle male.

Good luck in your breeding :)