Advice on breeding bettas

There are just too many questions asked over the years, something along the line of "I want to start breeding bettas, but I'm too ..., what are your advice?"

Well, there are too many advices that we (and many other people) can give, perhaps it would take weeks for you to understand/read them all, so we better boil down to bullet points :)

The Nike's approach
The "just do it" is perhaps the best we can offer. You don't know how it feels until you do it. Your first try could be a great success, but there always be something to learn even if it was the greatest failure. It's a journey of self discovery, you get to know your bettas as well as you get to know yourself (of your nervousness, patience, happiness, sadness, anger, etc).

Calm yourself down
Nervous is common but be prepared. Don't over-prepared since that usually triggers more nervousness on your part. Prepare a basic check list, so long you know how/what to do with things not in the checklist, then you're good to go. Trying to work out the best lighting for breeding is the wrong priority in the list!

Commitment
You need lots of it. Don't breed if you are not willing to commit time, money, resources. Not knowing where to dump your bettas is not an excuse, cause you always can approach your LFS to sell them off. Many LFS are happy to buy bettas locally. Sure, you may not get much from them but was that the excuse of you not breeding?

A lonely journey is excruciating, get a friend!
No one asks you to go through breeding experience alone, make sure you always have friends to help you out, giving you advice, encourage you, or basically pat you in the back "you're doing just fine". There are forums with similar minded people, join them. You're reading this blog, aren't you, so you know we're here as well ;)

Get a map
This is just an analogy. Breeding bettas is similar to driving through unknown city. The first thing you'd do if you want to drive through unknown city is to get a map. But even when you look at the map of the city, most of the time you don't have much a clue what the 'real' road condition looks like. So, before you breed, you need to map out the journey. Start writing your map. You are "here", you want to get "there", here are the main intersections, how do you know what certain events/intersections look like, what do you need to do when you get to that point, should you take a left turn or the right? To get an idea of what your breeding map looks like, read articles on the net/forums/blogs/etc.

Find a reason, a desire
Don't start breeding "just because". You need to have a goal, a desire, a strong reason why you think you'd like to start breeding. The reason could be as simple as "I want to get to the next stage", or it could be as religiously as "I'd like to improve Australia's betta quality". Some people settles on "I'm fascinated with their vibrant colours". Without strong reason/desire, your breeding will fail. Not because your bettas failed spawning, but simply because you've given up too early. Breeding bettas is very challenging, at times very frustrating, but also very rewarding when you are successful. Reminding yourself of your reasons/desires will keep you motivated and strong during the stressful times, and you gonna need that!

Be creative
Some people said "I don't have the right environment (tanks) for breeding". These kinds of excuses are just that, excuses. We've bred bettas in all sorts of environment, from a small 10cm x 10cm cube, to a 4 footer, to a 2 footer that we 'split' into 10 compartments with plastic boards, etc. If you have the desire to do it, anything will do. You need to be a little creative in solving your problems. Remember the Nike's approach ;) If we gonna wait for you to get all the necessary gears in place, we may ended up waiting till next year, and by that time your desire is all but gone...

Other than the above, you only need to know the basic checklist for breeding bettas. There are too many articles written on this (including numerous covered in this blog), just grab one. Simple checklist on "choose good male + female", "cage female in chamber", etc, should be a common knowledge to you by now. No need to get worried over tiny details, you should be ok so long you do draw a good "map".

Good luck on your spawning.