Advanced breeding technique - extremely low water

Scenario: you've got pair of bettas doing dancing and wrapping, trying their best at spawning.

Problem: they are very eager pair to spawn, but the male can't seem to wrap the female nor the female knows how to put herself for a complete successful wrap. They may wrap, then somewhat slip off, or the female got pushed aside and the male sank like a rock to the bottom of the tank.

Solution: read on ;)

The above problem is quite common when you're dealing with 2 conditions:

1. the female is equal or way too big for the boy to wrap
2. they're inexperience

You can do a number of things, but we'll discuss one approach that we applied ;)

1. you can switch the male/female with more experienced one - in order for this technique to work, you need to move the female to new male (rather than moving the new male to female's tank). We've done this a number of time with great success
2. continue with the original pair, fingers crossed they may learn the technique before any of them giving up or the female dropping eggs
3. continue with the original pair and "force" their environment to work better for their lacking in technique

We've applied the last technique for a pair of K.H.'s giants. The female is big (more than 2.5 inches) and the male is bigger (more than 3.2 inches). The problem is that the female has a very bulky/large body width, the male can't wrap that body with ease. They've been trying to wrap for more than 2 hours without success. The female was exhausted and she was dropping some eggs already....

Applying the last technique to the pair, we've seen successful wrappings at last!

What did we do? Quite simple really...we lowered the water with this formula: male's total length + 1 inch. So, basically we have them spawning in a barely 4 inches height of water! You can use airline tubing to suck out the water, just don't disturb the nest...

Now, you may say, well, that's pretty much a normal water height for spawning, isn't it? No, not really. We typically spawn bettas at about 5 inches of water if they're short fin. Long fin HM usually get about 5 to 6 inches, not much different really. However, these are giants and they're very big! Try to keep your giants in a 5 inches of water, they'll be going crazy. You can see how the male becomes difficult in moving about.

The good thing about this technique is that it forces the male and the female on that confine depth, hence remove the possibility for them to "slip off" during wraps. Basically, once the male wraps the female, the male sinks to the bottom of the tank and with him he carries the female! If the female is somewhat "slip off", at least she's still within very close distance from the male.

You need to watch out for a couple of things though:

1. don't lower the water too much, they can't even wrap if it's too low. As a guide, measure your male in a complete flare position, make sure he has at least 1 inch space to maneuver (e.g. bending his body to wrap the female)
2. don't worry if their movement destroys a bit of the bubble nest. if there are too much erratic movements, you better wait till they're really in "wrapping" mode to lower the water (not lowering the water when they're in "dancing" mode)
3. Obvious enough, you can't apply this technique if the male's nest is obstructed with plants or other things in the tank.

If you notice that either one of them is feeling uncomfortable with this technique, you better increase their water height until they're feeling happy. Sign of uncomfortable varies, so you better watch your fish closely :)

If you're game and want to try this technique (or you know you have failed pair that you want to give another try), you better contact us for a chat to make sure you are ready to apply this technique - time is of the essence during spawning!

Betta hobby: barriers for entry and solutions

Too many people are turned off to betta keeping. Main reasons are all well-known such as:

1. too expensive
2. not enough time
3. not enough stock available

Too expensive

If you're getting your bettas imported, then yes, it will ended up to be too expensive. Importation cost usually is equal to the cost of your fish if not more! Purchasing a USD20 fish will cost you around AUD25 to AUD30 to import. Don't forget your shipping cost as well, that would be around AUD20 to 25. The old mathematics of "purchase more to reduce cost" doesn't actually work here since the more you purchase, the more you're paying for importation cost anyway. If you purchase a betta, would you just purchase one? Rationale governs that you purchase more than one, or perhaps just a single pair. On average purchasing 2 pairs of bettas costs around AUD220 (USD40 per pair, AUD100 total import, AUD20 shipping) - the hobby is looking more and more distant for everyone to afford...

Sharing shipping cost can reduce your cost a little bit, hence do that whenever you can to share with other fellow buyers.

At the end of the day, you are at the mercy of your importer/transhipper. Unfortunately nothing can be done about that, except if your importer/transhiper would be so kindly reduce the fee ;)

Your best option would be to join similar-minded people in the hobby, such as SSS, or any betta forums where you can find established breeders selling their stock for more-than-reasonable price.

Not enough time

You either need to make the time, or organize your timing better. Sometimes this is very difficult choice when mixed with family, job, and life in general. Surprisingly, if you take care of your bettas on a strict routine/regime, you may find that they don't actually take much of your time.

For instance, we have been successful on keeping bettas on the following schedule:

• 5am : first feeding, quickly check any bettas needing attention
• 7pm: second feeding, time to flare them and enjoy for a good half to one hour

This doesn't work lately because of job traveling. Of course we need to adjust the above if we are spawning any of the bettas.

When you spawned your bettas, you need to be able to commit yourself to 3 or 4 meals a day for that tiny fry of yours. Usually this is required for the first 1.5 months, then you can relax a bit and let them join the adult feeding regime.

Some have been quite successful in feeding their bettas every other day (i.e. once every 2 or 3 days). We usually don't suggest this unless you're feeding a 4+ months old bettas, but then you need to try to see what works for you.

Not enough stock available

What can we say, there always be not enough stock, despite you may have browsed through your forums or auction sites. But if you're a bit relax on things, you may find a similar, or good enough stock. For instance, if you're looking for that awesome dragon, may you settle on full-mask perhaps? You only need to cross the full-mask to a poorer-quality dragon to produce that awesome dragon that you've been dreaming on. Creativity helps here.

Looking back the hobby for these past couple of years, it has been apparent that it will remain slow and a lot of work is needed to attract more people into the hobby. The funny thing about the hobby is...it's a hobby, which means there shouldn't be needing any attractions to begin with! Unfortunately the barriers, particularly the cost, is way too high for some, even if they're experienced breeders like us. We look forward for other initiatives such as CBS or plain old let's share the cost together.

Until then, give us a shout if you need any of our stock (only when we do have some). Hope we can share them with you and together we can ease the entry barrier.

Bettas breeding venture, anything is possible

When we thought to give breeding a rest, an offer comes from KL, his partner BR, and their friend JN, to help them out in breeding quest - something similar to CBS, but confined to them ;)

They offered a very nice deal. We've got to choose a new set of breeders (and current breeders that we have; something that *they* and *us* like), they pay for the costs, they have all the tanks prepared, and we come once a week to see how they go with the fish (simply because they're in a short driving distance from us).

The reward for us would be up to 20% of the fry produced ;) We'd rather have some best pairs from the spawn than that kind of number of fry, nonetheless it's still nice gesture...

Given we don't have much of the time to care for any of our fish, it's refreshing to know that we still can breed bettas despite they're not "our own".

They have large tanks, it's a little bit worrying on the very large number of spawns and fry to be produced, but they seem to be committed to it and in their own words "we've got plenty of time to prepare for the foods".

We have chosen 3 males and 3 females for them coming on the next shipment - mixture of HMPK and HM giants (geno at least). Pending all is ok, the breeding should start in a few weeks time.

Pictures coming soon, once all has been confirmed.