Betta fish tend to be among the most beautiful fish in any aquarium. Everyone does know that Betta fish are the easiest to care for of all fish. What's less well known though is that they're very easy if you're interested in breeding them, too. If this is your first time breeding fish, you should try breeding Betta fish first. It'll be good for your morale.
As easy and as rewarding as such a venture might be, there still are a few things you need to keep in mind.
The first problem is actually not a real problem. It's just that breeding Betta fish is so easy that it's likely that pretty soon, you'll have hundreds of little Betta fish crowding your tank. The fish evolved to breed in a large water body with lots of space to spread out – not in a five-gallon tank. What do you do if your aquarium isn't the size of a football field? You'll have to be prepared to throw them away.
If you just can't bring yourself do that, you'll have to go and find homes for them. Where'd you find homes for 500 fish? That's the hardest part of breeding Betta fish. You have to be prepared for a population explosion.
That said, if you still do want to go ahead, how do you know that the fish you're getting are up for it? How do you know that they are the breeding age? Well, you could look on the Internet for sellers of fish who sell proven pairs – pairs that have actually brought before. Basically, you're looking for fish that are no more than six months old.
Once you actually have the fish you’re going to breed, you need to put them in separate aquariums at first and feed them really well. Next, you need to actually get a separate breeding tank. It needs to be a 5 gallon tank, and it should have about a half foot of water in it. You need to equip and furnish this little Betta apartment the way they like it.
For the male, you need to find a round plastic object that floats. This is what he will build his nest on. For the female and all the little fish that come forth, you need to buy some Java moss and a sponge filter. Be sure that you heat the water properly.
You need to put a kind of glass barrier in the breeding tank and put the fish in separate chambers at first. They need to be able to see each other but not reach each other. Given this much incentive, the male will begin building his nest on the float you just put in his part of the tank. The female will actually change color to show that she's ready – you'll see dark bands on the skin.
All you need to do now than is to get them together. But you need to watch them. Very closely. Because the male can often rip the female to shreds as he tries to mate with her. Once they’ve done the deed, you'll see that male collect eggs by the mouthful and take them into his bubble nest. At this point, you can take the female back to her tank. And that's about it.
It'll just take a couple of days for everything to hatch.