I am gonna try breedin'(the fish)

[Ringo]

i am going to attempt it, breeding a betta.
i ordered a female today, and i will have her on thursday.
i have a few questions about what to do with the fish:
1. are mason jars suitable for the fry?
2. or will some sort of plastic cup work fine too?
3. if i cant sell them all in adds, will the fish stores take them?
4. WILL THEY ALL be the same color, or will they be all differant kinds of colors????????

thanks in advance
Hunter

[genetics]

Hey Spoiledfishes,

I honestly don't know the answer to questions 1/2, but I can tell you that breeding bettas is a 24/7 activity. After the fry mature, the males have to be placed in individual housings; itself is laborious. And lets not forget the fact that each of these housings have to be filtered very oftenly.

I can answer Question 4 though with no problem
Quite simply, the possibility that all the fry will all look the same is almost 0% (but thats if the parents look identical). What you might end up seeing if a large number of the offspring having a mixture of the colors that the parents have. If the parents however are two different colors, then the chance of getting a specific color is only within the range of the colors expressed in the parents. There is however a small possibility that one of your offsprings express a blue color (for example) even though the parents were red and albino. This occurance is based on chance and randomeness, and is the basis behind why there are so many variations of the Betta; ie. crown-tails for example.

[Ringo]

that was the only question i needed asked, so there all going to be a differant color. blue,green,red,pink,purple,etc.

[Ringo]

i plan to breed a pinkeish purple reddish betta with i green, purple, pink betta

[Alisha]

I just wanted to say good luck with your breeding. All I know is that it is NOT an easy task ( i recently just had to terminate a spawn because the pair was not compatable) and I wanted to wish you luck.

[Ringo]

if worst comes to worst i can cull all of the fish, but i doubt i will do that.
i will be quite angry if i get over 70 fry though, i am hoping no more than 30 which i know is pretty slim

[Kidwitch]

I think you need a good size tank for the fry, with lots of room to hide. Mason jars and cups would be very hard to keep to temperature and you'd probably end up killing your fry when making the water changes. They are very time consuming. If you PM me, I can show you some good links/forums that can help you with your breeding and fry and teach you how to properly condition them prior to spawning. You may also want to check and make sure that you have room for 40, 50 four month old bettas that are seperated.

Also know that spawning is usually dangerous for your female. Let her get acclimated for a couple weeks because spawning is a huge stressor.

Good luck! Are they HM, PK, VT? HMPK? Let us know and show some pictures!

[Imbrium]

I think you should do more research before you jump into this. Your chances of getting over 70 fry are very good (assuming you can get them to spawn to begin with), and you need to be absolutely sure you can take care of all those fish. What's the point of spawning them if you're just going to cull them all anyways? That doesn't seem right to me (and I'm not against culling in general).

[Ringo]

i dont plan on rushing into breeding my bettas, i do know to let my Fbetta get used to her new home after going from, the dealer to store, store to home.
i have been doing a lot of research, what i am working on as of right now is saving up enough money for the supplies, and building a contrapion to house 50 bettas.
i start a job tomorrow raking the hay off strawberries so that will give me all i need.

for the tank i am thinking of using a 5 1/2 gallon tank or a ten, it will be awhile before i decide. you know on the websites were they show the big time breeders, having all of the male tanks all connected to pvc piping?, i am planning on doing somthing like that.

i know its a big task, but i am homeschooled so i have all of the time in the world!
i dont plan on breeding my fish till the end of august, i have a camp i spend most of the summer at and i will have no time for fish at all.

also kidwitch what do you mean by HM, PK, VT, HMPK???

[Kidwitch]

HM = Halfmoon
PK = Plakat
HMPK = Half Moon Plakat
VT = Veil Tail

Terms like these should be known before breeding.

[Ringo]

why dont i just say double tail (or veiltail, right? right!) half-moon, or plakat.

or i can say poecilia reticulata, xaiaphorus helleri, or xaiporus variatus, or poecilia sphenops, or hemiodopsis gracilis, or betta splendons(who dont know that one???), or xaiphorus birchmani. shall i go on? it may take a while before i learn to say ''ah yes can you order me a green hm''

thanks for the help. but if i cant use m' in public why should it be any differant here?? like LFS, why not type my pet store doesent carry ai...

[Ringo]

also i cant breed a betta because i dont ''know'' the ''new'' way of saying them. siencetests know all whole bunch of loong names like any fish mentioned above, but now there calling them by abbrevs. ....weird...

i built my self a banjo, nothing was harder, more time consuming, and costly than that. if i can have time, pateience and knowlage for that, i believe i can have time, patience and knowlegde for breeding a pair of bettas.

it took me a total of 9 months to... save up for it. read about them. waiting for thursdays to come so i could go to jimmy's house and buy some more parts, and get my progress checked on. and everthing else i did. so i believe (know) breeding bettas will be very costly, very time consuming, and very rewarding. so i guess the next thing on my list is to learn abbreves.
i really cant wait for it to be done, but i have to wit(what else a i gonna do) so i pass time learning, building, and experamenting to pass time.

hope i dident offend any1. (thanks for all of the help)

[meyerhaus]

Check out this website: http://www.bettysplendens.com. I think that you will find it very helpful. You can also get seedling mats at a greenhouse store to keep the mason jars warm. Just make sure that you keep an eye on the temp; you don't want little fried bettas. READ ALL THE ARTICLES THAT YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON ABOUT BREEDING BETTAS! It is a very involved process, but also very rewarding. I have 2 new pairs of beautiful Halfmoon and Overhalfmoon bettas on the way right now. I can't wait to get them. I plan on spawning them during the 1st week of June.

As far as your genetics question goes, there is also the question of dominant traits versus recessive traits. There are several layers to the coloring of bettas and each one has a set of genetic "rules" that they follow. Black layers, green layers, metallic layers...it is all very interesting, but also very complicated.

Can you post some pictures of mommy and daddy? I will try to give you an idea of what colorations you may have.

[Ringo]

thanks for the site mayor, it is usefull!

[ron v]

Spoiledfishes, don't be discouraged. Do the best you can with your betta breeding project. So what if it doesn't work. You will learn what works and what doesn't. You already know more about this hobby than I did at 13.

[Ringo]

thank you ron.
my guppy had fry last night, waiting for her to have the rest...

[Damon]

If you are truly interested in breeding them, pm me. I will walk you through it step by step. Answer any questions you may have and some you don't know you will ask . Patience is the key. And to have under 30 fry is very slim. I cull to about 30 on most spawns but I havent spawned in over a year now.

[Imbrium]

It sounds like you're on the right track now. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. And also check out the forum over at BettySplendens. Loads of info over there.

[meyerhaus]

You will have SO much fun taking care of those little boogers. They all have a unique personality.

[Damon]

Victoria (bettysplendis & my betta mentor) is a great source of info. A valuable asset to the IBC.