One of the most popular aquarium fish out there is known as the betta fish, otherwise known as the Siamese fighting fish. These extremely colorful fish can be very boisterous, and they are a whole lot of fun to have. Siamese fighting fish or betta fish even have the ability to learn a variety of tricks.
Although they are best generally kept alone, you can keep them in pairs, particularly if you have a male and a female. Even better is the fact that you can get them to breed. Now, getting them to breed can be somewhat difficult, and you do need to have the right tank conditions.
A question that many people have is how do betta fish breed? Well, this is exactly what we are here to cover today. Let’s figure out how betta fish breed, and how you can breed them at home on your own.
How do Betta Fish Breed?
In terms of betta fish breeding, one of the most important things that you need to know is the difference between oviparous fish and live bearers.
If we are talking about oviparous fish, this means that the fish, the female fish, lays the eggs somewhere in the water. Here, there is little to no embryonic development within the eggs inside of the female before she lays the eggs. With this type of fish, the female will lay the eggs somewhere in the tank or the water, and the male will then spawn over them, or in other words fertilize them.
This is opposed to live bearing fish, which keeps the eggs inside of them until the fish are born. In other words, livebearer fish keep their embryos inside of them, and the embryos fully developed, and are then born as fully functional small fish, otherwise known as fish fry. With this type of fish, the eggs are fertilized inside of the female fish before the fish are born live.
This is a very important distinction to know, because betta fish are oviparous, or in other words, the females well first lay their eggs before the male fertilizes them outside of the female’s body. Something else that you need to know about betta fish breeding is that as far as the male is concerned, he will create what is known as a bubble nest.
A bubble nest is a small nest made out of a large amount of bubbles that in the mail create using saliva, water, and other bodily secretions. These bubbles are designed to keep the eggs of the young fish safe and intact while they mature over a certain period of time.
Generally speaking, once the female has laid the eggs, and the male has fertilized them, it will take around 46 to 72 hours for those eggs to hatch. In that time, the female generally has to be removed from the breeding tank, because the male tends to attack the female wild guarding the eggs.
How to Set Up a Betta Fish Breeding Tank
In case you want to breed your own betta fish, let’s quickly go over some tips on how to set up a betta fish breeding tank.
- You are first going to need to get yourself a slightly larger aquarium than the one you have for your betta fish. You will need them in aquarium of about 10 gallons in size.
- Although the aquarium for breeding should not have any substrate on the bottom, there should be many leafy plants so the fish can hide. You then also want to provide the male betta fish with something at the water surface, some kind of plant on which the mail can build the bubble nest.
- Make sure that you select a fairly quiet space for the breeding tank, one that is away from the hustle and bustle of your house, and away from other fish. You also want to choose a space that doesn’t get too much light.
- The water in the betta fish breeding tank should be around 5 inches deep, and it should be around 78 degrees Fahrenheit. You also want to use a filter that has a very gentle flow, so as to keep the aquarium water clean, but also not something so strong that it will suck in the fish fry.
- If you want to achieve the best possible results, you then also want to choose a mating pair, a male and a female, that have the fin shapes and the colors that you like.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know how big fish breed, and how to set up a betta fish tank for breeding, you can get yourself a male and a female betta fish, and start creating your own betta fish fry.
Ben Morales
Aquarist & Writer 15+ Years