Breeding Siamese Fighting Fishes Also Known As Betta Fishes

Hello Everyone,
Recently, I have noticed that many people are coming to my blog for some information about Fighting Fishes [FF] a.k.a Betta Fishes and to some extent, some have even asked me questions about breeding FF. So, if any of you are keen to breed FF, read on to find out more as today’s blog entry is specially dedicated to you.

Now that you have kept your FF for months, what’s next? Well, you might just want to consider breeding them!

You might ask this question, “How do you breed FF?”. First, to breed FF, we will need the following equipment:

1) 1 rectangular glass tank, which is big enough to accommodate two FF
2) A Styrofoam cup that is cut into half symmetrically
3) A small syringe that has a very small opening for sucking up dirt/leftover food
4) An aquarium plant for the FF to hide
5) Heating lamp/Light source
6) Food for baby fry, preferably daphnia a.k.a “ang boon”
7) A clear glass bottle, big enough to house 1 FF

Now that you have everything, let’s get started.

First, you have to introduce the FF to one another. It’s the same thing for humans. [Guys, when you want to go steady with another girl, you got to take it slow and woo the girl so that she will be attracted to you right?] This applies to FF as well. You got to give time for the FF to know one another before you put them both in the same tank. If you put both of them in the same tank without any introduction, the female fighting fish [FFF] would most likely die from attacks by the male fighting fish [MFF]. Though I have heard of breeders who bred their FF without introduction, I generally would not recommend that.

How to introduce your FF to each other?

To begin, put your FFF into the glass bottle and put your MFF into the rectangular glass tank. After that, put the glass bottle into the rectangular glass tank and leave it there for 3-4 weeks [I know its a very long time but a minimum should be 2 weeks]. You would notice that every now and then, the MFF would flare up and try to attack the FFF but its unable to do so as there is a barrier to protect the FFF. Occasionally, you would also observe that your MFF would start to blow up a bubble nest. Do note that while waiting for the weeks to go by, you must still continue to feed both your FF but don’t overfeed till the water turns cloudy! As the water in the tank will evaporate, do add some aged water to top it up.

The MFF in the rectangular glass tank

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

The MFF seeking the FFF’s attention

From Betta Fishes

The FFF in the bottle [I used plastic bottle instead of glass]

From Betta Fishes

After the introductory stage is over, it is time to put the FFF into the rectangular tank with the MFF. However, before doing that, place an aquarium plant in the rectangular tank so that the FFF can use it to hide and place the half Styrofoam cup at an extreme corner of the rectangular glass tank so that the MFF can blow a bubble nest underneath it. [you might want to tape to the side of the tank to prevent it from floating around]

Occasionally, you would see that the MFF seem to attack the FFF but just leave them alone as the MFF is probably trying to wrap himself over the FFF.

Be prepared for this [damaged fins] if you intend to breed your FF but don’t worry, the fins can grow back again.

From Betta Fishes

During this period of time when both the FF are in the same tank, do keep a lookout to see if any eggs have been laid. This usually happens a few days after getting both the FF in the same tank. Once you see that the eggs have been laid, the next most important step is to carefully remove the FFF from the rectangular tank and put it in another tank for it to recuperate from its injuries. When removing the FFF, you must be extremely careful not to touch the bubble nest that contains the eggs laid by the FFF because if not, the MFF would eat up the eggs. [similar concept as breeding hamsters. The mother hamster would eat up the young hamsters if anyone were to touch the young hamsters]

So now that you have the MFF inside the rectangular tank alone with the eggs, just let the MFF do its job as a father. Please do not feed the MFF as it will pollute the water and cause it to be cloudy. Here, you will observe that the MFF will pick up the fallen eggs in its mouth and then spit it out into the bubble nest. However, you might at times see the MFF eat up the eggs so don’t be alarmed because the egg that it eats is probably not fertilised.

It might be very hard to spot the eggs in the bubble nest but it should look like this

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

My 1st attempt at breeding FF without using an aquarium plant and Styrofoam cup. Failed attempt indeed. In this picture, you can see alot of eggs cluttered together and some have even turned mouldy. Eggs that are clumped up together and have turned mouldy are most likely not going to hatch. Hence, do remove them if you see it so as to prevent unwanted water pollution.

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

When the eggs have hatched, you would see something like a tail sticking out below the eggs. Give it some time and you will see that the egg would soon turn into a baby fry as shown.

From Betta Fishes

My 2nd attempt at breeding FF and it was a success. So, as you can see, I have put the MFF together with the baby fries and you could see that they are much bigger. Don’t be disheartened if you see that your baby fries are growing slowly because growing up is a really slow process.

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

From Betta Fishes

So to aid your baby fries to grow faster and stronger, you got to feed them with food that is high in nutritional value. Do note that you don’t have to feed your baby fries for a few days after they have hatched because if you do, then it would pollute the water. I have tried to feed various items like grounded brine shrimps and the liquifry solution but nothing works better than daphnia a.k.a “ang boon”. Hence, I would strongly suggest that you feed live daphnia to your baby fries. The pro of feeding live daphnia is that your baby fries will be very attracted to eat them and they can in turn grow faster but the con is that your baby fries might get too used to eating live food that they reject eating dried food when they grow older. Oh, and because your MFF has been taking care of the baby fries for such a long time, feeding daphnia to him is also an energy booster.

Finally, when you see that the MFF starts to chase your baby fries, that is the time you start to take out the MFF and let your baby fries be independent on their own. As the days go by, you would also notice that some baby fries would die and that is a natural process because only the strong healthy ones will survive so don’t be disheartened.

From Betta Fishes

This is how daphnia looks like.

From Betta Fishes

After all these hard work in trying to breed the FF, it would then be time to jar up your baby fries into different containers if you see any of them attacking each other. However, do this slowly as any instant extreme change in environment might cause your baby fries to be overly stressed.

Congratulation, you have just learnt how to breed your very own FF!

Speaking of which, if breeding Fighting Fishes isn’t really your cup of tea and you would rather head outdoors and catch some fish, there are portable and castable fish finders that you can use to help you locate fishes!

Should you have any questions, do feel free to leave a comment here on this blog post.

Stay tuned for more updates from us!

God Bless!