Pregnant betta fish

[bettasrule]

I'm pretty sure that i have a pregnant betta fish and i don't want to have babies. What will happen if she doesn't have them? Will she die? Please Help!
Thank you in advance.

[rageybug]

She will be just fine. She will just absorb them and go about her normal life. If you do decide to get a male and breed them, it is a very cool process and very easy to do. It is very cool to watch the male build his bubble nest.

[bettasrule]

Thanks. I am so glad that she will be fine. I do have a male betta but he is about 3 years old and I don't know how that would turn out.

[Fishalicious]

All betta females fill up with eggs... the unused eggs (if there is no pairing with a male) she let's lose and eats them...

It is impossible for her to have young if there is not a bubble nest from a male and an actual pairing of them (doing the deed)

[rageybug]

I'm sure your 3 year old male can still get the job done.

If you want to breed it is pretty easy.

If you have a small tank (10 gallons or less will do) put about 4-6 inches of water in it. Place the female in a fish bowl (or just a small drinking glass) in the middle of the tank and put the male into the main part of the aquarium. You want the water level in the glass and the aquarium to be the same.

Place lots of floating plants in the tank (this is for the fry to hide in) and set the temperature to the mid to high 70's. I place plastic wrap over the tank to help keep it humid inside.

Make sure that you are feeding both fish a good quality Beta pellet or even tubifex worms. Better food means better babies!

The male will spend a few days flirting with the female and he will start to build a bubble nest. The bubble nest will look like a bunch of foam on the surface. Once the female looks ready to burst with eggs, remove the fish bowl and place her into the tank with the male.

They should start to swim together after only a few minutes. If after an hour or two nothing is happenning, remove the female and try again in a few days.

The male will usually try to herd the female towards the bubble nest. Once he gets her in place he will actually squeeze the eggs out of her, sort of like a hug! The male will fertilize the eggs as they are released from the female.

*note - she will get pretty torn up during this process so you need to keep a watchfull eye on her*

Once the eggs are out of the female, remove her to a fresh clean bowl so she can recover. At this point, the female's job is done. The male will collect the eggs and put them into the nest. Once in the nest he will care for them until they hatch (usually about 48 hours). Once the fry hatch and start to swim freely (another 48 hours), remove the male before he eats them.

As far as feeding the fry, that's the tricky part. Their mouths are too small for fry food or ground up flakes. A good food source for the first week or two is to take a glass mason jar and fill it with tank water. Place some cut grass (make sure there are no fertilizers or pesticides on it) or some straw in the water and place it in a sunny window. After 2-3 days you should see lots of little critters swimming in the water (a magnifying glass helps). Just take a few ounces of water from the top of the jar and put in right into the tank. Try to avoid getting too much "pond scum" out of the jar. Feed the fry this every day for a week and then try introducing crushed flakes.

Make sure the crushed flakes are fine... almost like powder as their mouths are still very small. They will only eat a tiny amount of flakes, about the size of a pin head.

After 6-8 weeks you should have inch long beta fish! I would seperate them into seperate jars at about 1/2 an inch to avoid fighting.

Hope this helps and good luck!

[TowBoater]

It is best if you do decide to breed them to take a 10g and put a divider up for about 2 days. During that time the male will build a nest and then after two days, take the divider down and after he puts the eggs in the nest, remove her or he may kill her.

[bettasrule]

Thanks a lot!. That helps me because I was reading websites and they were kind of confusing but you guys helped me out a lot thank you so much!!

[poppinseab]

Well I am in the process of raising my fry grom the spawn and let me tell u it isn't easy. And once you do it once they just keep needing to spawn(In 3-4 weeks my female was ready again and the male is ALWAYS ready to spawn)
Hope that helps :-)

[rageybug]

The glass divider works too but I find that a glass or small fish bowl in the middle works best. Here's why...

The male can circle around the bowl all the time ensuring that the most flirting can happen. With a divider, the male and female may spend prolonged time at opposite ends of the tank and that may cause the male to lose interest and allow his bubble nest to shrink.