Breeding Bettas, Siamese Fighting Fish,  Part 7 – Betta Spawning

In the world of Bettas, spawning is performed by the male wrapping his body around the female and gently squeezing her so she can release the eggs as they embrace (see the videos below). As the eggs are released he releases his sperm into the water and the eggs are fertilized as they then drop slowly to the bottom of the tank.

So as I mentioned earlier in a previous post, this is why the male needs to be at least the same size or preferably, slightly larger than the female to accomplish this successfully. Now this is just another instance of how my two Betta pairs varied as well. My first pair spawned about 7 or 8 times and each time she released quite a few eggs.

My second pair were different again as the first time no eggs were released at all and the second time only about two came out. I walked in just as this happened and was disappointed because I assumed this was the end and number 1, I’d missed witnessing most of it and number 2, as I said in the last post, the bubble nest was very small indeed and I hadn’t expected it to start for some time.

In fact as it turned out this was just the beginning and in total they actually came together about 20 times in about 90 minutes and I estimate there may have been up to about 350 eggs. So this was very different to my first spawn and not only that the way the pairs worked together to retrieve the eggs was very different as well.

With my first pair the male mostly retrieved the eggs and then mostly only at the end. The female just hung around the bubble nest after she’d released her eggs and the male didn’t actually collect the eggs after each time they came together.

This male collected most of the eggs at the end and you might even notice an albino Bristlenose Catfish in the frame toward the end which I’ll talk about some more toward the end of this article.

With my second spawn though the Betta pair really had their act together and worked really well as a pair. He would release the female before they fell to the bottom and start catching eggs, while the eggs he’d missed would then be collected by the female and transported in her mouth up into the nest. In fact I think that on a couple of occasions he may have released too early as some eggs were still being released by the female after he’d broken away so maybe some eggs might not have been fertilized. Having said that though, I have read that he releases quite a bit of sperm into the water so he doesn’t have to be as close as you think.

This pair worked together well as a team collecting eggs. Notice the bubble nest wasn’t as large as the one in the previous video. After the female was taken out, he added to the bubble nest then.

So as I said, my first pair came together about 7 or 8 times in about 30 minutes while my second pair came together about 20 times in about 90 minutes. Therefore the next question might be how do you know when it’s all over so you can then remove the female?

Well with my second spawn it was pretty obvious as the male just decided it was over and drove the female away from the bubble nest.

This is how it is meant to happen I believe, but during the first spawn it was quite different. The female just hung around the nest and not much happened for quite a while. He tried to engage with her several times but she seemed to lose interest.

In the meantime there were still quite a few eggs lying on the bottom of the tank and one of the Bristlenose Catfish I’d added to keep the algae under control was hanging around them and appeared to be foraging for food near them. Therefore I decided it was time to then remove the female.

So this was my first major mistake, adding Catfish to the breeding tank. I did this as I thought it would be a good idea to add an “algae eater” to help maintain the water quality but as it turned out it was a bad idea. The Bristlenose Catfish swam through the eggs on about 5 occasions and it was hard to see if it actually ate any but it did seem to be attracted to them so it wasn’t a good situation. Another point about catfish is they do take quite a bit of catching, as they are fast and agile. Therefore if you want to remove them you do end up causing a disturbance in your tank which isn’t ideal in a breeding tank

Therefore, because of the Catfish, I was pressured into removing the female, maybe before I needed to. Once the female was removed the male then got on with the job of collecting the eggs (or saving them from the catfish) as he was no longer distracted by the female.

So you can see how inexperience can easily trip you up. My second spawn went much more to plan though, as I’d learnt from the mistakes of the first. Adding Catfish was a bad idea but the next mistake I made would turn out to be much more serious than adding Bristlenose Catfish and in the end I’m amazed how lucky I was to get away with it as the outcome in the end was better than I’d expected.

Here’s more about Bettas Spawning

Breeding Bettas, Siamese Fighting Fish,  Part 8 – Tending to the Bubble Nest

Possibly Related Posts:

• Cleaning the Betta Fry Tank
• Breeding Crowntail Bettas
• Do Bettas Take Breaks While Spawning
• Breeding Bettas During the Cold Weather
• Microworms