Betta breeding? Help!

[Jackiee]

I recently bought 3 beautiful betta girls for my betta male.

A couple questions!

I was told at the petstore that the male needs 3 females. Is this true? And why is this?

If breeding occurs, will he mate with just one or all of them?

Also, I've already introduced them, keeping them separated at first (the females from the male). When the male approaches he flares up, but the females swim away really quickly. Why is this? Will they eventually warm up?

When will the courting and mating start? I've heard that the male will make a bubble nest...is there any particular size tank they prefer having?

Thanks for everyone's help!! I greatly appreciate everyone's replies!

[TCTFish]

Breeding bettas requires babysitting them and though it is possible to have a small group the way you have, but the male's been there and that's his tank. He will most likely kill each and every one of them if they are released into his territory. I've done this...sort of...I had three females live with a single male, but was only able to succeed doing so in a very particular manner.

When I first tried this, I took out the resident male and kept him in another container for about a week. I put the three females in the tank together. It was a six gallon Eclipse, but the filter was dismantled...I don't use power filters with bettas. They're always getting injured by the intakes. They seem to have a habit of sleeping near the intakes which then may chew up their fins and become infected. Air pump driven sponge filters or no filter at all is best to avoid this problem. Anyway...

After a week I reintroduced the male into the tank and he recognized his home. He went on a rampage attacking all the females and had to be removed immediately. He wasn't happy at all...LOL. I think the 'having multiple females' is a way to disperse aggression, but it doesn't seem to matter. They are insane fish!! They end up beating the crap out of the females.

I got a smaller male that had never been in the tank and the females were in there for at least two weeks already and healed from their dilema. Everything went well. The male did puff up and did his inspections and the females checked him out, but all was well. They got along. The problem I had with this batch of bettas was with one of the females. She was given away to the store I work for because she had killed the customer's male. It does happen once in a while when a female is that aggressive. I didn't think anything of it when I had her with the group and she hadn't displayed any aggression in this tank until well after the second male was introduced...so who knows what her problem was. She mainly went after the other females and not the male. Over all, they all did live together peacefully for about 6 to 7 months and that's when the one female suddenly went bezerk.

The easiest breeding set up I've come across was actually by accident. I had a 2.5 gallon eclipse set up (filter dismantled) with a divider. I kept a male on one side and a female on the other. One day while working around the counter I noticed the female wiggled through a space through the divider, they spawned, then she high tailed it back over to her side...LOL. Now THAT was easy

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=74856

Originally Posted by TCTFish

The easiest breeding set up I've come across was actually by accident. I had a 2.5 gallon eclipse set up (filter dismantled) with a divider. I kept a male on one side and a female on the other. One day while working around the counter I noticed the female wiggled through a space through the divider, they spawned, then she high tailed it back over to her side...LOL. Now THAT was easy

omg-that's so awesome!