My pretty pretty purple/fuchsia betta boy has built a tiny bubblenest in his temporary 1 gallon bowl. I'd like to take advantage of this if the spawning would work. I realize a fish bowl is not ideal, and if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. I've got a pretty good book on bettas, but I can't find any information on their age of sexual maturity. The female I'd like him to spawn with is only 7 months old. Is she old enough? She has a pink body with dark lilac fins, so I think they'd have stunning fry. My only mature female betta is the one I treated for cloudy eye last month, and I'm leary of using her in case there is some underlying health problem going on, even if it's just cataracts (her right eye just still doesn't look right). Any thoughts? The male is doing his best to charm the pants off the female (figuratively speaking...) but she is not impressed. There's a plant floating in the bowl, so she has places to hide, and she doesn't seem stressed, just not interested.
Betta age of sexual maturity?
- Thread starter JenNewbie
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rubysoho
Aquarium Advice Addict
My answer, don't breed them because you don't want to pass on either a disease the female betta has or a genetic flaw. Also, have you thought of where all the fry will go once you need to separate them from the father and let them grow? Bettas can have up to 200 fry and all the boys will eventually need to be separated into individual compartments so they can finish growing. Also, each of those comaprtments will need to be cleaned EVERY DAY. Imagine cleaning 75-100 fish bowls. On top of that, i don't like the idea of growing fish in bowls, but that is just my opinion.
Aside from that, and to answer your question, I believe I have read that most male betta's bought at LFS are already past their prime (but can still breed). The way you know you can match two bettas up is if they are approximatly the same size. You don't want the female to be smaller nor do you want her any larger due to various reason. When I was transferring my male to the 10 gal and my femals to a 5 gal (he was harassing some frogs) only the female that was his size was interested in teasing him from outside his acclimation cup. It was really cool to watch, but I'll never breed them because I don't have the time or space to breed them. 7 months is fine. Nothing younger though, and I've heard after 1 year and 1/2 they should not be bred because betta's will only live 2 maybe close to 3 years if they are kept in a great environment without much temp fluctuations etc...
HTH!
Aside from that, and to answer your question, I believe I have read that most male betta's bought at LFS are already past their prime (but can still breed). The way you know you can match two bettas up is if they are approximatly the same size. You don't want the female to be smaller nor do you want her any larger due to various reason. When I was transferring my male to the 10 gal and my femals to a 5 gal (he was harassing some frogs) only the female that was his size was interested in teasing him from outside his acclimation cup. It was really cool to watch, but I'll never breed them because I don't have the time or space to breed them. 7 months is fine. Nothing younger though, and I've heard after 1 year and 1/2 they should not be bred because betta's will only live 2 maybe close to 3 years if they are kept in a great environment without much temp fluctuations etc...
HTH!
It's ironic because I had just decided it was too much bother to breed bettas, but then he went and built a bubble nest and I started thinking... I didn't want to leave them unsupervised, so I put the female back in the main tank this morning. I know the age of 2 of the females I have since they are from a local breeder, but it's probably more than I can take on. Still, it would have been fun to see what the babies looked like!
rubysoho
Aquarium Advice Addict
most definatly. when I have the time and space, I would like to give it a go, but I also want to make sure they will ALL get good homes, and since they can have so many babies, and I don't have that many friends who care about fish like me (I'm the insane one of the group... but they all have their quirks too 
) I decided it wasn't a good idea.
) I decided it wasn't a good idea.Similar threads
