Re: Betta splendens, Siamese Fighting Fish
When the fish are ready to breed, (the female should be bulging with eggs) we put the pairs together. We used plastic shoe boxes, set up as stated above. The boxes were good, because they were light, and you could pick them up, and float several hatches off together into a larger tank, depending on how many you got in each batch. (Sometimes, it was only a few dozen; other times, it could be close to 500.)
If you're only doing one or two pairs, probably a better method would be to put the pair in a tank, separated by a glass partition, so they could see each other but not have physical contact, Let the male get his nest built, before putting them together. The nest is made of floating bubbles, (the bubbles have a kind of sticky coating, so they last and stay together, not like bubbles in soda or beer) and can be an inch, or more high.
When the actual spawning takes place, the male positions his body perpendicular to the female, and kind of wraps around her. The eggs come out, and are immediately fertilized, As they slowly sink to the bottom, the male scoops them up in his mouth, and blows them up into the bubbles. This procedure is repeated several times, As soon as it is completed, the female shold be removed. The male stands guard under the nest and replaces any eggs that fall from the bubbles.
Next: Hatching and feeding the young.
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John
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