Betta

So you have decided on Betta.

You have bought some fish, you tried to take care of them best you can and within day your fish goes belly up.
Your friends tried to give you instructions and tips about fish care, but it only confused you.
If you truly desire to have a fish as your pet with low maintenance easy to care for and requires small tank, you chosen to have a betta fish

This species of fish lives in tropical water condition in Asia, from part of China to Vietnam and among shallow creeks and rice paddies of Thailand.
As popularity of betta grew among fish enthusiasts you can easily buy one at any local fish store.

You have several choices when it comes to selecting a betta tank, keep in mind that any jar or bottle that is twice longer than your betta in both length and height is suitable as a tank.
If you are not sure about tank sizes or what best suits you and your betta, ask the people in your local fish store. Take their advise and consider if it will fit your need, keep in mind that some store owner will tried to sell you something expensive you may not need.

A proper schedule to keep is be sure your betta’s water condition is clean, do a betta water change as often as you feel needed. The key to having a healthy betta is clean water. Many betta disease can be avoided if you do water change regularly. When changing your betta’s water make sure it is room temperature and water is left overnight for harmful chemical to settle down and the water has absorbs enough oxygen.

Whichever option you choose to house your fish, make sure you read and learn as much as you can about betta care,
Bettas are aggressive in behavior so number one rule is, you should never attempt to put two male bettta in one tank.

Betta feeding may seem as simple as it sound, but choosing the right food for your betta is more critical. Some food clouds water more than others, some will pass disease to your betta.

Consider this when feeding your betta for the purpose of breeding, you feed different food than normally would. Prepare your fish for breeding by feeding them with rich food full of nutrition.
• You want to keep an eye on your betta while feeding, your fish may not adjust to the new food yet, be patient.
You should note that feeding different food is helpful and harmful to your betta as well.

The next challenge for betta owners is betta breeding.
This can be very exciting if you know how and when your fish are ready for breeding, remember if you do it wrong, it can mean the death of your betta fish.
When selecting a betta female go with your natural instinct:
• Female betta are not as colorful and smaller than male, but if you find one that poses color and is big, your chance of fertile eggs are better.
• Colorful fish equals colorful offspring
• Only buy active and healthy betta

You would save a lot of time and headaches by following simple care proceeding and know what to avoid.

I cannot count the number of time I see people’s betta die from disease or mishandling of their fish.

Betta Breeding

If you stumble upon this page whether by accident or looking for answers I can safely assume you are interest in betta breeding

A universal truth is that nothing good or exciting worth gaining and waiting for is ever free or easy. You know this fact well, life throws hard balls at you everyday.
Don’t let this scare you if it does, betta breeding is not for you.

You have read this far, that means you are serious about getting the right information to breed like a pro.
Betta breeding is very exciting and simple when you acknowledge the basic procedure. Very crucial if you don’t know how.

Know that the male betta is the one to protect and care for the eggs not the female. Selecting two betta with excellent features you just increase offspring inheritance by fifty percent in potential.

Don’t rush your betta into reproduction, this is the biggest mistake people make in betta breeding. You need to prepare and condition both breeders to reach optimal results.
Two weeks in advance is your conditioning period, keep your bettas in separate tanks and block off so they cannot see each other.
To condition your bettas change their diets to food highly in fat and rich in protein.
I would suggest live foods like worms or frozen blood worms, but since you are a beginner use dried process blood worms and dried krill instead. Keep in mind that live food are almost always prone to diseases. In addition floating pallets with 45% protein or higher is suitable as well. Feeding should increase to three times a day with as much as the fish can eat within five minute, dispose un-eaten food to help maintain water condition. Do frequent water change as it correlate to the amount of food you are feeding your fish and amount of waste build up.
Proper conditioning your breeders and their body will automatically trigger a response to eagerness courtship. The female betta will start to plump up with eggs while male betta prepares a gurgle nest. This is where many newbie go wrong, they get the impression that when put together a male and a female betta without prior conditioning breeding will occurred. Only a 25% chance of bettas that breed when toss together, majority of betta when pair up to breed the male will injure the female.

Set aside a ten gallon tank with water fill up to half, tank bottom should be bare, include a water heater to maintain constant temperature of 80*-85*F. adding live plants can provide oxygen for the fry and also a temporary food source.
Cut a Styrofoam cup in half and tape it on one side of tank wall to be as the nest.
Use a clear divider to separate the male and the female betta when first introduce.
Add the female to the breeding tank and allow her to get comfortable with the environment. Add the male to the other side of the clear divider.
The male betta will flare up as usual and the female being properly condition will show sign of readiness with horizontal line along the body.

The male will start a bubble nest under the Styrofoam and dance around the female, at this stage you can safely remove the clear divider for the actual spawning to take place. The male and female betta will embrace under the nest. Female will dive head down in a S shape and the male will wrap himself around to squeeze out the eggs, male betta will fertilize the eggs and picks up with his mouth to place in the bubble nest.

Once the fertilize egg is place on the bubble nest the male will show aggression towards the female betta.
Take the female betta out from the breeding tank, her job is done.
The male will continue care for the eggs for the next two to three days until the fry hatch. The male will continue picking and placing the fry back into the bubble nest.
Within 24 hours the fry will begin development and begin to swim on their own, now you can remove the male betta his job is done. Check out the page about Baby bettas
If male betta is not remove his at this time his nurture instincts would have expired and he’ll start feeding on the fry.
Start feeding the fry with brine shrimp and very fine crumble flakes

Betta Disease

When your betta contracted a diseases it is devastating to see him mope around in the tank and often time sits on the bottom accumulating more disease. You will notice signs let off by your betta telling you that he is sick, first and foremost his folded fins and tail compress tightly to his body,
Your betta will be sluggish and look tiresome, his color will fade out and loses appetite. His behavior will show no aggression towards other male betta or mirror reflection.
You should be worry by now, so start observing and noting what illness he has.
Time is critical for you to diagnose the illness at a early stage and medicate your betta back to health.

One misconception newbie fish enthusiast fail to realized when betta breeding are minor injuries leading to bacteria infection and disease.
If you ever decide to take up breeding with your betta it is vital that you learn the essential steps to proper breeding, you will be glad you did. Without the knowledge you risk innumerable diseases to your fish.

The most common betta disease is rotting on the tail, fins and mouth. This disease show rotting tail or fin that looks un-natural and shorten in length. Rotting starts on the fin and tail than move to the mouth and body. The rotting area will swell up along the edge, it will look like shreds of meat from wounds or cut. The effected area will quickly get fugal contamination and a cotton fungus will grow on your fish.
Like all disease if not detect and treat for your betta will die.
To lessen sickness and maintain good helath regular water change is a must. Dirty water from un-eaten food and waste build up I can assure you illness will overtake your betta.
Start treatment for rotting disease by adding aquarium salt one tea spoon per gallon with frequent water change. Your fish should resume health in a weeks’ time.

Another common disease your betta catch from poor water quality is
pop-eye disease. Once your betta is effected his eyes will swell and bulge out from the socket.
This disease cause by bacteria infection will kill your betta or can leave your fish blind. Do not let the problem prolong hoping the disease will go away, take immediate action and treat the symptoms. Treat this disease as you would with rot tails and fins with add antibiotics to assure total elimination of bacteria.

Ick disease is contagious.
Effected with Ick, your fish will feel itchy and tried to rub against gravel or objects in the tank to get rid of it. Ick will appear as little white dot that spreads throughout the fish body like salt grain. Ick disease is a parasite that hangs off the fish and feeds on the fish itself. This disease is contracted from frozen worms or live food you feed or live plants that you put in your tank previously ick effected.
Remember this Ick is very contagious.
If you have more than one fish in your tank and one shows sign of Ick disease you will have to treat the whole tank.
Ick is sensitive to temperature and that’s exactly what you’ll use to get rid of them.
Raise the temperature to 80-85 degrees.
Neutralize the tank with a dose of aquarium salt tea-spoon per gallon. Add ick medication accordingly to direction on bottle. Within days you should see the white dots falling off your fish. Do a complete water change to achieve optimum health against future disease.

Now let me inform you about one of several internal disease that may take the live of your fish. These disease are fatal and hard to cure, in most case you will not detect the symptom until the disease has reach full blown.

Dropsy disease is unlike many other illness that show physical sign, once you see the first sign of physical appearance the disease has reach full blown. Physical indication results in bloated belly, flare outward scales and discoloration of body pigment. There is a range of medication that help neutralize the progress of internal parasite. Although I will not list procedure to cure such fatal disease. Once reaches full blown, medication may not cure your fish back to health. The effects of internal disease attacks your betta’s immune system directly. Once disease takes over even medication alone can kill your fish.
What I will tell you is to avoid ever reaching this stage of fatality.
• Avoid feeding live food, (go with process food like pallets)
• Keep less fish in one tank (more fish equals more disease)
• Add aquarium salt as neutralize
• Maintain constant temperature with a water heater. (tropical water fish lives in temperature 80-85 degrees)
• Regular water change is your optimum Good health and hygiene fighter against illness.

Betta Water Change

First of all let me tell you there is no golden rule of how often you change the water in your betta’s tank.
How often you do betta water change depended on what food you feed and how often you feed your betta.
• You should know that feeding flakes will cloud water faster,
• Feeding pallets can help prolong clean water condition longer
• Feeding live food has it’s benefits and danger.
If you truly desire feeding your fish live food go with the dried worms.
You should decide when a proper water change is needed by paying close attention to the water condition. Changing your water too often can harm your betta as well. Harmful chemical in tap water has an effect to slow your betta’s metabolism and immune system. Adding water conditions each time at water change neutralize chlorine, but what you really doing is taking one chemical out by adding another one in.

If you fail to notice a betta water change and let wasted build up over time, your betta is on a one way ticket to catching harmful betta disease.

Signs to look for that will indicate you to do a betta water change are simple to detect. Observed for thick surface water, cloudiness of water, change in water color, algae growth, and most import do not let fish wasted build up.

A proper way to do betta water change is by letting tap water sit over night in a clean bottle at room temperature.
Pour your fish into a clean bowl or cup along with the old water as gently as you can. Avoid touching your betta when transferring, keep in mind a slight contact with your hand may injured the fish without you knowing.

Clean the betta tank with warm water, use a scrubber if you need to but never use soap or chemicals in the cleaning process.
Use a fish net to drain the old water from the bowl and your betta should automatically get caught in the net. Carefully transferred your betta back into the betta tank.

If you need to do a betta water change but have not set aside tap water, change only 25-35 percent of the water in the betta tank. Use a siphon to suck as much waste build up from the bottom as you can. Add tap water back into the betta tank as needed.

Betta Fish

This fish is quite unique and beautiful to look at.
You will realize what satisfaction it gives you when you catch yourself gazing at these fish for the first time, pondering how magnificent and colorful it is.

Bettas are the exotic fish of fresh water fish, they have long vibrantly color tails and fins that extend beyond their body. Betta swim slowly but naturally aggressive in behavior.

Betta comes in many different colors, some even possess multiple color making it all an enjoyable fish to watch. You know this if you ever see salt water fish with astonishing color and stunning body line gliding across the water.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend a lot of money to acquired a salt water fish to received the same satisfaction. Although, that is one way to go.
Betta fish has exceed among fish enthusiasts as a gorgeous exotic fish that is truly affordable.

If you decide a betta fish is the way to go, you need to understand their characteristics.
When bettas feel threaten by other fish or other betta, they will naturally flash brighter in color, open their long tail in a fan like display and cock their gills to make themselves look bigger and more vicious. This behavior often happens, first to warn other betta this is a threat and second this territory is occupied.
If you entice a male betta with a mirror or with another betta, he’ll dance around fully cock to provoke fear, his action will display the environment is hostile indicating conflict. In some case an opposing Betta does not challenge and the superior would dance around to chase away the defeated one.
Sign of a defeat or scare betta is lighter in color and his fins and tail will be compressed tightly against the body.
A battle between two male betta can last for as long until the death of one fish.

Bettas are also know as Siamese fighting fish. Therefore, you should never put two male betta in one tank, each fish should occupied his own territory meaning separate betta tank.

Unlike the forceful male betta, their counter partner are not as aggressive. Female bettas can live together given that there are enough room to swim around.

You can easily tell apart a male from a female betta. Colors and shape of the body are different. Female betta have less color pigments and appear dull or faded, they have short tail and fin, but bigger stomach in contrast to their body. Female bettas are not as popular among fish enthusiasts choice of showcasing.

Investing in a betta can truly bring great satisfaction to you in ways that other expensive salt water fish may have. This might be the best investment you can make to share the experience and beauty of an exotic fish.

Betta Tank

When it comes to choosing the right tank for your betta fish, not any small cup or the cup you originally purchase your betta in will do.
Not to say you’ll need a fish tank as big as eight to ten gallon for one betta either, that’s overworking yourself.

Housing your betta in a small tank that constrict the movement of your fish will stress him out. Stress fish die sooner. Small tanks gets dirty too fast while big tank takes too long to clean. You want a tank that is roomy enough for your fish but small enough for you to clean and do your regular betta water change.
An Ideal betta tank for one fish you should keep in mind,
measure twice as long as your betta from head to tip of the tail. The width and height of the tank should be of similar measurement as well. Another method would be choosing a tank that is about half gallon to about three gallon will also work well.

Although you may be intrigue that a round glass tank would indicate a good betta tank, unless you like to see your fish through a magnified view tried to
avoid using a round gold fish bowl or any round tank for that matter.
Flat clean glass or plastic side wall tank can make all the difference when you wish to enjoy the vital aspect of your exotic pet.

People has gotten creative when selecting betta tank. A cubicle glass jar has work well as a betta tank and in addition with live water plant on top. Letting only the roots of the water plant emerge into the betta’s water to provide growth for the plant, this display is quite breathe taking when done right. Live plant can generate addition oxygen for your betta as well, putting in a win win situation for both combination.

The Chinese lucky bamboo plant is one of the many water plants that works well with this application. Your betta will be happy as long as you provide enough open space for oxygen to get in and able to feed your betta from the top.