philosophy || basic care || water chemistry || foods || diseases || spawning || feeding fry || home || jar maintenance || genetics
BETTAS by Jim Sonnier
Young Green/Turquoise male showing great form and finnage
Sometime around two months of age the fry will be ready to leave the nursery tank. It will be time to jar them up and care for them individually. If you have 300 or more fry in the rearing tank it might not be a good idea to set up 300 jars and transfer each and every one. The tasks of feeding and cleaning such a large brood could sour the outlook of even the most dedicated breeder. Also the magnitude of the task would necessarily limit the quality of care that you could give to each Betta. Any experienced breeded will tell you that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. So jar up only the best young.
How do you know which ones are the best? There are some indicators you can look for, such as size, color, and finnage. The largest young are probably the strongest and the fastest growing. They will probably turn out to be larger and more vigorous than their smaller tank mates. The brightest colored individuals will probably become the prettiest adults. Or, you may have a specific color goal in mind for the spawn, and select only those that conform to your ideal. Good finnage can often be discerned at a few weeks of age, and you can separate out those that are the best.
If you go by those criteria you may end up with a very large percentage of males. So a prudent breeder will jar up the best fish and continue raising the rest in the communal rearing tank. At the age of about three months it should be easy enough to select some females for jarring if necessary.
So how many should you jar up? It will depend on the amount of space you have available, and the amount of time you can invest in caring for individually jarred Bettas. A good plan would be to jar up 20 to 30 at first and then maybe 10 more a month later. Remember that this may not be the only spawn you will be raising. If you jar up 30 to 40 from each spawn it can quickly add up to 200 or more jars to maintain. You do have to feed them at least twice a day and change their water every two or three days.
So what do you feed them? Variety is the key word. You can continue live brine shrimp but now you should alternate with other types of foods. Baby sized Cichlid pellets are excellent and affordable. They are also convenient for measuring out exact amounts of food. Freeze dried Bloodworms and Tubifex worms are very good. Frozen foods offer both variety and quality. Even some flake foods have their place. See foods for more info.
Water changes can be partial or 100%, or a combination of both. Perhaps change 50% of the water every day. Or change 100% of the water every two or three days. Whatever you choose to do, it will be a lot of work. If you can't make the required commitment your results will be mediocre to disasterous.
How fast will they grow? Well, that depends on many factors, such as foods fed, the quality of your water, frequency of water changes, and the genetics of the fry. If you can achieve the sizes listed below you are doing a good job...
| Age | Size |
| 1 month | 1/4" to 3/8" |
| 6 weeks | 1/2" to 5/8"+ |
| 2 months | 1"+ |
| 10 weeks | 1-1/4"+ |
| 3 months | 1-3/4"+ |
| 14 weeks | 2"+ |
| 4 months | 2-1/4"+ |
Some people do better than that, and some do not do as well. It depends on your level of commitment and many other factors. Perhaps you can use the chart as a rough guide.
philosophy || basic care || water chemistry || foods || diseases || spawning || feeding fry || home || jar maintenance || genetics
This page was last updated on 02/05/13
Copyright © 2002-2013 All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorized use of text, graphics or images is strictly prohibited. No data from this website may be reproduced without express written permission from Jim Sonnier.