So I've decided to breed my male betta.

My male is a BIG blue monster that is bigger than any betta I have ever seen and I've decided to breed him hoping to get some greens of his quality.

I've been shopping around for a female, but I'm being very picky. Aquabid has given me some ideas but I can't really spend $30 on shipping for a fish right now:)

We went to nnnnnn on a whim tonight and they had the PERFECT blue female. Dead in her little plastic coffin. Of course

The guy there said he would have them send in a lot of blue females on Thursday. So I'll go again, but it's not really my idea place for a breeding female.

We went to the lfs and their bettas were HORRIBLE and they had no females. I'm thinking that I can definately find a market for people looking for HEALTHY bettas in my area for my younguns I won't be able to keep.

There is another lfs about 30 minutes away which has a really nice website (apparently they actively import bettas!) - so I'll try there this weekend if I can find the time - luckily Friday is payday;)

Anyway... some quick questions/clarifications...

Firstly, I am currently not planning on actually trying to breed until May. At that time my male will be at least 1 year old. Do male bettas become less breedable over time?

Secondly, I am in the vague understanding that since I have a blue, if I breed him to another blue I will likely get greens, blues, and steels. Right?

Thirdly, am I under the wrong assumption that it's hard to find green females? That would be my ideal... but for some reason I haven't seen any?

Thanks in advance,

Adrienne

nnnnnn is a bad place to buy fish
when they didn't get new stock the fish are
most likely to be dead or be sick

The thing is, if you have bettas from a petstore then you'll likely get colors from all over the spectrum from your fish because they have such mixed genetics. I'm not saying that breeding petstore fish is a waste of time or that petstore fish aren't great pets, but it's really hard to bbuild a breeding program out of fish who are crossed every which way. I've heard that by F5 you can isolate a color and have it breed true even from a betta of dubious birth, but that would be two or three years just trying to build stable breeding stock, and I'm not sure how size inherits, as I don't think anyone has closely studied this.

Breeding petstore bettas is a great way to get experience spawning, especially if you know you can find your kids great homes, but it's really difficult to begin a breeding program with a specific purpose other that "make more bettas" from them :/.

hey yah if u do breed blues its hard to get blue but u will get blues in ur breed. green females r hard to find. the esyest cloer to breed would be reds. but try to get the female the same size or the breeding process would probly kill her or injure her quite a bit. males do loose the ability to breed just like human males do. the best time to breed bettas is wen there chins arnt gray or wite, thats wen there in there breeding prime.