Here’s an email correspondence I had recently about breeding beta fish with one of my readers, Nancy. Hope it is useful to the beta fish breeding community:
I’m not sure if you actually have to have either or these, but I’m sure it helps. I have a heater running, and I keep the temperature at about 80F. The first time the fish bred there was no heater, but none of the eggs survived that time, neither did they survive the first time. However, the eggs also did no survive the second time either, when we did have a heater. So I’m not really sure how much of a difference it makes.
Yes, the stryophone cup helps a lot. You’ll notice that sometimes the nest will break when you open the lid of the tank. This is due to changing air pressure from opening the tank. In most cases, the stryophone cup protects the nest, but it also helps to make sure that enough air can get through the lid of the tank so that when you do remove the top of the tank, the pressure does not change. Also, I’ve found that males don’t like building nests unless there’s something above the surface of the water, either the lid of the aqurium is sufficient to provide enough protection, but the cup is definately enough. You can’t go wrong with using a styrophone cup!
I’m not exactly sure what causes the fuzzyiness, but it always helps to lit the water sit for a while so it can cool down to room temperature. When I change the water I actually use hot water from the tap (no cold water), because cold water from the city tap is very saturated (obsorb oxygen very easiler). This causes bubbles to form on the aquirium and fish which can hurt the fish’s gills if they stick to it. I lit the water cool down to room temperature before I put the fish in.
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