Choosing Bettas to Breed

The most important part of breeding bettas is selecting a pair to breed.  Choosing the wrong pair can result in deformed fish who die early, have bad quality of life, or are sickly.  Knowing the lineage of a betta can help, but often we are not afforded this knowledge.  Instead we must choose based on guidelines.

2. Choose what Betta Type you want to breed

Between Wild Types and Splendens, there are many types of bettas to decide from.  In fact, there are at least 72 breeds of bettas!  Betta Splendens is the breed of bettas commonly found in pet stores and will be the focus of this page.  However, you can learn more about types of bettas and their history at the IBC History of Bettas page, as well as the Wikipedia page.

Here are some imperative things to know when choosing types

1.  Doubletail bettas cannot be bred directly to otherDoubletails.  This will cause severe spine deformities for the fry.  A Halfmoon Doubletail should be paired with a Halfmoon, and a Plakat Doubletail should be paired with a Plakat to ensure the fry will have better health and form. 

2. Halfmoons with excessive tail size can struggle to swim.  Some will even chew off their own tails so that they can swim better.  When choosing a partner for a HM with a large tail, consider finding one with a more moderately sized one.  The same goes for bettas with the Dumbo gene.  For this reason, bettas who are "rose tail" can be seen as unethical as the weight of the tails make their quality of life poor.  

3. Crowntail fins needs impeccable water conditions for their rays to develop cleanly.  Your water parameters must be perfect for growth, with no hard water.  Having access to an RO Water system is a must for this tail type.   Halfmoons can have similar issues with fin growth in hard water.

4. With the exception of Doubletails, all tail types should be paired with the same type.  HM to HM, CT to CT, PK to PK, etc. 

5. Should you mix types you can expect muddied finnage with a leaning towards the dominant halfmoon tail.

Here are some examples of tail and fin types

3. What to look for in a betta for breeding 

Betta fry will inherit the traits of their parents.  If a parent has a small tail or head deformation, this can be exacerbated in the fry.  Choosing the most perfect betta for breeding is not cheap, but is absolutely a must.  There are a few key traits to look for in a betta for breeding, both physical and personality. 

Below are examples of bad toplines, body shapes, or ones you cannot view properly, that would not be good for breeding.

Excellent Finnage : 

This is where the IBC Standards really come in handy.  You should be comparing every betta you consider to the PDFs provided by Holland Betta  Show.  

Bettas should be flaring or posturing so you can see their full finnage.  Videos are best for this as photos can hide flaws or make flaws appear where they are not.  If a seller does not show videos, ask!  If they cannot provide them, look somewhere else.  Always check that you are purchasing What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG ) bettas, and not a similar one.

Imperfections in a bettas fins can be a genetic deformity that repeats in your fry!!!  Do not assume that a tiny tear in a fin is from an injury.  They can be inherited.  In the example below, 3 different bettas have the same divot in their anal fin next to a dark red stripe.  Choosing any of these bettas to breed risks having fry with the same deformity.

A Strong Personality : 

After identifying bettas that you are interested in breeding, it is important to consider their personality.   You should wait several weeks after purchasing a fish to evaluate their personality to make sure they are healthy, and healed if they went through shipping or illness.  This also gives you time to condition your fish.  Unfortunately it is hard to know a betta's personality until after they have been purchased and brought to your home.  Videos from sellers can be helpful though! 

Males
Male bettas should be lively and easily flare when presented with another betta, mirror, or flare stick.  They should posture, dance, and build nests.  Sometimes this is a trait that needs to be trained and is part of conditioning.  (See Conditioning Bettas below)  Be wary of bettas who do not react strongly to others, hide, or do not take to flare training.  I find that shy males are extremely difficult to breed, or do not breed at all!  They often are highly susceptible to sickness from breeding, and will sometimes die after attempts.  

If a male has the right temperament, he should be firm with the females, but not too aggressive as to hurt them more then small nips on fins.  My breeding males do not rip fins, but this has taken years of selecting males with the right temperament to build this trait. 

Females
Female bettas should also be lively, and react to male bettas when placed next to them.  I like to find females who watch the males closely as they posture, or even flare back.  Females who try to hide or freak out when presented to males are too fearful and should not be bred.  On the flip side, females who are too aggressive should not be bred either as they can kill a male. 

When in the breeding tank, a female should dance back a little, but ultimately should lower their heads to the male to show they won't fight, and should hide while he builds the nest.

In the event that both bettas are well conditioned but don't seem right for each other, having other conditioned bettas on hand to swap out can help!  For example, I had a bold female that was too much for a more neutral male.  I had placed them in the spawning tank at the same time as another pair who had a more firm male.  I moved the bold female with the firm male, and placed the more neutral pair into a different pond and had two successful spawns! 

Color : 

Only after a betta has passed the other requirements can color be considered for breeding.  I won't pretend to know even a fraction of what goes into betta color genetics, but will do my best to share what knowledge I've gathered through trial and error, as well as link more in-depth pages where you can deep dive.  

There is so much that goes into a fry's color that is impossible to predict the outcome without knowing the lineage of both parents.  Below are 4 examples of pairings and what colors they produced.  

My goal for all of these spawns was to create more koi/marble bettas.  

• In Example A, pairing sibling koi x koi got 80%  koi and cellophane bettas, cellophane being basically a wildcard marble gene, and 20% Blue Mustard Gas.  This was the expected outcome.

• In Example B, pairing a koi with a purple betta produced 50% koi/marble bettas, and 50% solids.  Of the koi I got, all but 1 marbled to blue within 6 months.  Also, many of the blue bettas had the butterfly gene which was not present in either parent.

• In Example C I paired a koi with a dalmatian betta.  Dalmatian lines are typically only paired with other dalmatians, so there was little genetic diversity for other colors.  This pairing produced 1 koi betta, 2 dalmatians, and the rest were bi-colors.  

• In Example D, pairing identical wilds created 100% wild bettas.  This was the expected outcome as their lineage has not been tampered with.

With this we can see how the genetic makeup of the parents heavily influences how the fry will appear.  Having a history of the parents is the best way to have predictable fry, but pairing similar bettas can help too.

4. Purchase your bettas to breed 

Before purchasing your bettas, I encourage you to read the rest of this guide to know the whole process of what you are getting into. 

How much to budget on your parent bettas? 

Selecting quality bettas should be your highest priority when breeding.  As discussed above, the traits of your parents will be passed on to their fry.  One betta carrying the dwarfism gene can create sick bettas for generations to come.

Personally, I recommend buying 3-4 bettas that you want to breed.  This ensures that if one betta isn't right for spawning, that you have options to fall back on.  

I typically spend $150-$200 (including shipping) when bringing in new bettas as potential breeders, between $30-100 per fish depending on what I am after.  I have seen some of the harder to find bettas with excellent quality be upwards of $150.  Rare types, color, and excellent form can quickly make bettas go up in price. 

Where to Buy Bettas from? 

This is honestly a hard question to answer.  Some of the easier places to get bettas in the US have some incredible fish available, but also genetic tragedies.  Instead of focusing on a singular place, you should be identifying potential breeding bettas at multiple locations and seeing who has fish that meet your goals.  Here are some places to look:

• Join your Local Aquarium Group and connect with other breeders in your area.  See if there are any fish that are locally bred that you would like to have a spawn with.  Be sure to ask if they are comfortable with you buying for the purpose of breeding!

• For online US fish sellers, check out my USABettas Page!

• Ebay can be a surprisingly good place to look!  I've found some amazing fish from importers near me. 

• Import from overseas.  Thailand and Singapore have reputations of producing some of the nicest fish in the hobby.  Some recommendations include Just Betta, and Fishy Hub. 

• Connecting with sellers on Facebook who can source fish for you.  This is hit or miss and should be done with scrutiny.  It is important to be direct and firm on what you are after, but there are many overseas sellers who have found fish from other people in there area matching my description.  I have been very impressed with fish found this way. 

Should you breed Pet Chain Bettas?

No.  Full stop, not a consideration in the slightest,  Bettas at stores like Petco and Petsmart are not treated well and have questionable ethics surrounding their sourcing and care.  They come with illness and physical trauma due to poor treatment and shipping.  Additionally, purchasing bettas from chain petstores encourages them to get more.  I do not endorse buying bettas from chain Petstores at all, and especially not with the purpose of breeding them. 

How to Import with a Transhipper

Transhipping is the process of bringing a fish from overseas into the US.  It requires a few extra steps, but is sometimes cheaper then buying locally.  

The first thing to know is that you will pay 4 times when using a transhipper. 

1. Payment of the fish directly to the seller.  This is whatever price you negotiated with the seller. 

2. Payment to the International Transhipper to ship the fish to the US.  This is usually around $5-7 per fish. 

3. Payment to the US Based Transhipper to pick up the fish from the airport. This is usually around $5-7 per fish. 

4. Payment to ship the fish from the transhipper to you.  Usually around $15 flat fee if under 6 fish, though can be more for next day shipping.
   (This can be skipped if you are able to pick up the fish directly from the Transhipper) 

To estimate how much a fish will cost you, add $15 to the cost of each fish, then add the US shipping to the total.  This should be at the high end of your estimate.

As an example, if I wanted to buy 2 fish both costing $20 each, I would add $15 to each fish and $15 for US shipping.  So it would be 20+20+15+15+15 = $75 to import 2 fish and ship them to me  Even with these extra fees, it is often times cheaper to import high end fish then try to find and buy within the US.  I have gotten some incredible bettas for $15-30 internationally plus shipping costs.  Compare this to a LFS selling  high end bettas for $65 each and it's a great deal!  

5. Final Notes

You can do everything right.  You can choose the highest of quality bettas, source from reputable places follow every step perfectly, and still fail.  My advice is to purchase multiple bettas so you can see which is best for breeding in person.  Be prepared to pivot if something isn't going right.