How to care for Betta Fish

Betta splendens is a small Siamese freshwater fish, really common in aquariums for it’s colours, easy care and peculiar behaviour, sadly they don’t have a long life, usually they reach two years old.

Betta is also known as a Siamese fighting fish for it’s intra specific aggressiveness, for this reason it’s impossible to house two males together in the same tank, since they’ll end up fighting to death; males can be aggressive towards females and females can attack each other as well, so keeping one male with two or three females is the best solution to avoid continuous attacks on the weaker fish.

Males can be easily distinguished by females for their long fins and bright colours. In nature male bettas are brown-grey with iridescent green-blue fins and tail, while females are dark brown-grey with light coloured fins. Years of captive breeding has created new colours and fins shape both of males and females. New colours can be divided into:

1) Solid colour, where all the body and fins are of the same colour: cellophane (almost transparent without colour), white, yellow, red, blue, orange, green, black and turquoise.

2) Bi-colour, where body and fins have different colours: Cambodian (white body and red or blue or green fins), chocolate (dark body and cream fins).

Patterns, where body and fins colours follow an organized shape: butterfly (body has solid colour and fins are half of the same colour of body, half of another one), marble (solid or bi-colour with botches on body and/or fins), piedball (light face, no matter the colour of the body).

3) Multicolour, it’s the easiest to find in shops: body and fins can have different colours, but don’t follow a pattern. For example, they can be totally red with violet top fin.

Colour mutation interest both males and females, while only males have peculiar fin shape (some breeders have also the female with mutated fins anyway the difference between them and the standard shape is minimal):

1) Veil tail, is the most common you find in pet store.

2) Delta, Super Delta and Ultra Delta tail, where the shape of the tail looks like a delta and reach a spread of 50 degrees (delta), 120 degrees (super delta), 160 degrees (ultra delta).

3) Half moon, the name says it all, the spread should be from 160 to 180 degrees, but you can find also lower.

4) Double tail, where the tail is divided into two parts.

Aquarium

Basically, there are two solutions for keeping bettas: a dedicated aquarium or a community tank.

In case you want a dedicated aquarium, a 10 gallon is fine for a male and two or three females. Bettas are anabantidae, this mean they can breath oxygen directly in air not in water; for this reason shallow water is necessary to let the fish easily reach the surface and breath, and the classic fish bowl isn’t suitable, because of the poor air circulation; remember also to choose a closed on top tank so the air will be nearly at the same temperature of water, and bettas won’t jump out.

Water must be calm, almost static, so set the filter pump at the minimum speed, temperature must be 77°-80° F (25°-27° C), pH should be near 6.5. Anyway bettas don’t need special chemical values and can live in all clean waters with right temperature. Also the aquarium decoration is a personal decision, gravel or sand (for freshwater) is the best solution. Plants are very important to keep the water clean and to copy the natural fish environment, you can choose fast growing plants such as Cabomba caroliniana or floating plants such as Pistia stratiotes, anyway every other plant that gives a repair for fish is fine. Other complements such as rocks, woods and artificial decorations are a personal decision, remember only to make some hiding-places for females and to avoid decorations that could damage male’s fins.

If you want to put bettas into a community tank, then an anabantidae aquarium is a good decision. Avoid other bettas (i.e. betta imbellis) even if they’re gentle fish, betta splendens could attack them. You can choose Colisa lalia, Colisa chuna, or any small gourami. Also other asiatic fish like Danio rerio or Rasbora are fine, while Barbus are a bad choice since they like to bite long finned fishes and are faster than bettas.

If you want to put bettas with other fish, then two general rules to remember are: not to put them with other long finned like Poecilia reticulata, because males could misunderstand them for other bettas and kill them, and do not put bettas with fast aggressive fish, even if betta is known as a fighter is almost harmless and slow with other fish.

Even though bettas will eat almost anything, to keep them healthy and vibrant, and if you’re considering breeding them, pay attention to their diet. The most common food is chironomus, which can be used dried or frozen and is usually favored by bettas. Worms such as earthworms, tubifex, and mealworms are also good options and can be used either frozen or fresh. Feed your bettas once a day with a small amount of food or every other day with a bit more. It’s important to avoid overfeeding, as excessive fat can lead to swim bladder problems, which might impair their ability to swim properly and reach the surface to breathe.

Breeding

Breeding bettas is relatively straightforward if you have a dedicated tank and healthy, well-fed fish. Once a male betta reaches adulthood, he will begin building a bubble nest on the water's surface. Adding plants can help strengthen the structure of the nest. While bettas may create nests in a community tank, breeding in such an environment is not ideal. The male betta can become very aggressive, making it difficult to care for the fry, which are very small and could be at risk of being eaten or sucked into the filter.

Bettas may spawn from 50 to 1000 eggs that hatch after 2-3 days. Betta male takes care of eggs and fry until they start swimming. Fry eat basically live food, and brine shrimp is the best choice. When they reach two months males start fighting.

Copyright note: This article is originally written by Michela Ferretti. Aqua-fish.net owns the full copyright of this article.