Betta Breeding Question for the Experts/Veterans

Hello everyone, I am new here, but have been keeping fish for almost 30 years.

I've bred bettas maybe 15-20 years ago and just recently started collecting again.

I've been thinking about something lately, and it's partly in due to my experiences breeding snakes and other reptiles, where multiple males have been used and we've received offspring representing different gene pools from the one female.

This may be too progressive, or just crazy, but here's the question.

Anyone ever do this?
Take two males, one female, condition them for breeding (let the males see the female, make sure she's ready, have them build their bubble nests), and then release one male into the tank, alow him to squeeze out some eggs from the female and fertilize them, place them in his nest, then halfway through, remove him and introduce the other male to complete the job with the other half of the eggs...?

Of course, considering it may be difficult to remove the first male, and that introducing the second male may halt the process, and that the female may not accept him, or that he may kill the female, or that many of the first half of the eggs may get lost, and many other possible factors...

Point is, has anyone ever tried this?

The goal would be to get two different traits from the males mixed with the female...


Thanks much, be back soon, off to get some more fish =)

That will be a question for Khrister

whisper is our betta breeder shoot her a PM

That's defiantly an interesting thought....
Glad to see you finally wandered over How did those little albino tadpoles turn out? Those were cool looking!

Anyone ever do this?
Take two males, one female, condition them for breeding (let the males see the female, make sure she's ready, have them build their bubble nests), and then release one male into the tank, alow him to squeeze out some eggs from the female and fertilize them, place them in his nest, then halfway through, remove him and introduce the other male to complete the job with the other half of the eggs...?

Of course, considering it may be difficult to remove the first male, and that introducing the second male may halt the process, and that the female may not accept him, or that he may kill the female, or that many of the first half of the eggs may get lost, and many other possible factors.
You answered your own qusetion. That is a terrible idea. Someones going to end up getting killed. During the second one with Bettas violent courtship the first nest would get torn apart. You will end up with dead fish and no eggs. Two seperate breedings have to be done. Then you can do a F1 breeding with the fry when they are old enough which is 3 - 4 months old.

Thanks for taking the time to give your opinion on this - I guess if anyone has ever tried it or I would've heard by now.

I think there are many ways to manipulate the outcome here but I won't argue that for now.

I wanted to ask you this - when you suggested to do an F1 breeding with the 3-4 month old offspring, will the original female be ready again at that time?

Is there a certain time to wait before breeding her again? Will she produce fewer eggs if bred too quickly, infertile eggs, or nothing?

Thanks again

Providing she is well conditioned she and also the male can be bred again in two weeks. An F1 breeding would be two siblings. Take the best two (male/female) out of one batch. This would be a F1. F2 would be breeding two of there siblings and so on F3, F4. You can however breed the mother back to one of the fry sons or father to one of the fry daughters these also are F breedings.