After successfully bred betta, you thought the hard part is done but actually it just begin :)
Raising betta frys start from when frys free swimming, which is around 4-5 days after female laid eggs and male put eggs to bubble nest, this is when we count their age, day 0. They need their first meal.
0-2 Day:
The best food in first 2 days is to provide infusoria or microworm, because frys could be too small to even eat baby brine shrimps. If baby brine shrimps is only thing you have, know that there are several type of baby brine shrimps and some type maybe bigger than other. There are so many brands and they don't very specifics about this so you may need to pay attention. If your brine shrimps is too big, chance your frys won't eat it.
Through out this process we always try to maintain water temperature at 80-82F. Higher temperature will increase frys diet, avoid fungus, in general make everything better.
3-7 Day:
Food: From 3rd day, frys can easily eat live hatch baby brine shrimp, feed carefully with small portion 2-3 times a day. After I hatch and collect brine shrimp, I put them in a 32oz cup with air bubbler, they can survive like that for 2 days and I will use brine shrimp net to scoop them out and feed my betta frys. During that 2 days we should start to hatch another batch.
Water: If you feed carefully, you don't need to do water change during this time, frys still too small to produce much waste. Also it would help if you can drip in the water. Usually our breeding water level is about 3 inches, you can drip water in slowly another inch a day. This is to help the water quality but also keep it stable.
Light: I find it help to put breeding tube near windows, or in shade or have an aquarium light. Frys knowing day and night time and when to eat to start develop their habit.
8-14 Day:
Food: Continue to feed baby brine shrimps 2-3 times a day, increase portion as frys is now bigger.
Water: Put some live plants, a small sponge filter with very low current settings to help with water quality. Do 30-50% water change a day will greatly help frys growth.
14-30 Day:
Food: This probably where I'm struggling most, baby brine shrimps is not enough nutrition to feed them, they are not big enough to eat live black worm (which can buy online or from local fish store). So the best option is culture live moina or daphnia.
Moina vs. Daphnia: they are the same except moina is 1/2 the size of daphnia, so moina would be the best option so you can transfer fry to eat moina much sooner compare with doing daphnia. Adult daphnia could be even bigger than the frys.
Culture Moina and Daphnia is easy but also hard, because they're very easy to crash, I wish local fish store would sell them this would make everything much easier.
Water: After 14 days, you could move them from breeding tube to bigger tank to promote their growth. Keep doing 50% water change would help, if not daily at least twice a week because we want water to stay perfect and reduce Growth Hormone.
30-60 day:
Food: After 30 days, they have grown out of their Frys life, entering their baby live. Now they can start to eat small pellets, flakes, live blackworms. Eating live blackworm will be best option if you can get to it, but finding blackworm in the U.S. is extremely hard. I wrote this blog in Apr 2023, we have been out of blackworm entirely across U.S. for 6 months.
Other option I do is frozen bloodworm but smashing them to small pieces.
Baby betta can go few days without food but strongly recommend feeding them twice a day. Don't over feed because this could lead to problem like swim bladder.
Water: Doing water change frequently will boost their growth significantly. A lot of Floating plant can be used to keep water stable.
60-100 day:
This is my most favorite time, they have grown out of their baby live, now we call them juvenile betta. Juvenile start showing colors, some going through transformation but not complete.
Food: Pellet, Dry food probably best options, because of budget haha.
Water: Keep up with water change to promote their growth. You may need to separate some stunt betta (betta that too small compare to other brother/sister) so they have better chance to grow.
After 100 days:
Start selecting some big, aggressive male for jarring. A lot people asking me how do they jar 100s fishes. That's not necessary. Lets say to you have average 200 bettas in your spawn, among that is 100 males. They won't be 100 males at same size that need jarring same times (unless you're very good breeder, this is very likely). But like me, growing betta in the U.S., after 100 days I have like 5-10% fishes that are adult size (> 2 inches). So I start jarring 5-10 males betta a week. This is also a good time to think about rehoming them. Which if you're interested I have post my experience with that in this Blog.
