You do it for the love of fish. You want to better the breed and add more healthy well bred fish to the world. Yes pet store fish are abused but if you breed good quality and sell to people here or on other fish forums your fish will go to good homes 90% of the time.

I am a hobby breeder I am selling my first spawn off now. It's fun to raise your fish and watch them grow and get color. It's fun to see how the genetics of it all works. I am going to breed one more pair and after that I think I am done. It's a lot of work, time and money. And you are right there are plenty of nice bettas in the world already.

Lots of people breed for show and to win shows and be the best breeders. It takes many generation to make your line just right. Lots of real hard core breeders do it for show and to win shows. Like breeding dogs for show. When I am older am have more time I would like to breed for show.

 

+1 Snowflake.

 

I breed because I love watching "nothing" come to life, grow and mature to later reproduce (whether fish or birds). Bettas just happens to be one of my biggest passions. I DO NOT want to see them extinct. I know their natural habitats have and are still being destroyed. In my area they can no longer be found in the wild. I wouldn't say I "better the breed" which IMO is very subjective (form wise). But I do try my best in terms of not breeding known genetic flaws, whether physically apparent or hidden.

I know many bettas are mistreated in pet shops, but without them being displayed, younger generations may never know about them. . . . this is my main goal - ensuring most fish hobbyists, specially younger generations, know about bettas and hopefully getting them "addicted". More demand means people will always breed bettas which will ensure their existence.

 

thank you everyone that really helps me make my desision ...it makes me want to breed even more but i will have to wait till i have the funds the place and the right equipment

 

Keeping fish for over 20 years I am in love with fish - all fish. But over the last few years my health has declined drastically. I had a few pet bettas and the addiction was hard to only have a few as I always wanted more. So with my health going downhill and making it nearly impossible for me to work - my boyfriend bought me everything needed to breed these little ones.. he wanted me to have something to do that would make me happy. I thought I was in love with bettas before, but once I started breeding and seeing what I've created.. I fall in love with them more with each spawn I have.

So now I spawn to help keep me active and yet relax me at times and to put a smile on my face whenever I'm having a bad day Love my little fish!

 

I think through breeding yourself, you can breed quality strains (not only color wise, but health wise as well!). Most pet-stores will acquire fish at the cheapest rate possible, and they won't care if the breeder's fish have a variety of genetic problems (high rate of tumors, etc.).

Also in my personal opinion, the solution to abused Bettas in pet-stores is definitely NOT buying them. I mean, they abuse them, and you spend money to buy them. So the pet-store thinks, "Hey I got profit!" and abuses more Bettas to get more profit. Therefore if there are more breeders that actually care about how their Bettas are treated and educate their buyers on how Bettas should actually be kept, it should eventually improve the general misconception that Bettas can be kept in cups.

 

Very interesting ....

Let say we want to find a 'mate' for our Pet of certain type betta and we are thinking go Crossbreed, is there some guide in choosing the type of breed for the cross?

any resource/ website / book that would illustrate the possible offspring outcome?

 

Some of the info you need is likely to be in these threads

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=99625
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=97189

Seems like a complicated business with few guarantees.

 

Try this for starters:
Form Breeding

 

It's something I'd love to try if I had more space to do it. As is, my one tank is about my limit.

Besides thinking bettas are just fab, I'd love to toy with the genetics, and yes, show my fish.

 

I wanted to offer a different perspective, because the type of betta I keep and breed aren't normally found in most pet or fish stores. To be more precise, I exclusively keep and breed several species of wild betta, some of which are fairly endangered in their native home.

Probably the main reason I do this is because without captive breeding programs in place, these fish face a grim future. Many wild betta species are facing habitat destruction on a rapid scale and some are teetering on extinction.

I am unlike most breeders on this forum, in that I don't breed for either pet or show betta. I want the majority of my fish to go into breeding homes themselves so that the survival of their species can be guaranteed for future generations.

If you are uncomfortable with breeding bettas while so many live and die on the shelves of pet and fish stores the world over, perhaps species conservation might be worth looking into.

 

thanks you everyone ..and "LittleBettaFish" that is just maybe what i should look into thank a lot