Breeding Betta's: Selecting Stock

So you want to breed bettas?
Find out what you will need to get set-up, how to select the right breeding stock, how to spawn your pair.
Find out why your last attempt failed, find out how challenging and how much fun it is to breed these darn fish :) and why it is best to keep your hobby under control (or least try?) (yeah, right!)

Avoid pet store bettas like the plague.
Pet store bettas are not suitable breeders for many reasons, but here are just a few:
they are too old. Old bettas have no sex drive .
Most bettas live only 2 years, most of them stop spawning when they are about 14 months and most pet store bettas are already 1 year old or older they are often unhealthy.
They have the wrong tail type. 99% of pet store bettas are veil tails and veils tails are a thing of the past. Meaning that no reputable breeder breeds veil tails and that the current betta finnage standards have long bypassed the veil tail mutation.
We are on to bigger and better things, such as halfmoon tails, delta tails , Double Tails and crowntails. A veil tail is not even allowed to show on the circuit and has no retail value. It will be hard to sell the fry.
last but not least they have no set genes.
Meaning they are "mutts", a blend of tons of different genes, the result of none selective breeding, meaning were breed at random without any breeding goal (other than producing tones of cheap bettas to make quick money). You will never be able to accurately predict the outcome of any spawns from pet store bettas.
Further more they all carry major faults which would take years and years of hard work to rectify, such as red washes on blue bettas, or blue iridescence on red bettas, bad DT splits and other hidden flaws and deformities.

Pick the proper size breeders. If your male is big, then pick a big female. But if he is small then you must find a suitably sized female for him.
The rule is the female should be of equal or lesser size then the male. Never bigger. Do not worry about the female being "full with eggs" this is just a bunch of #@*! and all females will produce eggs, whether they look big or not. Sometimes, a female that is "full of eggs" will actually become a problem for the male who can no longer wrap around her properly, resulting in failure to fertilize the eggs.

Pick the proper strain according to your bettabilities. Not all strains were created equal :) and some of them are much more challenging than others.
Melanos are a good example and very often will be hard to spawn.
Halfmoon males are also notorious for being horrible breeders.
My advice is: pick a strain according to your bettabilities. If you are just starting, pick one that is easier to breed even if it is not your favorite color. One has to start somewhere and you still have a lot of learning to do. Later when you know what you are doing (as though we EVER do !! LOL) then you can move to fancier, rarer and more fragile, temperamental and expensive strains.

Always buy breeding stock in pairs. It is always best to get both your male and female from the same breeder. If at all possible, you should buy a brother and sister. If no siblings are available then ask the breeder you are buying from to select a suitable mate for your betta with compatible genes.
This is a very important detail too often overlooked by beginners! Unless you have both pieces of the puzzle, you will not be able to successfully reproduce the traits of the strain you have selected. It is imperative that you deal with a breeder that has extensive genetics knowledge otherwise he or she will not be able to adequately match a pair for your needs. That is another reason why you should never buy breeding stock form a "green" breeder, regardless of how nice the betta photos on his or her site are.
Again, cutting corners at the beginning will usually result in major set backs in the end. So you get what you pay for and it is best to spend an extra $20 or $50 buck and get started on the right foot. Many beginners also have the misconception that one should not breed a brother or sister together because you would get inbred fry.
seriously, here are a few reasons why it is imperative to purchase more than just one pair of any strain at one time:
the one pair you would otherwise end up with might not like each other. Bettas have tastes and personalities and not every time you put two together you end up with a love connection. No love, no spawning. (what part of no did you not understand?). If you have a back up pair you can try pair #2, or even criss-cross male #1 with female #2 and male #2 with female #1. You have 4 possible configurations and 4 times more chances of getting a pair that clicks and getting a spawn.
one male might not be a good breeder, but his brother might be. Having a back up male could save the day.
one male or female might become sick and be out of commission. Then what will you do? Go back to the same breeder and hope (or pray) that he or she will still have any pairs from the same spawn left? (dream on, good breeders sell their stock super fast and you will be left out of bettaland).
Also you will have to spend another $20 just to ship an extra pair which could have been avoided by having it shipped along with the first pair for the same shipping fee in the first place.
again, since outcrossing is generally speaking not a very good idea, then unless you have two pairs, you will have to outcross if the only one pair you do have fails you. Your breeding program might be set back by about 3 years that way.