Unusual phenomenon

Question
Hello there, I really need your expertise in this matter...

We have had a male betta for a while, living alone in a 2.5 gallon tank. We recently bought a female betta, and placed a divider in the tank to separate them.

Even before we got the female, the male almost daily made large bubble nests. So we thought it would be a good idea to try and breed him. We put the female in several times with the male, and at first it seemed he liked to attack her, so we separated them again. A couple times later, though, we tried again, and they got along better. He'll swim after her for attention, but doen't try to attack her. She seems unreceptive to him though (In fact she sits at the bottom of the tank, and looks dead. She doesn't move around, but she does not look hurt at all).

The odd thing is that I placed her back in her side of the tank, and she jumped over the divider to get to him. She has done this many times now. So instead of accidently having her flop out of the tank when jumping the divider, we removed the divider. Should we be doing this? Will he try to kill her?

Thank you for your help

Answer
Hi Jen;

Persistent little thing! It may simply be that they are not yet fully "conditioned" or perhaps she is too young. They need to be kept separate unless in the act of spawning so it may mean having another tank with a full lid to keep her safe. He can and will kill her if he gets terretorial and just doesn't want her around. The 2.5 gallon is way too small to breed them in anyway. You will need a 10 gallon just for a spawning tank if you want babies. If you don't want babies to survive, just breed occasionally and let him eat the babies as they get older (about 2 weeks) and start to swim more freely.

Conditioning bettas involves feeding the fish healthy protein-rich foods and keeping them warm (80f)and clean. What we are doing is simulating springtime by making them think there are spring rains, more bugs to eat and warmer temperatures. The female is not ready to breed until fat with eggs and showing her striped body pattern or "barring". Here is a good list of pages about it;

http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Betta,%20Breeding%20basics.htm
http://bettas.fishjunkies.com/Spawning/lesson1.php
http://www.siamsbestbettas.com/breeding.html
http://members.fortunecity.com/markang/breeding.htm#

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins