betta breeding by accident

Question
I have a female and male veil tail fish. i keep them in seperate tanks for their safty and room. well they were both looking board so when i was cleaning their tanks i put them in a 3rd together for the first for some excitement. well my female, Ruby got large and ate more and was dropping eggs. Rainbow, the male had not build a nest so i looked on the net and it told me to put them together so she could release the eggs into the net and not eat them ofter she looses them in her own tank. so i have them together now in his tank which is larger, 1 gallon. he is making a nest now but he chases her quite fast and i am not sure if he nips at her. should i put some Aqua plus in the water to heal her because she dives to the bottom a lot and i don't want her to get sick. also how long should i leave her in there? i can't watch her through the night to see is all is well but i don't want her to lay her eggs then get killed while i am sleeping. i messed with the breeding thing by accident and i don't know really what to do, can u please help me?

Answer
Hi Laura;

They really are better off separated unless you can watch them. Sometimes the female will beat up the male too. The one gallon bowl isn't big enough for him to raise a brood of babies anyway. It's barely large enough for one betta. With two of them trying to breed and then the eggs and babies it's just too cramped.

It would be best to prepare fully for the whole event if you want to go for it. Get a 10 gallon tank, lower the water level and be sure you have a submersible heater. Bettas need their water to be 80 to 82 for breeding and so the babies will survive. There has to be a cover too or the first breath of air the babies take will be too cold and they will die. Here is a good web page about it;

http://mermaiden.net/Betta/breeding_tips.php

Have fun!

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins