# How old is too old for breeding?



## elijahfeathers (Oct 15, 2010)

Alright so, I saw this really lovely platinum white HMPK pair up for sale. And I'm really tempted by them. Also, I'm a little interested in learning to breed at some point in the future. I'm just wondering.... how old is too old for bettas to breed? I'll probably still buy the pair, but if it takes me a couple months to get to the point where I'd be comfortable about giving it a shot, I wouldn't want to put the fish through stress and not wind up with any results. The pair I'm looking at is four months old at the moment. They'd make great pets too, I'm sure. But I want to satisfy my curiosity.


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## MrVampire181 (May 12, 2009)

It's best to breed bettas from 4 to 10 months. You can continue to breed after that but your chance of weaker fry and fewer fry is increased.


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## Dragonlady (Nov 29, 2010)

IMO, anywhere between 6 months up to 1 year of age is ideal for betta breeding. Breeding a 4 month old fish can be done, but there are undesireable traits that might not appear until the fish is older. Males that are at least 5-6 months old seem to be better fathers to their fry. After bettas reach one year of age, it is more difficult to spawn them, but it is possible to spawn bettas at up to 2 years of age. When they are older, they might not recover as easily from nipped fins that often occurs during spawning.


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## 1fish2fish (Sep 10, 2009)

I agree with dragonlady. 4m-1y is a good age range, however I know a breeder who had two good males that were producing up into 2 years old, but generally after a year you want to look for a younger male.


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