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I havee been through your betta post, I must have been through it before as there was a post by me, but it was years ago. It was very interesting and a shame most of the photos have now gone. Probably a similar time ass your thread I went to my local garden centre and they were doing away with the pet department (assume it was losing money) and clearing that out. I saw a 20L bare tank that had 3 betta which looked like females that they were going to discard as they were 'left over' so I said I would take the fish and the tank, and they agreed. I didn't really want another tank but decided I would put it next to the kitchen sink so I ccould watch the fish whilst I did the washing up. The 3 betta never appeared to get on but I only ever saw them when in the kitchen. After a week or so suddenly I saw a lot of what I first thought were baby daphnia, but turned out to be around 100 baby betta, one of the 3 adults must have been a male (short fin so looked like a female) and that would have explained the agression? Now what do I do, I had no idea what was involved in raising babies and anyway was involved in a large project at the house at that time. Ordering anything online would take days to arrive and set up and I didn't have the time to drive around and pick bits up from various places. I did order some micro worms as food from ebay, you feed the worms yeast, and they arrived a few days later. The baby numbers dropped each day (all in that tiny 20L tank still) but I did manage to give away the 3 adults and about 10 babies before shutting down that setup. So I have a bit of experience of what you went through, and why you wouldn't want to do it again. I did have the frogbit for sometime, then tried the larger water lettuce, but they both grew (espcially roots could grow a foot in a week) way too quickly and then I got the duckweed, no idea how that got in there, that stuff is virtually impossible to get rid of, without starting afresh. When I moved I finally irradicated it as the tanks were closed down for moving. The betta I have now is just white with long fins and tail (not dumbo), I told freinds not to get a white one for me, but it actually works so well with the dark tank and black background, so I can see him from across the room! I do suspect he eats the young shrimp though, he is often watching something on the bottom of the tank! I rarely see more than a couple of shrimp at a time and we haven't had any heat above late 20s here this year to have killed any?

I just checked and my whole breeding Betta story is in the forum under Bettas. The pictures were unfortunately lost but at the end -on page 4 I think I managed to find more pictures to show off dad and the babies. It's worth a read if you like Bettas and are thinking of breeding them

The Betta is beautiful I really love his fins although the poor boy gets tired very quickly .he loves to rest on the fern . I had another breeding pair a few years ago and not knowing what I was doing i kept all the fry . it turned into a nightmare -we counted 300 babies - I think I did a write up about them. i had them in an over size 30” tank -3 foot dimensions but only 30” in length. I bred brine shrimp for them and changed 1/2 their water every day. I spent half my day everyday with water changes and setting up the brine shrimp breeding containers. It was an epic journey and one I never tried again ! I didn’t know that most people cull they fry very early on. The blues are blue diamond not blue velvet. I had some very nice ones but once they were left to breed by themselves the black ones are starting to over take the blue. The floating plants in the tank are frogbit . There are some duckweed in the ponds but I throw that away about once a week -it’s a pest weed and illegal in some states - I never seem to get rid of it completely . the tubs are separated into the different colours as much as possible. 1 has mostly Reds -Bloody Mary from my original chocolate shrimp, then another tub has blue/blacks and the middle tub has my fancy tiger culls. i did try the yellows outside but for some reason they don’t like it outside so they live in the tank with theBetta. a few of the Betta babies eating live worms. They were mostly Dumbo Plackats so the short fin variety. A beautiful assortment of colours