As the popularity of keeping betta fish as pets continues to sky rocket, we have seen more and more people reaching out with various questions about taking care of betta fish with each month that goes by.
With many people keeping a single male betta fish, we have seen a number of people reaching out and asking questions about destroying their bettas bubble nest.
Sometimes this is intentional while at other times it is accidently and the bubble nest may be damaged or destroyed when changing the water in your bettas tank.
Either way, we have seen a range of different questions about destroying bubble nests from the community so we have decided to publish this article going over them all and sharing our thoughts on the more commonly asked questions that we see.
With such a range of questions about damaging or destroying a betta fish’ bubble nest being asked, we have added our table of contents below. It should allow our readers to skip to specific questions within the article as quickly as possible without having to waste time.
Should You Worry About Destroying Your Bettas Bubble Nest?
If you keep a single male betta fish in your tank and have no plans to breed betta fish then there is no need to worry if you damage or destroy his bubble next as there is no practical need for it.
Your betta is simply following its instinct to build a bubble nest but is not aware that a female betta will never be added to his tank and he will usually just rebuild the bubble nest after the first one is destroyed anyway.
We see some people going out of their way to avoid trying to destroy the bubble nest of their betta fish as they feel bad about it so they take considerably longer than needed with water changes to prevent the bubble nest from being damaged.
With the water change process then taking longer and longer to do, it becomes more of a chore and less likely that you will do it.
It is more important to maintain your betta fish’ water parameters and change water as required than to maintain a bubble nest that will never have eggs in it.
Try not to focus on damaging or destroying the bubble nest during your water changes but on the fact that maintaining the water parameters of your betta fish keeps it alive and healthy so get the water change done as quickly as possible so you keep it in your routine of tank maintenance and don’t worry about the bubble nest being destroyed or damaged.
Will A Male Betta Fish Rebuild A Destroyed Bubble Nest?
Most male betta fish will rebuild a damaged or destroyed bubble nest in their tank as their instinct drives them to maintain the best bubble nest that they possible can in case a female betta with eggs turns up.
If your betta fish’ bubble nest is destroyed during a water change there is a very high chance that he will simply just rebuild a new nest and forget about the old one.
Keeping your male betta fish occupied with building his bubble nest after destroying an old one can actually work to your advantage depending on what else is in his tank.
If your betta is usually aggressive to any algae eaters you have in the tank with him then the aggression may taper off as he builds his bubblenest unless he feels threatened.
This then frees the algae eater tank mates up to eat as much algae as possible in the tank without your betta fish pestering them while he continues to rebuild his bubble nest over and over.
The instinctual drive for betta fish to maintain a high-quality bubble nest is so high that it is common that they will just ignore their other tank mates while building the initial parts of the bubble nest helping to keep aggression low provided a female betta is not added to the tank.
What Happens If A Bubble Nest Is Destroyed With Eggs Or Fry In It?
At times a bubble nest that contains eggs or fry may accidently be destroyed but this tends not to be as bad as most people think.
Both the eggs and fry can survive in a tank without a bubble nest and if you have a dedicated breeding tank without any other tank mates then they should be fine.
As we covered in our article going over taking care of betta fry, you may actually be doing the betta fry a favour by destroying the bubble nest as it forces them to seek shelter elsewhere away from the male betta who will happily eat his own babies.
We have also seen people worrying about eggs but many betta eggs end up unfertilized anyway, especially if the male is inexperienced. We have an article on how you can tell if your betta eggs are fertilized that may be helpful if you are trying to breed betta fish.
The purpose of the bubble nest is to collect all of the betta eggs in one place to make it easier for the male betta fish to protect them from potential predators.
In a breeding tank, this is not usually needed and most people will remove the parent betta fish once the fry hatch from the eggs to protect them anyway defeating the purpose of the bubble nest at this stage.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over destroying a bettas bubble nest to an end. For the most part, there really is nothing to worry about if you end up destorying the nest of your bubble fish and it is more likely that your male betta will simply build a new one.
If you are actively trying to breed your betta fish then you should usually take care of the bubble nest when the fertalized eggs are in there but the eggs can be fine without the nest if needed.
Once the eggs hatch into fry, they are usually better off hiding amongst live plants or other cover in the tank away from the parents if possible as betta parents will eat their own children.
