Jumping beta

Today I purchased a male and female pair of betas for my son's birthday gift.
I allowed them to remain in the cups that they came in while i prepared a 5g tank for them to live in.That means letting the water sit for 24 hrs...all that good stuff.I took the lids off of the cups and fed them while they waited.Then I made a run to the grocery store.When i returned home i discovered that i had forgotten to put the lids back on the cups and the male beta was...M.I.A.I have had about 6 betas in my life, i've never had one jump out..but i've never kept one in a cup either.
I looked everywhere for him knowing that time was of the essence...if he had not already died.Then i noticed a black ...chunk looking thing on the floor.It didnt look like a fish but more like trash.But i scooped it up anyways.It was the fish, he was all dried up and stuck to himself or balled up.I didnt think he was alive and was about to disposed of the body when i noticed his eyes moving and he gills flexing..ever so slitely.I dropped him back into his cup and "unstuck" his fins/tail from his face and body with my finger.I also attemped to remove carpet hair and other things from his body and 1 hair that was lodged into his gill opening.Then i let him be to see what he would do.He began moving abit and was of course breathing deeply.While he lay in his cup gathering himself...I decided to snag some tank water from an already established tank and fast forward the 5g.I then slowly introduced the hurt male beta and the female to the 5g.Now he is just sitting in the bottom of the tank but very much alive.the female has swam past him and made him scatter and dart a few times...so i know he can swim and there doesnt seem to be fin damge.But what are the side effects of a fish being out of the water.i know that i was gone 45 minutes.i do not know when he jumped out.I do know that he had not been out the entire 45 minutes...he'd be dead.But he was out long enough to dry up quite abit.He was curled into a ball and was stiff.The female every once in a while lays down next to him.
Do you think he will make it?And again, what are the side effects...can a fish recover or might he be too damamged to survive?


And yes i know....a 5g.but lets get my son used to dealing with the 5g for a mth or so...then the 2 betas(if the male lives) will graduate 2 a 10g.This is his first responsibility* And i'm here to help...lol even though i let one jump out and almost die already.



Oh and by the way....on the gourami tank...i moved the plants around and added some to the top.He stopped pacing. thanks for all the help on that guys.

lol, thank you fishman.


So, your saying it wasn't a good idea to take water from an already established/cycled tank and put it in the 10g? dorfish...am still a bit new at this.

Although mine are in a 5g it is not to remain that way for long.



Umm, i dont have a filter in the beta tank......so didnt know i needed to allow the tank to cycle.And thank you Thezoo i took your advice and added some gravel from my exisiting tank.And the water i used from it came from that same tank.


And dork fish...i think you are correct.I have had male and female beta together,no prob.I have kept up to 3 females in a tank with 1 male.Its been a few yrs sence i've kept any fish at all though.
I have never myself kept a beta in a tank smaller than a 10g either or w/o a filtered tank...so this is my first time for all this.
I personally think it depends on the fish.Some are so acustomed to being alone,that they can become aggressive to almost any fish.
A larger space for a male and female pair helps them not to fight.but again..it depends on the fish.i had one beta (named rasputin)that would kill anything with color or with a tail....like a guppy or even a black mollie.I had one(named shakespear) that didn't mind being with anything except for another male beta.He stayed in the tank with 3 female betas and a ton of verious mollies...all he did that was anywhere near aggressive was sometimes eat the baby mollies...his way of controling the tank population,i guess.lol I think they were just small and yummy looking.
Whenever I bought my pair today...they had been stored in side by side cups.This helps.When I brought them home i continued to keep them side by side..neither one of them tried to attack threw the cup.Each time i bought male and females in the past..i left them side by side for a day or so and observed their behavior...if they seemed to want to fight..then they went in seperate tanks..if they paid each other no attention...I placed them together and kept watch for a week or so.

Today we had an emergency...so i had to toss them in together,because if i only put the male in and not the female...then..it might be hard to re-introduce them later....and also..that pair have been at my LFS side by side for atleast a week that i know of.
But anyways..........Im still new on the entire fish topic....or modern fish keeping anyways.And dont know a ton about alot of fish...just the kind i have kept in the past such as mollies, sucker fish, betas , ghost shrimp and guppys. So, i supose i could be wrong on some of this.Again...all fish have their own personality.Some betas may be extra aggressive and others not hardly aggressive at all.

Maybe you could use a tank divider to observe their behavior,if they seem ok to you, then move the tank divider after a few days and keep watch.But i dont know.Im no fish pro.
Before when i had the 3 females........my lfs let me return 2 males before i found one that would co-exist with "my girls".