female Betta as population control

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Gypsy125

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Jun 11, 2010
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Santa Rosa, CA
As I stated in my post in General Freshwater, my guppy tank is getting overpopulated with baby guppies. So I went out today and got a female Crowntail Betta in the hopes that she could keep the population down by eating some babies. Can a female Betta live with guppies? Will there be fin nipping? By her or the guppies? Right now I have her separate in a 2.5 gal for quarantine - how long should I quarantine her?
Thanks!
 
I doubt she will take much nippin from the guppies; perhaps the odd 1 once in a blue-moon sorta thing.

Though depending on the females personality she may shred the male guppies fins to pieces. *Even with the worst of my females they've never bothered the female guppies*

I rarely quarantine fish as i buy from LFS's who're very reliable and i also check over the fish (and others in its tank) prior to buying for any obvious signs of illness. I'd say give it a week or two if you'd rather be on the safe side.
 
If you are going to QT, it should be for a minimum of 2 weeks. You should go 3 weeks just to be safe.

Like I said in your other thread - you could always net out the smallest babies & throw them into her QT tank. She'll either eat them or have stimulation from chasing, and if there is illness you don't infect your whole 10g guppy tank.
 
IMO she will get nipped a lot. And for population control, I wouldn't suggest a betta, try like 2 mollies. Bettas can be pretty agressive at times and they could go on a frenzy eating all your precious babies. On the other hand, a molly will eat very few, and you might eventually get Gollys/Muppys.
 
Piranha86 said:
IMO she will get nipped a lot. And for population control, I wouldn't suggest a betta, try like 2 mollies. Bettas can be pretty agressive at times and they could go on a frenzy eating all your precious babies. On the other hand, a molly will eat very few, and you might eventually get Gollys/Muppys.
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OP has admitted her 10g is already overfull with guppies... I don't think adding mollies will help, as yes she will begin to have muppies along with too many guppies. I don't even know if one female betta will make that much of a dent, definitely can't keep up with guppy females dropping 20+ babies at a time.
 
I can say from experience that a Betta splendens is not the answer to guppy fry problems. I have a 4 year old male veil-tail living in my endler tank for "population control" and he needs to be fired from that job. He is terrible at it and endlers are even smaller as newborns than guppies. The 45 is simply overflowing with endlers even though I remove and sell at least a dozen adults 4 times a year for local club auctions. Right after I do that, the population bounces back stronger than ever.
 
I managed to net 4 guppy babies out - gave 2 to the female Betta and 2 to the male. The female ate them within a few minutes....let's just say the male is not much of a hunter...:)
BTW I love the female - she is a beautiful deep blue color and very inquisitive. She is swimming all around her 2.5 gal tank and was very surprised when I put some plants (anacharis) in there. Can't wait to put her in the 10 gallon!
 
You do realize that the betta alone is not going to solve your problem... Please work at either setting up another tank to segregate your boys into, or selling off some sub-adults to an lfs. A 10g is already too small for more than a few guppies.
 
I understand that. I have an agreement with a LFS to give them sub-adults, but at this point too many babies are making it. So I'm just hoping that the Betta can cull some of the babies so that there is room for a few to make it to sub-adult at which point I will give them to the LFS.

fishycat said:
You do realize that the betta alone is not going to solve your problem... Please work at either setting up another tank to segregate your boys into, or selling off some sub-adults to an lfs. A 10g is already too small for more than a few guppies.
Click to expand...
 
get a ten gallon tank go to wal-mart and get a crawdad. then just dump all unwanted fish into the crawdad tank.

don't worry about fishing any un-eaten bits the crawdad will get them eventually. if the smell gets too bad then by all means clean out all sources of stench but the craw dad eats all kills all.

i had a molly get sick *proflated intestines or uterous either way i read the survival rate was along the lines of 99% death rate* enough to euthenize so the crawdad had a snack.

i have kept crawdads singularly for a couple of years. and as any one who has kept them can tell you they are all stomach. they eat plants fish shrimps each other any and every thing :)
 
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