Female betta question?

reignman40

reignman40

AC Members
Jun 15, 2005
347
0
0
50
Spokane, WA, USA
I recently purchased 2 female bettas from Wal-Mart. (yeah I know but none of the LFS had any at the time)

Anyway, I've heard that multiple females can be kept together. I put them in a 5 gallon tank (my quarantine tank) and within 10 minutes they were going at each other. Does anyone know any tricks to getting them used to each other so I could house them together eventually? A way that doesn't involve hoping they don't rip each other apart?

I was thinking of the possibility of housing them in a larger tank to give them room to sort of leave each other be but I'm not sure if that would make a difference. My thinking there is despite having hiding areas in a larger tank that they would fight again as soon as they see each other. I have them currently seperated but could give them both bigger homes if they could be housed together.

Thanks for any advice,
Curtis
 
In my experience with breeding bettas, to keep a "community" of female bettas requires a larger tank than your 5 gallon. It also depends a lot on the individual temperment of the fish. I've had female fish that had to be kept completely by theirselves or they would shred all other females in the tank. At the very least you need a 10 to 20 gallon tank and a lot of cover such as floating plants will help. Also I wouldn't try to keep just two. I would look around for a few more to spread out their nippyness and allow them to establish a pecking order of sorts.
Hope this helps.
 
Well I have 5 females total. the 2 in question are seperated both in smaller betta only tanks. 3 I purchased together as they were housed in the same tank at the LFS and they are perfectly fine. They don't bother each other or any of the other fish in the tank. (Other then the snails. This I like as the snails were beginning to grow to large amounts)

I guess unless anyone else has another idea I'll probably just have to keep them seperated or wait until I have another larger tank to try them out in.
 
Females will fight for a bit at first until they establish who's on top and on down the line. If there are plenty of places for them to escape from each other during this time they should be alright. Once they establish a pecking order the aggression should diminish. A 5 gallon probably has enough room for about 3 females though. If you want more together a 10 or larger would be better.

You will have to keep an eye out for overly aggressive..or overly passive fish during this time. I did have to seperate one female from the others as she wouldn't defend herself and would end up huddling in a corner with her fins all torn...she was put in a tank by herself. The rest of the group tusseled and tore each others fins up for a bit, but then settled in and are doing fine now...I haven't seen a torn fin on any of them in quite a long while now.

You'll want to be sure the water is kept good and clean during "lets see who's boss" period...so that any torn fins will heal properly.
 
I've also heard that using something like danios as zither fish to keep them distracted helps.
 
I have one danio in the tank with my female bettas...only because he was the only survivor of a batch I had bought. He was the most aggressive of them all and can handle himself quite well with the girls. He is quicker than they are at the dinner table...but the girls manage to grab enough. I have him in that tank only because I didn't have anywhere else to put him. The rams don't like him....lol...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom