learn from my mistake...

[ladykemma2]

i recently set up a 125 show tank. i had watched a number of YouTube videos on how to have more than one betta in a large enough tank. i thought tank was big enough.

well, i set up the 125 to have a "betta zone" at each end of the tank, floating pothos, root masses, anubias, driftwood.

male and female from my classroom tanks bought home for the summer. what a disaster. male beat up on female. she had her tail ripped, and was hiding in the holes of the driftwood. i waited a week, and it didn't improve.

i posted a listing on "free stuff", i gave away the male to Lam, who came over and got him, along with some molly fry. thanks Lam!

my female is happy and healing and no longer hiding. it's her tank now. so in spite of the youtube videos, this was a disaster. learn from my mistake.

[InarisDivineDesign]

I had a male Betta with female in a 30 gallon and he mostly bothered her when she changed colors indicating that she was ready to breed. She dropped eggs more than 3 times now and I gather that the bigger issue is that she won't fail to drop eggs. I think that what happens to the male Betta is that since he has to do all the work with the eggs he starves for 2-5 days while the eggs are incubating which might make him hypoglycemic. In human medicine, hypoglycemia causes irritability and aggression. I introduced the female before she got her color and she was a rosy/pink albino (1-3 months) who later turned out to be have a red half-moon tail at puberty, but he still didn't bother her until she swelled with eggs. He never cared to notice her and was never bothered by her until she got her stripes which means she wants to mate. When she was a baby she'd nip and bite him and he would not chase her away. They were not successful with any of the eggs and he mostly chases her away for that reason. I read on the internet that males can honestly starve to death if too many females drive them into nesting mode non-stop. They are still together but I am going to get her a sorority to live with and give him his own tank. If I were to add more than one female and they all drop eggs just at the sight of him he is going to be out-competed for food before his fry even out-eat him by the egg-dropping females. They don't have to be fertilized. If the females begin dropping the eggs he goes to catch them, and so they even had a few dud nests. That is likely the rationale to explain why it is that males truly despise the females in this fish class. The females drop eggs and eat them mercilessly, so they don't mind dropping eggs. If there were more than one female, it could be possible that only one gets fertilized while the other drop eggs and then they all have a buffet except for the male who can't tell which is fertilized and which egg is not. These are my observations of the Betta behavior and courtship. They also have co-habited a 10 gallon, and he tolerates her until she gets her stripes and the only time he nips her fins and tail is when she raids the nest to eat her own eggs. She drops eggs every time he builds a nest. If you imagine people doing what the female betta does, every time he gets a new corner or home she drops eggs without asking. :/ I'm going to put them in a 5 gallon to mate since a water change is all that it takes to get her to want to mate, but I am going to remove them both to try to salvage the eggs. The male can be removed after 3-5 days depending on his stress level, but the females eat most of the eggs before they hatch if you don't remove them. They just sit under the nest in a hide-out, and when he turns his back or catches a falling egg they jet and snatch, or break up the nest, which sends more falling down. The male catches as many as possibly but the female eats all he misses, so if she does this once or twice she will do it until there are not more eggs. She smiles as she does it. That is why the male beats her. He does all the work, so she can destroy his investments of infrastructure and cannibalize his eggs and fry. Everyone makes it seem as if they are bad people, but as fish, the females are honestly cannibals out of instinct, whereas the males can catch his eggs and fry and his mouth and instinctively not eat them. After 3-5 days it is more likely he can eat them, but it might only happen when they are crowded and there is too much competition.

Maybe if you try to see it from a different perspective. Her fins heal between each spawn attempt. Some people might not even notice it if there was not ick or other bacterial infections present to exacerbate any minor injury. If the male is relentless I would separate them, but mine exhibit typical Betta, even some Killifish and dwarf cichlids or Badiss fish have these traits. Most of the marine coral fish that are under 3 inches are also hermit-like and territorial but they don't kill other things if they have their own sense of a corner in the tank.

[ladykemma2]

Interesting. Mine drops eggs and makes her own bubble nest even when there's nobody there. She drops eggs all by herself when she was in her little 5-gallon all by herself. When I introduce them, she did have a breeding Stripes after a couple of days. I thought all was going well.

I got emotionally exhausted for your poor male betta after reading the trials she put him through. is this Behavior normal for bettas?

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[InarisDivineDesign]

Interesting. Mine drops eggs and makes her own bubble nest even when there's nobody there. She drops eggs all by herself when she was in her little 5-gallon all by herself. When I introduce them, she did have a breeding Stripes after a couple of days. I thought all was going well.

I got emotionally exhausted for your poor male betta after reading the trials she put him through. is this Behavior normal for bettas?

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I'm not sure that I can say yes with confidence. I've been watching my female since she was under 2 months as I got her as a baby girl Betta from Petco. The male came larger and was kept in a smaller cup than she had been in a Petco because he came from a private store that used a different container. I want to say it was longer and more narrow as compared to the short and wide containers at Petco, plus she was three times smaller than he was. My girl likes to hide and she even hides inbetween the Corydoras when she is trying to run away from him. If he doesn't stop chasing her she will lay on the bottom of the tank inbetween the Corydoras and he doesn't notice she is a different fish. She has places to hide but there are not other fish to break out their duality as the opposite gender of the same species, and I think that is what really could make the difference. The Corydoras swim to low to do anything, so I was thinking of some neon tetras for the Betta sorority and just formally separating the male.

I have them in a 10 Gallon now but ordered some new pieces for a 29 gallon that I would like to set a Betta Sorority in later. I just watched this video on Youtube on how to keep a tank without filters or CO2 and the person eventually adds Sparkling Gouarmis and I was interested in trying that out in one of the smaller tanks if I move the fish to the larger tank. I was thinking of letting the male betta reside there off-and-on, and if it were planted properly, I could use it as a breeder and fry tank if I remove both the parents, the goal would be to have the good bacteria and possibly live food without contaminating a much larger tank that is harder to clean out. I've kept more boys than girl Bettas because they didn't always sell them as often, so this time I am interested in trying to keep a Betta Sorority. I do believe that they prefer living food and if they had an ecosystem rather than pristine filtered water that they wouldn't have as much time to harass each other as they would be hunting and taking interest in other things. They are very inquisitive and sapient little fish, possibly underestimated, but they have a very important job in the ecosystem and it is to keep bad bacterium and parasites that spawn in water down, so I respect them overall.


I'm trying to figure them out myself.