Fish Lovers 3.0 [new poll]

[stelpup]

Hello!
In my Betta sorority,
two of my female Bettas keep
brushing past each other and
curling up with each other.
Whatdoes this mean

How females do you have? those two are displaying to each other trying to determine who's dominant

Only two, it's in progress.
Thank you so much for the help.

[MapleNeko]

Hello!
In my Betta sorority,
two of my female Bettas keep
brushing past each other and
curling up with each other.
Whatdoes this mean

How females do you have? those two are displaying to each other trying to determine who's dominant

Only two, it's in progress.
Thank you so much for the help.

Ok you going to want to get your numbers up to a minimum of 5 asap! right now those two will pick and bully each other to death as there are no other females to spread out the agression.

[Checkinder]

Hello!
In my Betta sorority,
two of my female Bettas keep
brushing past each other and
curling up with each other.
Whatdoes this mean

Hey, I'd really not recommend keeping them in sororities ;o;
They're really stressful and detrimental to the fish's health, and even when they seem to work can collapse with many issues before you can even realize something is wrong. All bettas, even female ones though advertised as "friendlier", are hostile to their own kind.
There should be some good articles around that I'd recommend giving a read before continuing further!

[Alpen]

Two of my four bettas that I ordered online :> all are happy and healthy and doing super well! Top is male and bottom is female, she's the only female so far.


Idk if you can tell but they're in separate 10 gallon tanks. I have two others that are in a 10 gallon and a 20 gallon. One on the way from Thailand that's going in another 20 gallon. Lotsa tanks

[.ｃｈｅｒｒｙ ｂｌｏｓｓｏｍ.]

Two of my four bettas that I ordered online :> all are happy and healthy and doing super well! Top is male and bottom is female, she's the only female so far.


Idk if you can tell but they're in separate 10 gallon tanks. I have two others that are in a 10 gallon and a 20 gallon. One on the way from Thailand that's going in another 20 gallon. Lotsa tanks

What beauties! I'm honestly glad that someone actually keeps them in appropriate housing. Pet stores like PerCo say they can live in 2 gallon tanks but this is not true. People cram them into tiny tanks as decorations, and it just depresses me. Some friends of mine actually did a unofficial test on betta housing. They kept 3 betas in seperate 2 gallon tanks, and five betas in 10 gallon tanks like yours. The bettas in the 10 gallon lived twice as long and were much happier. I'd say that the lowest you could put a betta in is a 5 gallon. And only if you put it in a enriching environment. Thanks for keeping them in such great conditions ^^

[Alpen]

Yeah I agree! It's very disheartening to see. I am going to eventually split their tanks but at most only two bettas will be in the 10 gals and 3 in the 20s. I'm slowly upgrading the quality of heaters, switching to spongefilters, adding more plants, etc, so that's what I'm gonna focus on before separating. The kits I got were store brand but pretty dang cheap and after some diy on the filters they work for now..so lol @_@ I have lots of plans for how I want things to look, just gotta buy things slowly OTL

[jayus]

Yeah I agree! It's very disheartening to see. I am going to eventually split their tanks but at most only two bettas will be in the 10 gals and 3 in the 20s. I'm slowly upgrading the quality of heaters, switching to spongefilters, adding more plants, etc, so that's what I'm gonna focus on before separating. The kits I got were store brand but pretty dang cheap and after some diy on the filters they work for now..so lol @_@ I have lots of plans for how I want things to look, just gotta buy things slowly OTL

Splitting tanks can be pretty stressful for the bettas. They can still tell that there's another betta nearby, and sometimes they can even see through the divider. There's lots of stories of bettas jumping over the divider and causing bad injuries or death to the other betta. If one fish gets sick, there's a high possibility of the other fish getting sick. When I split tanks, it didn't go well. I had one betta who could see through and spent his whole day against the divider floating and trying to fight. I moved him into a different tank, but both the bettas in the split tank got sick. Additionally, filtering didn't work so well with the divider. I ultimately put in two dividers and put the filter in the middle, but that was just choosing mediocre filtering for both bettas. Before I did that, I had the filter on one side. That one side was pristine, but the other had film over the top and there was not much water movement at all.
You can still try it, but ultimately I recommend against splitting tanks.

[Alpen]

What type of divider did you use?
I'm still going to try it. I'm actually working with my dad currently to create some type of filtration that goes along the back of the tank (shortening the individual sections by about 1-2") and then sponge filters in each section, since they're pretty cheap and easy to replace.
We have a general idea for how the dividers are going to be placed and I'm researching non toxic black paint for the dividers, tiny holes drilled into them for circulation but not big enough for them to really see each other. Considering making individual coverings for each section so they're unable to jump, but I have uncovered tanks now with no problems as of yet (not saying I WONT...just don't have any currently, I'm watching them though). I could also go with the option of no holes on the divider and only on the back filter section
I like the basic idea of this https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 1423034507 but bigger, better, and more suitable for bettas (i.e. Black dividers so they're not in "fite me" mode all the time)
Idk. It's still sort of up in the air until I can afford it next month, but got some ideas flowing!

[flyteck]

Just going to pop in and say I've had bettas in a divided tank and they were both totally fine - they spent about a week being nervous and twitchy and then calmed right down. I can't say if it'll always work but it's worked well for me in the past.

[Checkinder]

I'm with Jay on the whole divider thing!
Not only can it lead to unnecessary stress, it can lead to illnesses being spread between the two a lot easier. It would be a lot better to just give the two a full tank to themselves unless it's COMPLETELY unpreventable.
Betta are able to sense the presence of another, whether they show the signs of stress or not. The stress can lead to one getting sick which falls back to my first point where when one gets sick the other is likely to as well.
For the well-fare of the bettas, separate tanks is best!