Equid Phantasm wrote:Well, here goes. I've been called the betta expert before, but although I've been with bettas and Angelfish for many years, I still wouldn't call myself an expert at bettas. Angelfish maybe, but not bettas.
I do know, however, that the sorority tank works ok until one of the ladies "eggs up". Even at 2 inches and full growth, there is a chance with colorful ladies, that one of them is going to egg up. There is where the problem will arise. She will start to defend a territory from the other ladies and then the nipping begins. If she doesn't find a mate and doesn't lay her eggs, you might lose her because she'll become "egg bound."
Egg laying can be forced (If she gets egg bound) with the use of Epsom salts, but I've never had to do it before because as soon as one of my ladies eggs up, she's put in near a male and introduced to him gradually through a "fry catcher" so her water and his water mix before I let them together for the pair to mate.
For certain, a sorority tank is pretty to look at, but if there is one female in it that resembles a male, then the other females could indeed start to egg up and cause problems for the other ladies in the tank. Females can egg up from sight alone, but typically won't lay the eggs unless there is a male with hormones present in the water.
Big breeders in Taiwan and Thailand do have sorority tanks, but they are humongous stock tanks with hundreds of females. That's where the stores mainly get their Bettas from and even on Aquabid and other fish selling sites, a tremendous amount of the fish are imported from Thailand and Taiwan. These breeders still do 1 on 1 breeding of each female who shows signs of egging up.
Equid
Thank you for this Equid. I knew that being in the same water could cause them to egg up, since you normally never put a male and female together unless you want to breed them. But I had no idea that just being in sight of a male could cause it. I've only ever kept males, so I'm good for giving advice with them and keeping them with other types of fish. I've never kept females before, not even alone just cause I've never really seen any that popped in my eyes.
Luckily my male is in the living room on one of my TV stands, we are gamers so we've got a couple TV's set up in our living room, because he's in a 2.5 and he's happy being right next to the TV we use to watch cable. I think he thinks we are watching him all the time, cause he swims around all active and shows off like he's the center of the world. Funny little guy.
And my sorority tank is in my home office, so they will never see ITK from their tank. I like having my tanks spaced out through the house so no matter what room I'm in I get to watch fish. Only my bedroom and the bathroom are void of fish now that I put the stock tank in the garage where we all hang out to smoke. >.<
I'll have pictures up in a moment, before and afters from the nights adventures.
