Female Betta Rescue

I just went to a garden centre and noticed that they had a small aquatics centre so thought i would look around. They had many beautifully coloured strains of guppies but no bettas then i walked past the cichlid tank. They had two female bettas in with fairly sized oscars! Anyway i decided to take both of them home. I know that it is not recommended to keep any less than 5 females together to spread out the agression but i couldnt leave them so i planned to add them to my tank which already has one female. Then i realised one of the females had a very bent spine so she is in quarantine but i put the other with my current female and they are completly ignoring eachother which i guess is a good sign.

Any way here are some pictures...

The first picture is of the healthy female the others are the deformed one. She never comes of the bottom unless to feed and when she swims she is almost verticle. I understand she might not live very long but is there anything i can do for her?

The first picture is the healthy female the others are the deformed one. She hardly ever comes off the bottom and when she does she swims almost vertically. Is there anything i can do for her?

Apologies for the dirty water in picture 1 i just stirred up the sand.

any advice?

nobody?

Hi well done for saving them from being Oscar snacks!

I've had several Bettas with bent spines in my experience id doesn't seem to effect them much, I currently have a group of them in my * special* tank 1 is S shaped like yours the other 5 arched downwards slightly, I've had most a few months now, there getting on fine, 1 thing I will say is just make sure there's plenty of places to rest near the surface. Mine is heavily planted *Separate tank from the 'normal' females* and there doing great, couldn't want them doing any better

okay i have a few questions as she has very long ventral fins and has built a bubble nest could she actually be a he, i thought that only females could get stress stripes?

i did actually think that from the picture! if theres a nest i'd say 99% male looking at the pics young males can have stress stripes too as well as egg spots

okay ill have to get another tank for him/her if that is the case as i only have a community tank with females and a male tank which i dont really want to divide, the quarantine tank isnt really big enough for a permanent home, she/he does not flare at his/her reflection though?

fee de mer said:

okay i have a few questions as she has very long ventral fins and has built a bubble nest could she actually be a he, i thought that only females could get stress stripes?

Click to expand...

Although rare, but it is not a bad thing, females build bubble nests too,
It happened with my bettas whenever they were happy or I fed them some brine shrimp.