Betas Male And Female In 20 Gal Together

[jammerone34]

is it possible to actually have a male and female in a 20 gal with plants for hiding be kosher with each other and not really fight other than a nip now and then? or is this just part of a breeding thing and how do you tell when the female is ready to breed?

 

[betta_luv]

NO you can't keep a male and female Betta together even in a 20g.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Male and female bettas should never be kept together. The only time they can be safely placed in the same space is when they are breeding, and even then there is a high risk of injury and/or death if the conditions are not right or the fish are left in together for too long.

 

[jammerone34]

so if they have been together for say 4 hrs and have been very content with each other they should be seperated?

 

[jollysue]

In almost 100% of cases, yes! Betta Splendens are not like their wild cousins. Their breeding for fighting has changed their behaviors. Betta can also be unpredictable. Great in a situation for awhile and suddenly take a notion and become aggressive. I wouldn't take the chance. If you want Betta that can live together, get one of the wild breeds.

 

[dwarfgourami]

4 hours is not very long in the scheme of things. He may not have tried mating with her yet- not all blokes get round to it in the first 4 hours of acquaintance If he does, and she is not in the mood, he is likely to kill her in his disappointment.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Now my case may be unique so dont take this to heart and try to burn me at the stake as people in this forum tend to do(I dont just mean the betta section) but............
In my 13 gallon lives a male betta , 2 females , and 7 neons. They have lived together for six months and so far the casualty list is 0, no injuries, no death and the only bickering is between the 2 females but only results in a bit of flaring from the more dominant one. They all feed together happily they each have their own little cave and are no problem.
Before anyone goes for the stake and petrol I got sold the female bettas by the man at the lfs who said this was the thing to do. He said how happy the male would be "wouldnt you want to live with 2 females" he said{I dont go there anymore!}.I had no idea this was supposed to be a no no. I did however to double check(someone said they'd heard it was a bad idea) after the event and I asked the same question as jammerone on here where I was told they'd kill each other and I'd only have bits of betta in the tank shortly after putting them in. Six months on still not happened!!
I'll say it again my situation may be unique so dont just go and put them together. The advice about the bits of betta made me go out and spend £50 on another tank to split them up when the 'trouble' began, it sat empty for a bit and now houses baby guppies.

but thats just what happened to me......johnny

 

[jollysue]

Hey johnny.t.

I sure hope no one roasts you.

Can I ask how old the Betta are? Were they together when you bought them?

There are some Thai breeders, I have heard, that have bred their Bettas for beauty and developed strains that are less aggressive. I exchanged some emails with one once.

Still, Bettas can be tempermental. I have had, as I said before, Bettas that did just fine for months and months, to suddenly turn and change behavior. Sometimes it may be a matter of maturity.

Just understand, even if this continues to work for you and your Bettas, it will not work for 99% who try it, and it is always discouraged for that reason. Lots of people want to experiment, and the results are usually tragic.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

hey jollysue,
I dont mind a roasting. I've no idea of their age but they weren't far off adult size. The male was from a different shop altogether but the females came from the same crowded lfs tank. Dont think theyr'e anything fancy just your good old everyday blue/red bettas. Like I said my situation could be unique but Ive tried it once and it seems to work in my tank. Would be good to hear of others experiences of the two sexes together.
johnny

 

[RandomWiktor]

My only cautionary word is this, to people considering chancing it....
On extremely rare occasions, yes, you do get unusual, exceptional bettas that can survive together. Maybe for a short time, maybe for life. However, these animals are the EXCEPTION to the rule, and in the overwhelming majority of situations, fish WILL be injured or killed. And as a pet owner, you have a duty and responsibility to do everything within your power to protect your pets from harm. Why, then, would any responsible pet owner chance something so blatantly dangerous when they have been informed that there is a high risk of their pet being harmed?
Now, johnny.t had been misinformed. Thankfully, he has been very fortunate, and started a tank not only with the bad mix of males and females, but with fin nippers and bettas. He is very lucky that none of his fish have been wounded or killed. But just look at numerous other posts on this forum and others where inexperienced fishkeepers have put malesand females together; the results are almost unfailingly negative.
jammerone, you have now been informed, so keeping your bettas together would at this point be irresponsible, wreckless, and very probably dangerous to their lives. As others said, 4 hours is nothing; I've known people with even all female tanks whose fish snapped and killed one another after over a YEAR together. Please, just seperate the two fish; you are more likely to be the rule than the exception, so do not endanger the lives of your fish just to see if it could work.

Hope that wasn't roasty... I'm trying to make a strong point to newbies without being too unfair to johnny.t

 

[jollysue]

very authoritative

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

My only cautionary word is this, to people considering chancing it....
On extremely rare occasions, yes, you do get unusual, exceptional bettas that can survive together. Maybe for a short time, maybe for life. However, these animals are the EXCEPTION to the rule, and in the overwhelming majority of situations, fish WILL be injured or killed. And as a pet owner, you have a duty and responsibility to do everything within your power to protect your pets from harm. Why, then, would any responsible pet owner chance something so blatantly dangerous when they have been informed that there is a high risk of their pet being harmed?
Now, johnny.t had been misinformed. Thankfully, he has been very fortunate, and started a tank not only with the bad mix of males and females, but with fin nippers and bettas. He is very lucky that none of his fish have been wounded or killed. But just look at numerous other posts on this forum and others where inexperienced fishkeepers have put malesand females together; the results are almost unfailingly negative.
jammerone, you have now been informed, so keeping your bettas together would at this point be irresponsible, wreckless, and very probably dangerous to their lives. As others said, 4 hours is nothing; I've known people with even all female tanks whose fish snapped and killed one another after over a YEAR together. Please, just seperate the two fish; you are more likely to be the rule than the exception, so do not endanger the lives of your fish just to see if it could work.

Hope that wasn't roasty... I'm trying to make a strong point to newbies without being too unfair to johnny.t

Only slightly roasty(especially the bit about 'responible pet owners'). I must say that after 6 months if my bettas were going to kick off they would have done so by now and Ive never seen neons nip anything but each other in their chase game. If anything looked like it was going to happen I would split them up in an instant but Im confident it won't. I didnt add my first reply to annoy anyone but just to tell my story of my little betta tank, which is based on what actually happens in my betta tank.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I must say that after 6 months if my bettas were going to kick off they would have done so by now

not strictly speaking true..... plenty of fish can be fine together for ages then suddenly turn, betta's are no exception. However I fully appreciate the point you are making that it can work. I'm glad it has for you and I'm sure your fish are perfectly happy. I have tanks with fish that *shouldn't* be together, but they're absolutely fine, if you do your research thoroughly, then decide to take a calculated risk and are prepapred to monitor the situation and take immediate action if something does go wrong.... then just sometimes it can work. There's no rule book for fishkeeping, they all have they're own personalities and while we can offer very good advice based on a vast body of experience, you'll always get the odd rebel fish who does something completely different to how they're *meant* to behave.

However that being said, I certainly wouldn't advise putting a male and female betta together.

 

[jollysue]

I think, johnny.t., that what we are attempting to avoid is someone taking this and thinking that ok lets just put them together. We see especially young people repeatedly that just want to see what will happen. So we want to be cautious and not encourage people to do something that will not work out. Jammer's 4 hour experiemce is not enough to cause an exception to the rule. That said, each of us learns in our own way and on our own schedule. RW is a very firm advocate of humane responsiblity.

 

[RandomWiktor]

::Nods in agreement to Miss Wiggle::
As mentioned above regarding sorority tanks, the amount of time fish have gotten along is not always a reliable indicator of their eventual behavior, especially with an unpredictable species, though I'm stressing this point to the origional poster, not to johnny.t. at this point.

I have many divided tanks with bettas who see one another every day and are very used to one another's presence. Before I built my own and used store bought ones, I went away for a weekend and came back to find that in 3 of the tanks, the bettas had gone "border hopping," probably looking for food, or maybe just active since I was sure to keep the room warm while I was away. At any rate, the female/female mix resulted in one of my girls almost being killed, the male/female mix (a blind female VS. a male who is about 1.5cm long) resulted in two beat up fish, and the male/male mix resulted in... Tusker and Royal chilling out together, swimming over side by side to beg for food when I got home with no damage whatsoever. Definately odd behavior for the species.
However, just because they got along for the brief time they were in together didn't mean I assumed it would be a long-standing peace; you bet your bippy I had them seperated so fast they didn't know what hit them, and all of the fish in divided tanks spent a day in seperate containers while I built new, hop-proof dividers.

As a side note (directed to origional poster) - keeping a male and female together could also resulted in unwanted spawnings; I've seen it happen on this board and on others. Unless you wish to jar about 300 fry that are probably just VTs who could basically only be sold to pet stores, where they're likely to be mistreated, you have another good reason to keep your two seperate. Have you considered dividing the tank? I know some great link on safe, DIY dividers, so your bettas can watch one another and interact through the safety of a barrier.