female betta community problems!!!

[GuppyDude]

ok heres a breif history of my female betta community, it started with my st girl and it was just her for quite a while in the 10g tank all alone. the all teh sudden a got 2 more females which i introduced one at a time and all seemed ok except for a couple little nips. then my big female showed up and a real pecking order began to form. my hm girl was at teh bottom and she got chased from teh food alot and i got worryed so i removed her ( so startes my problem ) i then removed the big female to prepare her for breeding and i reintroduced the hm girl. now my st girl is in shreads and the hm is number 1. its very odd how this all works, im thinking of starteing it all over this sunday with a clean fishless tank and adding them one at a time like before. i have remmoved my st girl because she can barely keep a float in those shreads. i need to know what to do!!! ( all of this has occured in the last 6 months )

 

[Sorrell]

It's best to add all fish at the same time so that no one has the home court advantage, never have less then four females in a tank at any time, personally I like five or more. My female tank has seven and it works well.

Make sure your tank has obsene amounts of hiding places, in a female tank, aestetics can't be a huge priority. You want to have a stronger filter flow then a normal betta tank in order to prevent them from squaring off. Hiding places will help them escape the filter as well as each other. The less open water the better.

Whenever you have a female tank you need to have a back-up plan for your girls as it can go sour at any given moment.

It's best if you can buy females who have been in a tank together already or who are spawn sisters straight from a growout. Remember that females can be just as aggressive as males and that while a community tank may seem appealing, but if it's not set-up properly it is not always the best for the fish

 

[GuppyDude]

yea i think im just going to restarte it, iv got 4 in the 10g now an di prolly wont go over 5 or 6. and iv always got a bowl on hand for tough situations. i have located and removed the problem fish and the 2 left in there seem to be ok with each other

 

[zelandonia]

Hi GuppyDude,

I had some troubles at first introducing my females too. I had one that got her tail badly bitten and I had to put her in isolation for 3 weeks until it grew back. After that I got a breeding/hospital net that you hang off the side of the aquarium. It is a plastic rectangular frame that you slide a net over. Now when I introduce a female I put her in the net for a week. That way the other females get to know her but no one can actually get injured. When I release her from the net after a week, everyone seems to be friends and the pecking order has been established. I have done this many times now and find that it works really well.
Keep us posted!!

z.

 

[GuppyDude]

well this isn't just starteing up, if it was i wouldn't be so worried, im alredy a good few months into this thing, iv tryied useing breeding nets and boxes but teh fish will jump out right in front my face, like its trying say, " you cant keep me in there! " and it comes with a lid but bettas breath air and this makes it hard for em

 

[zelandonia]

That's too bad the breeding net thing didn't work for you. There is no way a betta could jump out of the kind of net that I have but it is still exposed to the surface. I'm sorry that your bettas can't seem to live together. Maybe they are just a bit more aggressive than usual. I wish I could help more!

z.

 

[GuppyDude]

well i do think they can live together still , this aggression didn't starte until i removed the head female for breeding so hopefully ill be able to restore order

 

[blue_ram]

Try adding couple of small schooling fish like zebra danios. Add some plants (plastic/live) as well. There always will be some fin nipping, but for the most part, it solves my female betta aggression problems.

 

[sylvia]

Consider taking all the fish out and keeping them seperated and out of sight of each other for a couple of days. Meanwhile re-arange the tank so that it is completely different to what it was before. Then bag all of them and float them in the tank for a while so that they can all see each other. Release them. They will fight a little until they re-establish hierarchy but they should soon get along. Also consider buying a couple more girls during the 2 days and introducing them back into the tank at the same time. If you want to distract the females from each other for a while. Put a male next to the tank for a few hours. When I had a female betta community I kept 7 girls in a 10 gallon. They were all bought seperately but introduced at the same time to the tank. Removing one will always result in aggression while the hierarchy is re-established and it is difficult to return the removed female after a significant time unless you introduce her back at the same time as adding a new fish. Adding some kind of distraction like a few danios or even just a couple of cherry barbs (may be a better option as 10 gallons isn't realy suitable for zebra danios or other common danios and, being active shoaling fish, danios need to be kept in groups while cherry barbs are fine just in pairs and do great even in a 10 gallon) would also help.

 

[GuppyDude]

yea thats what i plan to do sylvia, iv alredy got nice big plants in there but i need to clean the tank anyway so ill just rearrange them