Has anyone here ever kept a betta pair successfully?

[Mint]

So, I know a guy who kept fish back during the old periods of fishkeeping, and he kept a betta pair (Male/Female betta, regular old betta Splendens) together in a 30 gallon with some Cory catfish. It worked for about two years, until his filter, which was a surface skimmer with a hook instead of a suction cup, fell into the water and unfortunately shredded them.

I know modern fishkeeping of bettas says to never keep a pair. But, on the other hand, that tank was gorgeous, and the bettas seemed to act about the same as bettas in a community tank normally do. Flared at each other a few times, but then swam away into the corners of the tank. I can’t tell if the extra space was why it worked or not. The bettas even bred a few times, and she always came out unharmed. Can I do this in my own tank?

 

[GaryE]

Maybe...

The tank would have to be so well planted the fish could go long periods without seeing each other. It would have to be large, like a 36 inch, 3 M. There would have to be a complex decor - lots of wood reaching the surface.

The female would have a rough life, which is why I wouldn't do it. The male likes no competition within his sightlines. Females are only allowed when breeding. In nature, everyone swims away from everyone else, and all is good. Males sees an unreceptive female, flares his fins, and she tells him to get lost and swims off. In a tank, she has nowhere to go and will be aware of his malevolent presence at all times. She'll live in a trap you've made for her.

I have kept wild caught Bettas in large tanks, as permanent pairs, but wild caughts have not been selectively bred to be more aggressive. They were much more tolerant fish, and my tank was a jungle where I had to move plants to see the fish. That said, I had been fishkeeping for 50 years before I even saw a wild caught splendens. They are rare.

Aggression is only a feature in plakat breeding now, as Betta fighting is sadly still an underground "sport" for some people. Long fin breeders are ignoring the long cultivated fighting urge, but it doesn't mean it's gone away. If you get a really amped domestic Betta, your experiment will be a disaster. That disaster is the loss of a life.

The odds are against you, and against your female betta. I wouldn't do it.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I had a pair of male bettas. They lived in their own 2.5 gal. planted tanks with 3 panda cory. The tanks were together end to end and the Bettas could see each other. They would flare at each other. I got really bored by this set-up and after about 8 or 9 months I gave away the Bettas, emptied the contents of the tanks into a 5.5 gal., move in the pandas and added cherry shrimp and a few apistos. Over the years the fish in the tank changed, but the plants and shrimp remained. I still have it and it has two remaining CPDs and the shrimp.

But my dream Bettas were not splendens, they were imbellis. I fell in love with them when I saw my first picture of them. It took me a few years to find ones that looked as pretty as those in the picture. I eventually bought on AquaBid a trio born to winners of the best in class at an IBC event. The nice thing about imbellis is you can keep them in groups in the same tank. Mine went into a planted 10 gal. tank in my bathroom. When they went into spawning mode the male's colors were so vibrant you could see them from 10 feet away. I went through several generations before I finally lost them

BTW, imbellis is often called the "peaceful betta." Imbellis pictures

 

[GaryE]

I had imbellis at the same time as I had wild caught splendens, and I found the behaviour of both similar. My personal theory is that while domestic Bettas are from lines originally bred by gamblers for fighting, imbellis are just fish from nature. Their behaviour was never selected for.
When you consider Betta splendens were gamblers' toys for hundreds of years before they became western pets, there was a lot of time for the aggression we sometimes see to be selected for. No one bred a Betta that didn't fight - there was no money in that. And since super aggression is not their natural state, it's easy to see how many are reverting as all breeders care about now is big fins and physical deformities.
I had some plakat out of a market in Thailand. A friend said they were cheap and pretty, and he couldn't resist, but he bought a dozen and had two tanks. I was the lucky recipient of some of the overflow pairs, and they were very mild fish. I'll wager that's why they were cheap. They were the Siamese Fighting Fish (the old name for hobby Bettas) who showed no nasty streak, and were useless to the breeders (plakat means biting Betta). The breeders sold them cheap as culls, probably for the cruel practice of putting calm males in with fighters for practices in which the potential money fish would win with no injuries. It's a mean world out there.
Dog fighting, cock fighting, bear baiting, Betta fighting, feeding goldfish to pirhanas - many humans like cruel pastimes. Betta fighting is still a thing in North America, even if it is illegal gambling.

 

[emeraldking]

Well, keeping a pair of bettas does work if the tank is big enough. As long as they're not breeding there's no problem. Once a bubble nest is made, and she's already put the eggs in there, the male can become aggressive towards the female. So, extra good space in a tank will make it possible to escape from him and hide. But I also have to admit that I had situations that both male and female stayed in perfect harmony together while fry were around.

 

[Mint]

Ah…drat, nevermind. I thought it might be possible. I would be putting those two in a 60 gallon breeder, so lots of space…but it would be a community, and the female wouldn’t have much space then. In that case, I’ll just go with my original plan and put a single giant betta in. Wanted a girl betta for a while, but just got a extra tank for one, so no need now.

 

[Mr Limpet]

I kept a pair of Betta smaragdina in a heavily planted 5.5 gallon without any problems. They even spawned numerous times, the young growing up with their parents. They’re lovely fish - it’s a shame they’re not more readily available.

 

[Mint]

That sounds really cool: they weren’t cramped?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

@GaryE

I do not see what gmablers breeding Bettas to fight has to do with the genetic patters in wild fish. The fighting games keeps their stock for that purpose The either die when fighting or when they get too old to fight and get killed by the owners as they are worthless. I am sure that old fighters do not get dumped into the wild. Even if they did they are not going to last long, nor compete with younger wild ones.

I would also bet there are a lot more bettas in the wild than in the fighting trade. Finally, battes being farmed for the aquarium trade are the same species but have not been bred to fight but to be sold to people like us who will pay up for finnage and colorations. That is legal to do unlike a lot of the fighting trade which is basically "underground."

Finally, there is the IBC which is involved in lot of the Betta world. International Betta Congress: The Premier Betta Organization
https://www.ibcbettas.org/about-international-betta-congress/

My trio of imbellis came from parents who won a best in class at one of this orgs. sanctioned events.

 

[Mr Limpet]

That sounds really cool: they weren’t cramped?

They didn’t seem cramped until their offspring started growing up, which I later sold.
Betta smaragdina, and for that matter, B splendens, feel more secure in smaller, shallow, densely planted tanks with gentle water movement.

 

[Mint]

Hmm. I might end up getting a pair of those, or of imbellis, for my community tank then. They’d probably make a lot better tankmates than a big girl.

 

[GaryE]

@GaryE

I do not see what gmablers breeding Bettas to fight has to do with the genetic patters in wild fish. The fighting games keeps their stock for that purpose The either die when fighting or when they get too old to fight and get killed by the owners as they are worthless. I am sure that old fighters do not get dumped into the wild. Even if they did they are not going to last long, nor compete with younger wild ones.

The progression of breeding was simple. Wild fish to fighting fish for a couple of hundred years. Then pretty fish and fighting fish for maybe the last 100. The difference in aggression between the wild Betta splendens and similar species we're talking about is obvious. You can breed for aggression. We're all creatures of DNA and the DNA of splendens as it pertains to fighting was worked on for countless generations before the pretty forms were developed. That doesn't go away, and it has commercial applications. It's easy to sell a male Betta that flares its fins and goes nuts at everything. People like that.

Breeding for good fighters meant producing thousands of fish to get one champion. The rejects have gone into the trade. Betta splendens breed like guppies, and are an easy species that leaves you with a lot of fry. They get dumped, they escape - unwanted splenden are a product of fancy breeding. The opinion of Thai Betta fans I've spoken to is that unmodified splendens have been pushed to the edge by feral cultivar bettas. The fancy Bettas are bigger. The pla-kat culls I got from Thailand were easily twice the size and bulk of the wild type splendens I had from Laos. It isn't hard to figure out. The fish that haven't been bred for gambling are smaller and have been eliminated in many previously wild fish filled areas over a very long period.
.
I was in an aquarium store when they received a shipment of gambler's Bettas. They had expensive fish for sale, and a group of elderly men were waiting to sort through. I don't speak their language, but it was clear they weren't excited about pretty. It was a disturbing scene to me, but it took place in a major North American city. The guys were buying three or four fish each at wild prices, but what they didn't take was still on the shelves when they left. Since the aggression doesn't breed true like any other trait, the lines you think are separate aren't.

It's a small point, but there are some new myths about Betta splendens taking hold. Only a minority of the fish are killers. Most of the time, they get picked at because their fins don't work for anything but selling. It's good to know how things got started and what's behind what we have. When I was a kid, I thought there were long finned splendens swimming in ditches in Thailand, and I really wanted to see that. A lot of aquarists don't realize how unnatural their Betta splendens have been skillfully crafted to be.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Short on time,so

Srikulnath, K., Singchat, W., Laopichienpong, N., Ahmad, S.F., Jehangir, M., Subpayakom, N., Suntronpong, A., Jangtarwan, K., Pongsanarm, T., Panthum, T. and Ariyaraphong, N., 2021. Overview of the betta fish genome regarding species radiation, parental care, behavioral aggression, and pigmentation model relevant to humans. Genes & Genomics, 43, pp.91-104.

Aggressive behavior Betta is a particularly interesting model to investigate proximate and ultimate behavioral aggressive questions. Its aggressive behavior has been well characterized and female–female aggression occurs naturally (Braddock and Braddock 1995; Simpson 1968; Ramos and Gonçalves 2019). Bettas are social animals capable of living in groups with a pecking order or in isolation. They are very territorial, especially after isolation or during courtship. Their aggressiveness is usually expressed by body color intensity, expansion of fins, and opening of gill covers (opercula), all of which are features preferred by females. Although such expression addresses the desires of gamblers in the results of fights, people who raise them as ornamentals would prefer to have beautiful displays with minimal combat. Fighter males have higher swimming activity, perform frequent fast strikes in the direction of the intruder, and display from a distance. Wild-type males are less active
and exhibit aggressive displays mostly in close proximity to the stimuli. Females of the fighter strain not used in fights are also more aggressive than wild-type females. The same fighter and wild-type strains show differences in male cortisol response to unfamiliar environments, with wild-types but not fighters displaying increased cortisol levels (Verbeek et al. 2008). The betta is a good model for artificial selection and experimental evolution when testing proximate and ultimate causes of behavior. Testing may be carried out under controlled conditions in the laboratory or natural settings, or arise from unintended natural experiments. The study of these systems may provide relevant information on the underlying genetic and physiological mechanisms of aggression and also on ways in which sexual conflict may shape the evolution of aggressive behavior (Rice 1992; Wright et al. 2018).

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