How Many Bettas?

[Starr]

Hi there! I'm new to the forums and am almost overwhelmed with the amount of help and information found here.

I'm curious to know how many bettas people actually have. I realize the addiction to them, they are just so incredibly beautiful. But, realistically, if you keep one per tank, do you all have a million tanks lying around? lol

I have a new male that my 5 year old daughter named Beautiful. I put him in a bowl that holds about 1.7 gallons. Well now I feel like a complete jerk because not only have I read that they will do fine in a larger and/or community tank, I can't even appreciate how pretty he is because I can't see him.

I don't have an interest in breeding them, but would love to have more than just one. I've read on the forums here that you can have 1 male and any number of females. (At least that's what I think I read) So here are some questions:

1. If I put one male and some females together should I be concerned that they will breed successfully anyway and I will have an over abundance of fry everywhere?
2. Do they eat their young like guppies do?
3. Is it awful to just keep them together and let nature take it's course as it were in regards to mating and babies?
4. Based on these questions, am I just too irresponsible to own bettas?

I would love to have a 10 gallon tank with nothing but bettas but I really want to know the best way to keep them before I buy them and have some horrifying mishap.

Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!!
Starr

 

[blue_betta]

you can keep one male and several females together, but its riskey, and in all likelyhood you will end up loosing the male. if they did attempt to breed, it would be unlikely to be succesful, the male would kill the females and the fry would likely be all eaten.

if you had a huge tank, long and broad but not too deep, and heavily planted you probobly could keep one or even two males and a group of females, and possible breed a small number of young. but you would need a very large lank for this.

you could set up a devided tank with a male on one side and a group of females on the other, but the females could end up bickering seriusly over breeding rights with the male.

best to have a single male per tank, and keep a seperate group of females.

heres a pic of my sorroity tank (all female tank) and my two devided tanks for males

 

[hollyp0p]

Hi there! I'm new to the forums and am almost overwhelmed with the amount of help and information found here.

I'm curious to know how many bettas people actually have. I realize the addiction to them, they are just so incredibly beautiful. But, realistically, if you keep one per tank, do you all have a million tanks lying around? lol

I have a new male that my 5 year old daughter named Beautiful. I put him in a bowl that holds about 1.7 gallons. Well now I feel like a complete jerk because not only have I read that they will do fine in a larger and/or community tank, I can't even appreciate how pretty he is because I can't see him.

I don't have an interest in breeding them, but would love to have more than just one. I've read on the forums here that you can have 1 male and any number of females. (At least that's what I think I read) So here are some questions:

1. If I put one male and some females together should I be concerned that they will breed successfully anyway and I will have an over abundance of fry everywhere?
2. Do they eat their young like guppies do?
3. Is it awful to just keep them together and let nature take it's course as it were in regards to mating and babies?
4. Based on these questions, am I just too irresponsible to own bettas?

I would love to have a 10 gallon tank with nothing but bettas but I really want to know the best way to keep them before I buy them and have some horrifying mishap.

Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!!
Starr

males and females can't be kept together, only short term for breeding else it will result in savage fights.
You can keep one male in a carefully researched community tank, or you can keep groups of females together in a community.
Suitable fish are white cloud mountain minnows, harlequin rasboras, danios (if they don't stress your fish out being too fast...personally my male loved danios!)....ummmm....some cories

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry Starr, I'm afraid you have misunderstood. You can keep a single male or a group of females in a tank. You cannot reasonably keep females with a male for more than a few hours of breeding. That having been said, I keep a sorority of 5 females in a 10 gallon that has lots of hiding places. They are often in the same general area as each other but when the occasional quarrel breaks out, they can get away from each other. The tank does not seem to be very rough for the occupants. The aggression is about like you will see in a typical african cichlid tank or one with some tiger barbs. I have yet to see any real damage done with the posturing and such that goes on with my females. On the other hand, I used to breed bettas when I was younger and have seen a female get her fins shredded in a relatively easy breeding session. When a male and female are together, they can be very rough and will tear up each other's fins even when they are busy with the breeding process.

 

[Kaz1814]

I thiink most of us just have millions of tanks all over the house... Ok slightly OTT, I do have 11 tanks for Betta's though...

 

[Starr]

Sorry Starr, I'm afraid you have misunderstood. You can keep a single male or a group of females in a tank. You cannot reasonably keep females with a male for more than a few hours of breeding.

Oh, yes I totally misunderstood. Thank you for catching that for me! That would have been a horrible mistake.

I guess I will put Beautiful in his own tank and get another 10gal for a community tank! Aw darn! Another trip to the fish store!

Thank you all very much for your quick responses and helpful information!

Peace,
Starr