I don't do this....

[FishEnthusiast]

I know that here on this forum it is common practice to keep male bettas separated from pretty much every fish. I was on another forum a couple of days ago, browsing around. I searched the term betta, and post after post came up about people not only keeping their bettas in a community tank, but also with female bettas. With success I should add.

They recommend keeping at least 2 females to a male. They say that having 2 cuts down on the aggression, kind of like what you would do with guppies.

Personally I would never do this, but has anyone else heard of this? Have any of you tried it? For clarification, I am only talking about betta splendens. The forum I was visiting did not specialize in bettas, nor were there people there half as knowledgable about bettas as you find here. Most of the posters called them fighting fish as opposed to betta. I have noticed that the people with the most experience with them call them bettas.

 

[wuvmybetta]

Most of the posters called them fighting fish.

Maybe because that's all they see when they keep them together


I'm not going to say it's impossible and can't be done. Maybe old, lazy veiltails have no interest in fighting and/or breeding in an enviroment like that
I'd like to know how they go about introducing them to each other, just out of curiosity.

I suppose if you have extra cowardly, docile fish. And possibly if you overstock.

(don't try this at home,kids)

My red tank (oh brother, here I go again about the reds) but I have males and females who are way mature enough to fight and breed, but the tank is so overstocked that they haven't evolved to think along those lines so the fighting is non-existent and why on Earth would they want to bring MORE fish into that enviroment, so they don't bother.

Did anybody have any pics of these community fighter fish tanks on there?
(community fighter , heh heh)

 

[Ben]

when i was reading up about keeping females to males, i read that you should keep no more then 6/7 females to a male in one tank maybe it's like in the wild when a male has a pack of females to himself?

DD

 

[Synirr]

...nor were there people there half as knowledgable about bettas as you find here.

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No kidding

Apparently lots of LFSs will tell you it's ok to keep males and females together so long as you keep two females per male... I was told this when I first became interested in bettas and I fell for it. I kept one male and two females in a 10 gallon together for a whole 24 hours before I realized the male didn't intend to stop relentlessly chasing the females anytime soon and put him in his own tank. After that I did my own research, and as a result, added two more females to bring the number to 4. I would never ever keep a male Betta splendens with females ever again, and always use caution when keeping females together.

 

[wuvmybetta]

To clarify....do they keep MALES together with a certain number of females per male, or do they keep one male plus X amount of females....? I'm confused )

 

[platyfreek]

one male plus x ammount of females and yes when I recently bought a betta for my cousin's birthday the petstore dealer said its ok as long as there are at least 2 females for the one male. bull i thought.

 

[KeddyPie]

I have one male betta in my community tank with no problems... But also, he was there first, and I was careful with the members of the tank, to try and get things that would not bother him. I succeeded No problems at all with my Dojos, Oto, or even the Bloodifn Tetras ^^

I'd live to but my new boy in there, but I'm not that stupid He'll just have to live alone until I upgrade to a 10 gallon for him (assuming I ever choose to) and some cories.

 

[BrookeLea]

a while back, before i really got into bettas, i assumed that they were like guppies and i put 1 male and 3 females together in one tank with no problems. when i read that that was a bad thing to do, i quickly separated them. they lived like that for at least 6 months with no problems, though. i guess we were lucky

 

[FishEnthusiast]

They said to keep males separate from eachother, but that you can safely keep 2 or more females in a tank together.

I was at petcetera one day with a friend. She bought a male and a female at the same time. The kid getting our fish said "yeah, you can put them in a tank together, but if you do you will probably have babies." My friend looked at him like he had suddenly sprouted a new head. Her response, "ummm, nooooo, I like my fish alive, I'll keep him separate thanks"

I have also been told by another fish store that I could keep them together. I wouldn't risk it.

All I have to say is thank god I found TFF before I found this other place, I could have had some major disasters on my hands otherwise.

 

[wuvmybetta]

They said to keep males separate from eachother, but that you can safely keep 2 or more females in a tank together.

Ohhh, okay That went completely over my head then. But I still don't think it's such a good idea. I've seen how aggressive they can be towards the females and that can't be fun for the girls.

But, again, it's what folks think/read/learn. My lfs told me a lady came in saying she bought a female and put it with her male and they had fry the first night.

 

[Kaida]

I'm a newbie to the forums (not to fish-keeping in general or bettas) so I feel a bit odd going against the tide, but we have always kept bettas in a community tank. Obviously, never kept more than one male in the tank, that would be daft, but we've never had any trouble with bettas and other fish at all. We were careful not to have guppies or other fish that we had heard could stir things up, but they have been fine with everything we have had.

We always kept a single male and no females until last year, when we tried to buy two females (our last male had died of old age) and one matured into a male. We expected aggression and were ready to take out one of them for rehoming, but they were fine and have remained so.

I wonder, is this forum where you saw this based in the UK, or have lots of UK members? Because that seems to me to be a possible explanation of the name difference - I have never seen them called anything other than Siamese Fighting Fish over here, and it wasn't till I came across some American sites that I heard of the name Bettas. Any other UK folk out there care to add anything that would back this up or suggest otherwise?

Kaida

 

[Greener]

My experience for males with females is all luck on the fish that you get. I've had 1 male and 2 females in a tank together before and they got along peachily; but then my friends who bought them at the same time didn't have as much luck. One friend only has the male left as he chased the females around until he had his own tank and then my other friend lost her two females within a week and then the male within a month but we think that was because of her stupid parents who kept feeding the fish everytime they walked by her room. My petstore told my friends and I that Male bettas would be good with females and allowed us to by 1 male and 2 females for a 2G tank, those were my first fish so I didn't know any better. They are now upgraded, my male has his own 2G tank and my two females share a 5G tank, they aren't aggressive at all and are always swimming with each other and I don't want to add anymore because it is a smaller tank and I don't want to end up with aggressive females that will disrupt the tank.

 

[OohFeeshy]

As with keeping bettas with other fish, it depends on the male (and, the females). Female bettas don't really look like bettas as most people know them (my dad asked continually what my female was and whether I was sure). I wouldn't try it, I intro everyone to everyone else during water changes (not properly, normally one in a measuring jug and one in a tank) and they tend to react to each other (apart from male to male) like they would to any other fish.

EDIT- as for the name difference, yes, they are called fighting fish or fighters over here which is a bit dim IMO because (I know they do fight, duh) but how stupid does 'oh yeah, i have a siamese fighting fish in my community tank' sound? I mean, if it fights, take it out, dumbo.

I've also seen my lfs trying to pass of what I'm 90% sure are plakats as a sub species of betta, who are apparently peaceful and should be kept with females and can be kept with other males. Yeah, right.

 

[FishEnthusiast]

I don't know where the forum was based really. I don't go there often, and I have never posted in any thread. This forum has a lot of UK members. More than from anywhere else I would think(please don't quote me on that, I could be way off base).

I haven't heard them called siamese fighters here much. I have observed that people who are just getting into bettas call them siamese fighters, hard core betta addicts tend to call them bettas. We are a big group of hardcore betta addicts here, so I rarely hear the term fighter fish.

When I was younger I was told I could keep a betta alive in anything, that they would survive living in a dirty toilet bowl. I grew up thinking that. Thinking I wouldn't have to do much for them, and that they were basically indestructable. I have since learned different, and have come to appreciate them more than any of my other fish.

It is interesting to hear that other people have done this successfully. I know you can do it with wild species like imbellis, but I had never heard of it happening with the splendens.

 

[cjcmditto]

I kept one male and two females in a 10 gallon ... I would never ever keep a male Betta splendens with females ever again, and always use caution when keeping females together.

I have been involved with tropicals for 40+ years. A 10 gal. tanl is way too small . I have kept a male and 3 females in the same tank with no problem. Of course the tank was a 50 gal (wide not tall). They never bred except by using the usual method of a separate tank with divider.