Making A Tank For Bettas

[hawkdaddy]

To be honest, when i first began fishkeeping all that time ago, i never went near the betta display at my lfs. All the poor fishes in those tiny compartments just made me sad. But after looking at all your descriptions of your own bettas, i am becoming more and mroe interested.
The few questions i have are,
Do you guys use or endorse the plastic tank dividers to keep males int eh same tank but separate?
Is 10G enough for a male, and if so, enough to potentially breed a pair?
Should i get two different tanks, one for a boy and another for a girl or girls?

Any responses appreciated, as i said before this is a totally new area of fishkeeping for me

 

[Finny Business]

10 gallons is perfectly fine for a single male, and is equally fine divided into two or three individual sections. The betta male I house in a 1 gallon breeding net (inside a larger filtered tank) is just as healthy and active as my males housed individually in 5 gallon tanks. As long as bettas have clean, heated water and a source of mental and physical stimulation, they are generally not very fussy about tank size (although anything less than a gallon is not a suitable long-term home IMO).

The only problem dividers pose, is the ability of fish to see each other through it and the fact that there is the chance of it failing and your fish getting in together.. been there, done that.

I have two lots of males and females housed in divided 10 gallon tanks and haven't had the slightest issues. I've found males lose interest in neighbouring females a lot sooner than they lose interest in neighbouring males.

A breeding set-up is generally completely different from your standard tank. A 10 gallon tank makes a good-sized spawning tank, but depending on the number of fry you may have to move them into a 20-30 gallon grow-out.

 

[hawkdaddy]

what about keeping several females in the same tank or tank section? Are they less aggressive than males to each other?

 

[sausagewinkle]

Males can be kept in a divided tank no problem, i have 8 males in a divided tank and 4 in another, they don't bother with seeing each other through the dividers.

As long as the dividers are secure with no gaps and they are high enough that they cant jump over then I cant see housing males and females next to each other a problem.

Females do well in groups of 6+, this will spread the aggression between them.

I wouldnt consider breeding bettas yet, youll need a lot more tanks than mentioned

 

[Finny Business]

If you wanted a group of females I would use the whole 10 gallons and not just a section of it. Sororities ideally should have enough space for lower-ranking females to get away from the more dominant ones. This is why it's usually recommended that a group of females be housed in a minimum 10 gallon tank.

Females are usually not as violent as males, but they are still territorial and aggressive and it's not uncommon for sorority tanks to fail a few weeks or months down the track. The success of your sorority really hinges on the individual personalities of your females.

 

[HannahBear77]

If your thinking bout having more than one female in a 10 gallon you need to have five or more in the tank like said above to keep the fighting down, I keep mine in a 15 and they are all from the same pet store and I have no problems with fighting, ocasionaly they will fin nip over territory but my sunfish keeps it minimum
Good luck with your new betta to