Many males of Betta splendens together and being happy within of the same tank??

[WhistlingBadger]

Not saying much more as don't remember rules for that in forum.

Yes, let us all take a page from Emo Lizzard's book, here. Talk about illegal drugs is strongly discouraged in the forum, and amusing as it has been, this line of discussion has probably gone about as far as we can allow it.

 

[GaryE]

That is legal here, though not advised.

But yes, no. I bought guppy grass today.

 

[gwand]

That is legal here, though not advised.

But yes, no. I bought guppy grass today.

Is that like catnip but for fish?

 

[TiercelR]

I’m a retired neuroendocrinologist and remember a paper from 2022 published in Behavioral Processes that showed the neuropeptide hormone oxytocin reduced aggressive behavior in male bettas. In the lay literature oxytocin is referred to as the love hormone. It facilitates social bonding.

To dream the impossible dream....
A tank of sedated bettas, going on for years and years - are you sure that's what you would want? It sounds like a nightmare scenario to me - a half life for no other reason but human whims.
Plus it might be hard to maintain.

However, if you get one pair of Bettas, you can breed them. Raise the fry away from the parents in a large tank, and remove the females as soon as you can. Once you have reduced to population to about one male per 25cm square on the surface area (large low tanks work) they will find a zone. Finnage will be damaged in border disputes, but with floating plants, the males will defend their stations and no one should get killed. If you can start with a less aggressive plakat group, you won't even have shredded fins.

I have had similar, small scale set ups with wild caught Betta splendens, or fry from them to be more precise. It really needs a tank with a large surface area. I also bred plakats and gave the young to a friend who had built himself a shallow tank the size of a dining room table, which he placed under a window so he could grow Pistia all over the surface. He had a great time with the tank. It was a very unorthodox looking thing, but was a very unorthodox project to begin with. He replaced a colony of long fins with my pla-kat because he wanted a more natural set up, but he said as long as you never added another fish, it worked. If a fish died, the territories of neighbours expanded. But he felt that familiarity from a very young age allowed the balance, and any change meant another territorial squabble with resulting injuries. hefelt that if you bought a bunch of Bettas and put them together in the tank, deaths would result.

I watched the tank a couple of times and it was too static for me. Each male just hovered in his territory, looking up for bugs. The guy fed them fruit flies so there would be no rush to food (and no reset on territory). He sprinkled them on the surface carefully. The Bettas only moved in narrow areas, and not much.

He was a very OCD kind of guy, in the entire house as well as in his aquarium choices, and I'm not sure how many people would want that set up.

Hey- How much money can the drug dealer to the Bettas make?

Given enough of the right drugs you can get the lion to lay down with the lamb.

You will love this one......

Gonzalez, S.C., Matsudo, V.K.R. and Carlini, E.A., 1971. Effects of marihuana compounds on the fighting behavior of Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). Pharmacology, 6(3), pp.186-190.

Abstract​

The effects of marihuana extract and Δ9-tetrahydro-cannabinol on the spontaneous aggressive behavior of the male adult Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) were studied. The drugs were strong suppressors of the aggressive behavior; however, after 8–10 exposures the fishes developed tolerance to the drugs. Continuing the treatment up to 31 days did not induce any further modification in the behavior of the fishes.

What I want to know is how they got the fish to smoke the pot?

oxytocin (OT) is a facilitator of social interactions such as parental and pair bonding, trust, and empathy. The many results supporting a pro-social role of OT have generated the hypothesis that impairments in the endogenous OT system may lead to antisocial behavior, most notably social withdrawal or pathological aggression. OT also has anxiolytic effects. The exact neural circuits that underlie OT action are unknown.

They have an air pump in the room and it pumps air into the tank. They get someone to smoke the weed and blow the smoke towards the air pump. the pump sucks the smoke in and pumps it into the water. They do the same thing for making smoke water to treat Australian native plant seeds so they germinate.

You could probably blow smoke under a coverglass of an aquarium and the smoke would eventually settle on the water or the fish breath it in when taking air from the surface.

Hello all, thank you very much to all you for your interesting comments and differents points of view.
I forgot to mention that this book have a real photo that shows at least 10 different adult males of Betta splendens together in peace within of the same tank. Also, probably the medicament mentioned in this book is another different one than all the chemicals commented here in this post, but in in near future i hope to remember its name and i will say here exactly what medicament is this. Thanks again to all you for your comments!!

 

[NearMeBettas]

I have bettas, and I am all for new housing innovations and behavioral hacks, but hasn't this gone a bit far? It can't be healthy for your fish to drug them every single day of their life. Nor can it be beneficial, they will never be able to live their life to their full potential are display normal behavior. Also, is the drug able to evaporate into an airborne form with warm aquarium water? If so, aren't you actually drugging your entire household to some extent EVERY SINGLE DAY, even if it is extremely small? That may be totally impossible, but just a thought. IMO, let's use drugs for their purpose, helping a sick fish. Not so we can have unnecessary roomies for our male betta.