Betta and female betta neighbour- ok ?

[boothbrave]

I've got a male and a female betta in each of their own tanks facing one another. The male betta flares quite often at the female. He'll rest and swim around normally but then sometimes he'll catch a glimpse of her and flare his gills. Is this normal? Is he mad? Stressed? Or is he trying to get her attention ? He continues to build a nest too, if that helps.

Also I was wondering if there's a rule of thumb to keeping multiple female bettas in a tank? Say, for every 1gallon = 1 female betta fish ?

thanks !

 

[madasafish]

Poor guy probably wants to mate!

 

[AquaJen]

Females bettas can grow up to 3 inches. Basically it works the same way as the freshwater fish rule.
1 inch of fish per gallon of water.

Some female bettas do have personality clashes.

I had a 20 gallon long with six female bettas before my fluke outbreak. They all got along great.

I gave them lots of plants and rocks. They had alot of places to hide.

Jen

 

[lmw80]

The bubble nest is a great sign! It means that he is healthy and happy for one, and ready to mate! He is not mad, but when he sees her, he wants to be "pretty" for her, so he flares and makes his fins bigger, saying look at this big, buff stud over here, eh! It's kind of like when guys suck in their guts and stick out their chest when a hot woman walks by, lol

 

[boothbrave]

How about when he flares his gills at her ? A sign of aggression or attraction ?
Oh, and what signs will the female show interest ?

Thanks

 

[blue_neon]

when he flares his gills he is trying to look pretty for her and it is not aggression and her signs will be that she will have stripes going front to back and she might have something that is white in color between her long front fins.

 

[bettacove]

Well thats a betta for you, always showing off lol. But yes flaring is also a sing of aggression.
If the female shows intrest she will flare back and have vertical bars (stripes), her ovipositor (the white thing) will also be more visible.
They will get bord of each other eventually.

ashley

 

[boothbrave]

Thanks, members.

I'll keep a close eye on the male though, to see if he doesn't get too stressed out.

 

[Neuve]

I've done some reaserch on betta's behaviour and i've found that its preety normal (and even healthy sometimes) for males to flare. You should know by the way theyre eating and their activity if theyre stressed. IMO it aight to keep them like that just make shure they (she, mostly) have plenty of space to swim and to hide. Hope you can post a pic on your settup

 

[boothbrave]

Thanks Neuve. I do have a small gallery up.

Actually I do have them each in their own tanks where they can view themselves. I was just wondering if that was ok.

I did some reading and one person's opinion was that it was better to have a betta and another betta neighbour as it promotes a good health.

 

[mollyluvr]

I had an interesting problem recently, kind of similar to this. I had a male betta in a very small 1/2 gal "tank." He was really going to town with his bubble nest so we decided to get him a mate and see what happened. I got a 2.5 gal mini bow with a divider and put them in this tank together to get them used to each other. He got very excited and almost covered his half of the tank with bubble nest. The next day she was dead. Before I could get him another mate, I found him dead. It was almost like he had found his "true love" and when she died he just didn't want to go on. Any body heard of anything so strange. I have since replaced him with a beautiful crowntail and I am looking for just the right mate for him.

Someone told me that the females need to be salted. Has anyone heard of this? I am not too familiar with bettas, more of a molly fan. Can anyone help before I kill two more?

 

[Neuve]

Ok, cool, anyway you choose is just fine, as long as you feel comfortable and your fish dont get aggressive or stressed out
Good luck!

 

[bettacove]

It was probly something with the water, or did you cycle it and allt hat junk?

Salted? Whats that? Females don't need to be treated any different then males.

Maybe you are right, he couldn't live without his true love!

ashley

 

[mollyluvr]

The owner of my LFS said that someone had told him that females needed to be kept in a salt bath prior to and following mating. The LFS owner thought it was hooey, and nothing I've ever seen says to keep female bettas in a salt bath. Just wondered if anyone else had heard this.

I've just decided it couldn't possibly be anything I did. He was just sad without her. I also found out later that all the female bettas that were in the group she came from died mysteriously, so that could have had something to do with it.

Laurie

 

[bettacove]

Weird, i've never heard that before, and i've heard some crayz things! lol

Ya she probably had some disease and it got passed on to him.
Well hopefully your next attemp will be sucsessfull!!

ashley