Christmasfish
Aquarium Advice Addict
Because I was setting a few tanks up to get ready for the gourami fry project:step two, a friend gave me three "female " bettas. Since he was going to feed them to his oscars..I took pity and agreed to take them. He said he had some fish nipping at them and they were not pretty enough. . And since I seem to have aaallll these tanks.......(I now have the 18, 3 -10s, 2 8-s and the original 1 -gals)
~sigh!~
WEll the three supposed tank mates are gnarly. As I put them each in with my poor tattered gourami that I just set up housekeeping for, 1 was fine, 2 were social. As soon as I prepped #3 out of quarantine, all hell broke out. The gourami doesn't register, ,they kinda go nose to nose with her, give her the hairy eyeball and swim to fight with reflections. Now I have a divider and the last shares ghost shrimp space.
I am sure that two are indeed female. They are large and have bass-like stripes when they are not in colors. And have skimpy, well shaped fins.After the fights they all had horizontal stripes. Especially the two blues that started the whole affair. The largest fleshy one and one of the blues have what I will assume is the egg tube showing. All are small finned compared to my christmas fish, but one is very aggressive and puts the fins out large as it can.The other two also flare out and show gill covers at her. I separated them as soon as I saw the shiny pieces of scales start to fly! Seems to me they were the ones doing all the nipping! The biggest one is actually the most relaxed. The small one even was sizing up the poor gourami! The Gourami is now (at hour 4) following the big betta around the tank like a shadow.
Is this normal with todays bettas? I know my Grandpa even had multiple males in his planted 30-50 gal tanks and kept a school of females with some same shaped other fish. But these gals are way belligerent..if gals they are..
My house is going to have as many aquariums as the fish store at this rate!!!
~sigh!~
WEll the three supposed tank mates are gnarly. As I put them each in with my poor tattered gourami that I just set up housekeeping for, 1 was fine, 2 were social. As soon as I prepped #3 out of quarantine, all hell broke out. The gourami doesn't register, ,they kinda go nose to nose with her, give her the hairy eyeball and swim to fight with reflections. Now I have a divider and the last shares ghost shrimp space.
I am sure that two are indeed female. They are large and have bass-like stripes when they are not in colors. And have skimpy, well shaped fins.After the fights they all had horizontal stripes. Especially the two blues that started the whole affair. The largest fleshy one and one of the blues have what I will assume is the egg tube showing. All are small finned compared to my christmas fish, but one is very aggressive and puts the fins out large as it can.The other two also flare out and show gill covers at her. I separated them as soon as I saw the shiny pieces of scales start to fly! Seems to me they were the ones doing all the nipping! The biggest one is actually the most relaxed. The small one even was sizing up the poor gourami! The Gourami is now (at hour 4) following the big betta around the tank like a shadow.
Is this normal with todays bettas? I know my Grandpa even had multiple males in his planted 30-50 gal tanks and kept a school of females with some same shaped other fish. But these gals are way belligerent..if gals they are..
My house is going to have as many aquariums as the fish store at this rate!!!