Male and Female bettas are living together!

[Xavier_6708]

So I have been keeping bettas for half a year.. Also made serveral attempts to breed them, got eggs but no fry.

Now my male wont court, but instead swim around and cuddle the female fish. I have tried putting another female in the mix and now they all three live together in the same tank..

My other male when i tried all 4 in the same tank just bullied and was the odd man out..

Anyone else with this situation? I think it is cool!.. docile bettas!

 

[Zagz]

Welcome to AA. It is unusual, but definately interesting. How long have all of them been together and in what size tank?

 

[An t-iasg]

swim around and cuddle the female fish.

This may be mating behavior. If the male does begin to tend to the eggs in a bubble nest, remove the remaining females or the male may kill them.

 

[Xavier_6708]

Ya i know what breeding behavior is.. and this isnt it.. He has mated before.. and now they just co exist in the same tank.. all three.. They have been together for about 3 weeks now.. and both are old enough to mate.. in fact they both have with different partners... I think its because my male is docile.. He isnt mean to the girl bettas, but also isnt interested in mating with them

 

[patryuji]

Nice guy syndrome?

 

[jrp1588]

haha, that's true. Gotta be a complete jerk to get a girl's attention.

 

[Xavier_6708]

mabye.. he turned gay... his spawning mate jumped out and committed suicide.. then he moped around the bottom of the tank for a while.. now he wont mate with another girl..

heh monogamous betta

 

[DepotFish]

Maybe the conditions just aren't right for breeding. As you said, the last batch of eggs produced no fry.

And lets face it, ornamental bettas haven't been bred for fighting in how many hundreds of generations? They aren't always as aggressive as they are made out to be. Even fighting plakats aren't used to fight to the death. They only die when there is no place to retreat and they are completely exhausted and weakened.

 

[Jacko]

How did you condition them? My very first attempt at breeding resulted in harmony in the breeding tank, I took them out and followed the advice of one of my freinds, Suzie Q, and fed both high protein foods like bloodworms and live mosquito larvae. After that, I put the male back in the main tank and floated the female in the tank in a small bowl (some use hurricane glasses) for 6 hours, remove her after 6 hours. Keep this going, and the conditioning food, for a couple weeks before finally leaving her in there for a day or two without removing her, he should start building a bubble nest for her now, if he hasn't already, in the next day or two you should be able to release her and induce spawning.

Have you tried using IAL or IAL extract to get the params down and better to their natural enviroment, if it were available to me I would use it, it is supposed to help with egg fungusing and just regular aniseptic to the wounds females incur so often. Plus, it is alot more stable than using chems.

 

[Xavier_6708]

it was just a case of a hungry male that ate the babies... d*mn bad fathers... haha

believe me.. its not any of the above, I have read just about everything there is for betta breeding and this is just some kinda uncommon fluke... The only thing I can think of is that the male is getting to old, and just doesnt want to mate/fight anymore

but its cool to say that I got co-living bettas.. mabye i will put up some pics or video to prove it