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Just wanted to show all of you the progress of my 55 gal tank... You'll notice a couple of male Bettas in with many females... Let me explain....

After a bacterial infection which almost wiped out my fish community entirely, I allowed the aquarium to "rest" with just the few survivors (consisting of some corys and two female bettas) for a couple of months.... (However, even during this "rest" period I received quite an unexpected surprise! My Panda Corys mated - and although I've heard it's rather rare, I had one of their offspring survive - and doing well!)

This past March I finally decided the time was right and began to focus on building a major female Betta community... Acquiring a few of my girls from Sarah of coloradocrowntails.com, and a few more from Bryan of bluebettausa.com. The majority of my Bettas though came from my friend Paul of biloxibettas.com. Now because of the care that these particular breeders give, all were around 3-4 months of age and in excellent health.... Included in Paul's shipment were a couple of young males - siblings to some of the girls received.... Paul's own experience in having male and female Bettas together has proven to him that this can be done --- BUT he is of the opinion that the best chance for success is to include sibling males - that have been raised together with the females (in short, NEVER separated) - and to have ALL together when quite young... And of course, provide a larger enough tank to accomodate all of the fish.... He himself has a well established tank with both male and females.

For me, Paul's theory appears to be working out... My boys seem to get along with the girls and each other for that matter... As for the girls -- well, every once in awhile I witness a "skirmish", however it quickly ends by one of the girls swimming away... (So I suppose in this case you could say, size DOES matter - at least when it comes to the tank! LOL!!)

I have chosen not to provide plant decoration of any kind, since I feel that my previous hidey hole and plant decorations contributed to the bacterial infections which wiped out the tank previously.... But that is only my opinion... Paul's mixed sex tank quite frankly is nicely decorated....

All I can really say with 100% certainty is that this tank provides great pleasure to me!!!!!





dreamweaver8891 attached this image:


To thine own self be true...

Just another shot of the tank.....

dreamweaver8891 attached this image:


To thine own self be true...

And just one more....

dreamweaver8891 attached this image:


To thine own self be true...

Nice work

I haven't had the heart to separate my males from my females in the grow-out tank either, and they are going pretty well.

I tend to think that if there is enough room (lots of it!) and the fish aren't OHM or anything that makes them too neurotic with all the inbreeding, it can be done.

I do, however, think that having jars at the ready is always a wise precaution

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

ur not going to decorate it, or plant it at all? the fist r nice, but i think they would be much happier with a large cornered piece of drift wood by the filter ( to help break up the current) and some fake or real plants, and some rock work my girls and boy are quite happy in the 29 gallonit has minimal decor as i wait for the plants to grow but all in all its nice, also had my male pair up i have tried this in other tanks as well (10 gallons) and it worked too frankly, i cant see why they frown so much about keeping male and female to gether, also had 2 males in the 29 (1 was blind though) but the blind male dissapeared for a few days and came up dead becaise he was blind, i assumed he was steral, and he never flaired, or aced aggressive at all (but take into mind he was mostly blind too)

i always wondered about if male/female bettas where raised and kept together if they would be ok.

also i know someone who had a male betta in her 25g community and then decided she had to have a female in there as well (i told not to). well this was 2 weeks ago and everybodys fine. he total ignores her unless she goes into his spot, then he chases her as he does with everybody else in the tank who does.

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

monkeyboy mentioned something that I had not thought about before... unless she goes into his spot.... Perhaps having NO decorations in my tank is the reason why NONE of my girls or boys appear to be territorial ---- ????? Hmmmmm. I will definitely have to think about this a bit.......

Last edited by dreamweaver8891 at 10-Jul-2005 14:45

To thine own self be true...

i would have to agree that younger bettas, from the same spawn would get along better, than bettas that have never met b4, and fully grown adults. the only way i have been able to hold two males and a few females, was having old short tail males in with adult females.