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My boyfriend and I have eight betta altogether, (four females and four males) they were all originally in individual small tanks but to save space we decided to try putting the females in a community tank except for one- who is too small. We started out by putting our two largest in first so they could establish dominance amongst themselves and the smaller females would follow. The two largest actually flared like males and started slapping each other with their tails! Is this a sign we should remove one? I've never heard of this kind of behavior.

the common thing to hear is that females are peaceful. But this isnt always true. Females can fight just like males. There will be fighting for the first few days, but it should level out sooner or later. It isnt uncommon, but watch out for it getting to the level where you must step in.

Personally i have found no advantages to keeping females together. I have never been able to keep them like this sucessfully. As dieases and etc... so keep a careful eye out.

First rule of small fish introductions- cover, cover, and more cover. Basically that means as many plants etc as you can pack in there. Give them all the places to avoid visual contact that you can. Slapping with tails is kind of going in "bum first", it saves them risking a bite or a lip lock situation. Theory being that the ol' rear end can take more punishment than the eyes or the face. It also helps establish dominance and submission with the minimum of injury.

Until they have figured out each others sex they will be constantly paranoid and doing the bum in face thing, dont forget, females are terrified of males sometimes and they will make it very clear that they are female on the offchance it saves them from recieving a beating, and that includes from other females.

Female Bettas tend to go with paranoid and alive, rather than courageous and dead.

Hey everybody, thanks for the help. Took 2 days but they finally calmed down and left each other alone, sharing the tank peacefully. So well, in fact, that we had no problem whatsoever adding the other females.

sounds like they just had to establish who rules the tank and also possibly claiming their territories.

i had the same problem when i had 3 females in one of my tanks, but it didnt last long

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