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Hi all,

This just sprung up on me and now I'm curious. If I were to maintain a 10 gallon semi-heavily planted tank and were to put 4 female bettas inside the tank, would I need to do water changes and gravel vacs? If I did, how would I go about doing so?

Cheers

The same you would any other tank. You stick the gravel vac into the gravel and suck up crap. Just try not to uprott your plants. Or suck the leaves up in the vac. Are you going to have a filter? If not i wouldnt put 4 female bettas in there. MAx of 2 i would say. Or just 1 male would look cool. Make sure you have a good light. And you would probably still need atleast an air stone to circulate the water. Most plants like water flowing over there leaves.

HTH

I tried something similar recently with a five gal and 2 females. As gourami said you definately need something to circulate the water, if it's not moving it stagnates very very quickly even heavily planted. Definately water changes are neccessary. I was doing 50% water changes at least every 2 days, any less then that and it all falls apart very quickly.

I finally put in a very small 60lph internal filter with a tiny spray bar. This keeps the water circulating nicely and filtration means I've reduced to weekly water changes. Everything is far more stable and looks much better.

The biggest problem you'll face in the method you propose is the water stagnating.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Actually, I'd only gravel vac maybe once a month when your plants have become established. Not only do you decrease your workload, it actually fertilizes the gravel quite nicely. At one period of time, I siphoned the bottom of my ten gallon once every week. After decreasing the frequency of these events by half, and then half again, I noticed my valls had all but burst out of the tank.

Ah, I see. Yeap, I'm gonna have a penguin mini on the 10 gallon and maybe a spray bar since I already have that. I have an airstone that's 1 foot long haha, but I don't think I want too many things sticking out of the tank.

I thought it was bad to have just two female bettas since they would pick on each other. =/

Thanks for the input everyone.

pcktlnt:

I'm not a betta expert, but I'm pretty sure you can house 4 females in a single tank. I've had male bettas in the past, and I remember them being not very messy - that is, they don't excrete much. I'm sure the females are the same. So, monthly light gravel vacs should suffice. Water changes and some form of filtration (which also provides water movement) are both recommended. Please note that a betta's natural habitat is stagnant water. Rice fields, I believe. That's how they developed the labyrinth 'lung', and why they gulp air from the surface. A wee bit of water movement is always a good thing, though.
-Wayne


Last edited by wayneta at 27-Sep-2004 20:47

Agression with female bettas is more of a personality thing. You can have 1 nasty one and 3 sweethearts. So it's kind of pot luck on the agression no matter how many you have.

Wayne is correct Bettas do live in stagnant water in the wild, but do you really want stinky water with scum floating on the top in your living room ?!Better to have a little circulation to turn things over, and a small filter kills 2 birds with one stone.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.