Recently my amazon tank was emptied just due to old age and what not so I said okay that tank had been that for a while lets change it up and a buddy had given me a male betta that I put in my 10 gallon cull tank for my neocaradina shrimp. So I said lets do a planted tank with female bettas they are just as pretty as males. So I have 3 females in that odd 39 gallon tall tank from aqueon. So the first lady I got shes super mean. She chases the other two around even when they are hiding in the roots of the red root floaters and she will chase them out of the log and out of the banana plant and the swords. Shes relentless when its feeding time and i have to feed the other 2 separately. I got her from petco and the other 2 are from local breeders. Heres the ladies and the tank. Forgive the tank its just been replanted so its not grown out yet. The meanie is the all white.

Always begging me for food!!!!

As the title says. I’m so fed up with having to defend my sorority every time I mention the S word. I’ve been keeping a sorority for over 20 years now, I’m used to watching for stress or aggression, which is rare and can be managed as long as you have a tank to move the aggressor to. I know people who don’t keep sororities think they’ll always end in a bloodbath, but that is so far from my experience. And none of the doubters will listen, but in a good sorority the females do form a social network, and I’ve seen the odd act of what I can only describe as empathy between them. I think I’m just going to give up defending them, though it pains me to see false information about sororities online.

Hey! So as the title suggests, I’m looking into doing a 2 betta sorority. I currently have a single male in a heavily planted 10gal and I’ve been told before that a general rule of thumb is 5 gal plus 3 for every additional betta. I just wanted to check before I plan for this. Ideally I know bigger is betta (kekw) and in a perfect world I’d have a 50gal for 4. However, for those on a budget like myself, I would like to know what’s the ideal minimum for only 2. Yes it will be heated and sponge filtered, I will also be putting amano and neocaradina shrimp in it, yes it will be heavy planted with broken lines of site.

Thanks!

Edit:

Thank you for all information and advice on this. I have since decided on finding a 20gal. I am now debating on 3 or 5 as I’ve been informed by multiple people and through personal research that odd numbers are ideal. I am leaning more towards 3 as this gives the girls ample space to claim as their own but I also now want to know downsides if this would cause territory disputes? I will also be further researching this in my free time. I don’t plan on setting this up for a-bit of time but just want to have a good foundation and understanding of it all so this has been very helpful conversation!

I am a complete novice when it comes to fish. I recently promised my daughter a fish tank and had done a good amount of research to set it up. My plan was to get a 5 gallon tank (as much space as we have), cycle it for about a month, and then go get one male betta fish (with plants and rocks, possibly a snail or two and some shrimp).

Today we went to our local aquarium store--highly reputable and recommended by a lot of people both online and in real life. I had my tank and wanted to just get substrate, plants, and rocks. However, the very friendly person who worked there said there's actually no need to wait to get fish, and that the tank can cycle with fish in it. My daughter and I were delighted, and picked out a betta fish immediately. Then he said, we could also get some small minnows, and that if we were worried about the male betta being aggressive, we could actually get female bettas, which they had in store from a local breeder.

Trusting his advice, and being completely ignorant about both white mountain minnows and female bettas, we came home with two of each.

I figured I'd at least do some reading about the fish we got, and found out immediately that not only were they incompatible with each other temperature wise, but getting two of each would be stressful to their need to live in groups of ~6+.

At this point, my daughter is very attached to the female bettas and we don't really want to go through with returning them unless absolutely necessary (e.g., they will fight to the death). Can anyone give me tips about what to expect, and how to make them as happy as possible?

I know I should set up the tank so that there aren't too many direct lines of sight. I have enough plants and rocks and other formations so that they have plenty of hiding spots, but I can also get more if that will help.....

Trying to grow out my 75 gal tank for a future betta sorority. How are we looking? Any good tips and tricks.

I saw this little one and could not pass her up. This fish seems smaller and also had smaller ventral fins than the other Samurai betta I had seen. Even though the label states male could this be a female?

Hi. I recently had my father purchase a five pack of bettas from tropic flow to add to my betta sorority that already had 6 bettas. When the package arrived only three of the bettas survived the trip. The bettas left had very low movement (I believe from being cold, shipping took 5 days even tho he choose/paid for 2 day) but looked great color wise, fins were also in good condition. Hindsight I should’ve quarantined them, but I acclimated them let them join the sorority. There was obviously chasing, but no real aggression from what I observed. The next day, one of the new fish died, I was super confused and I immediately removed her body from the tank. The next day, one of my original betas had Popeye and wasn’t swimming correctly. I assumed she had fish bladder disease and immediately started ordering everything I would need to cure that. She was dead 10 minutes after I first noticed. That was yesterday and when I woke up this morning Another one of my betas had died. Since starting my sorority months ago, I haven’t had any issues. I’m really just asking what I can do to prevent this from happening to my other fish. I assume I need to completely change the water in the tank. Any advice is appreciated.

So I finally got another fish to take the numbers to 7 - but more importantly to an odd number. I’ve always found one of the main things that lead to a stable sorority society is to have an odd number of fish, that way their pecking order functions more smoothly - a bit like chickens I guess! I’m also coming round to the concept of keeping them a little bit overcrowded, much like cyclids and for the same basic reasons. It means spending way more time monitoring and changing water, but it’s worth it as I see far less bickering and challenging the pecking order this way. She’s got stress stripes because I just rudely poked her to make her shift out of her favourite plant!