Fenriswolf Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 OK. I just wrote a huuuuge post, but you don't really need all the details. Basically, I HAD 10 female bettas and 1 male dwarf gourami who got on well. Since the older 3 females died (1 egg bound, seriously seemed to explode , 2 reabsorbed their eggs but got bloat a couple of weeks later) the young ones seem to be stressed: 2 more have died of bloat and 2 of the remaining 5 have shredded tails (it's been about 3-4 months). Arg! So with two things in mind: the advice that you could maybe add more females if you do introductions in a separate, territory-free tank and some little research into cichlids that said you're best to over-filter and over-stock (yes with lots of water changes) to minimise aggression I thought maybe getting more would help? That and some... whaddaya call it, shoaling fish to distract them? Help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenriswolf Posted August 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 This is my tank by the way - obviously it's a work in progress Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 Sorry I don't really understand the post but when it says overstock your tank and it will minimise aggresion it's because they'll have less area for a territory so you get less aggresion. I currenly have in one of my tanks the big mother female fighter, 4 of her baby female fighters and 1 of her baby males and there doesn't seem to be any aggresion so far but the tank is planted so they can get away from each other if they need to. Maybe you could add somewhere for them to hide if you don't already have anywhere. Also you could maybe add a male (I think I read somewhere that it can help). How big is the tank? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 Just saw your post. The tank looks good. maybe add some more plants for them to hide in if they need to. Indian fern is great to have. It can float or be planted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinsonMassif Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 What size is your tank? Housing two species of anabantids together is asking for trouble to start with. Then overstocking said fish is not helping your cause. Remember fish will always act true to their nature no matter what your expectations of them are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenriswolf Posted August 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 Hey Cam, Thanks for the compliment. Definitely not adding a male as that's what precipitated the issue (girls got eggbound, 1 died, 2 got bloat with weeks of each other after that) but yeah, I think you're right about the plants - looking at getting better lighting to that end then some more different heights of plants. What size is your tank? Housing two species of anabantids together is asking for trouble to start with. Then overstocking said fish is not helping your cause. Remember fish will always act true to their nature no matter what your expectations of them are. Yeah, I know it's pretty hit and miss with the gourami/betta but there's never been even the slightest posturing and contrary to everything I've read my dwarf gourami is extremely healthy and active so that's pretty much a non-issue. Yes, I expect them to be aggressive toward each other. Overstocking is most certainly not an issue right now as I have a small pleco, dwarf gourami and 5 female bettas in 200 litres. What I'm asking is if having a lot of female bettas with lots of hiding spots (a la mbuna tanks) would be better than having less of them with nothing to distract them from each other. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 I don't really know but with barbs and stuff by adding more to the school it reduces them getting nipped as theres more of them so less chance of one picking on the other. It may work with all fish but I don't know. If you get indian fern it grows in little light and multiplys really really fast. The tank doesn't look like 200 ltrs is that pic from the side or something? Thats never happened to me when I had the male in the tank are you sure it was the males fault? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenriswolf Posted August 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 I don't really know but with barbs and stuff by adding more to the school it reduces them getting nipped as theres more of them so less chance of one picking on the other. It may work with all fish but I don't know. If you get indian fern it grows in little light and multiplys really really fast. The tank doesn't look like 200 ltrs is that pic from the side or something? Thats never happened to me when I had the male in the tank are you sure it was the males fault? Well it's 190 litres if you just measure it and work it out: I measured it minus the gap at the top and the stones and it's more like 140. It's a weird shape, painfully tall and quite deep (? erm, front to back). I wouldn't say it's the male's fault so much as I think adding a new anabantoid stressed them out in general, plus he was a young male who'd been blowing bubble nests like crazy at his previous home but didn't for my extremely full-of-eggs females either in my big tank with lots of water movement or when I moved him into the 70 litre with the female who didn't reabsorb her eggs. :-? I decided it was easier just to have him in his own cube, as he's a pretty boy and all my boy + girl experiments were complete failures (I originally only had 1 male betta but he ended up getting beaten up by the girls when I tried him + 3 females and ended up really sick ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 I have a 100 litre tank with about 40 odd female fighters in it and 1 male fighter. The female fighters are added and removed as I sell them. There are hardly ever any issues with them unless a cold front is coming through and then they get a bit niggly with each other. The tank is bare bottomed and also holds up to 8 younger males within the blue betta holders you can purchase. 'Exploding' females - are you sure its eggs and not dropsy. I find that if I feed lots of bloodworms my fighters develop dropsy far more often than when I stay away from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fenriswolf Posted August 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 I have a 100 litre tank with about 40 odd female fighters in it and 1 male fighter. The female fighters are added and removed as I sell them. There are hardly ever any issues with them unless a cold front is coming through and then they get a bit niggly with each other. The tank is bare bottomed and also holds up to 8 younger males within the blue betta holders you can purchase. 'Exploding' females - are you sure its eggs and not dropsy. I find that if I feed lots of bloodworms my fighters develop dropsy far more often than when I stay away from them. Hmmm. I did just chuck the seven in when there were three initially and they were fine, but according to some people bettas will tend to pick an omega to beat the crap out of then move on when she dies. Is this not the case? I didn't have any issues between them until the three older ones died. The three older girls that died, first were full of eggs, then two of them got better only to get bloat a couple of weeks later. One of them though was definitely full of eggs and the boy just kept beating her up and wouldn't make a bubble nest, so she was in a pretty sorry way but I didn't know what to do with her because she was HUGE. She started getting some sort of fungi growing on her shredded fins so I had her quarantined, then one morning I found her with an enormous gash in her belly and seriously what looked like eggs on the bottom (I know this is freakish, don't know what actually happened but that's what it looked like) and she was covered in fungi. She died before I got the guts up to euth her Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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