# Lonely Betta... =[



## Comet1993 (Jul 28, 2011)

Turbo passed away, and Luna's all alone now.. She was so depressed when he died. Now, she doesn't have a little friend. <.> I feel so bad for her. I was planning on using the now-empty ten-gallon tank as a betta sorority, but I have concerns about that. I've heard horror stories of little betta girls dying because one of them was having a bad day and decided to take it out on the others.. Even if they had previously gotten along. >.> So, I don't know if I want to do that now.. So, what could I do? I have this ten-gallon tank, a moss ball, and several plants that I want to line the bottom with to make a natural-looking bottom.. Any ideas? :/


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## Mo (Mar 15, 2012)

Most bettas that are fairly non aggresive shouldn't have any problems. At the first sign of sight of fighting you should just isolate the aggressive fish, usually if the sorority is fine and the tank is planted like this then there should be minimal aggression other then the pecking order in the very beginning


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## Comet1993 (Jul 28, 2011)

Wow. o.o That's lovely. Very green. I think I'll need more plants. Lol. I pretty much will have the lower level of the tank covered.. But I'm going to need more cover for the middle and upper layers.. I thought about some floating plants, maybe. Like duckweed stuff, but it's supposed to grow quickly, and I'm afraid it would block light from my plants. I bought new bulbs. 6,500K each. =] It's sooo bright. xD My other bulbs look orange compared to them!


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## lilyth88 (Mar 15, 2012)

I can never comprehend why people get large tanks like that and fill it halfway. You're essentially turning a 20 gallon into a 10, or a 40 into a 20.


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## Mo (Mar 15, 2012)

If the The desk can't hold enough weight. SBD problems, feeding problems, having ADF's, etc. there are tons of reasons


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## Twilight Storm (Apr 14, 2011)

I'm sorry to hear your betta passed away. 

If you don't feel comfortable making a sorority tank because you don't have enough plants yet you can always go find another betta. I know when I go into the stores there are a lot of little fish begging me to take them home and get them out of the store.

And mo, nice floating plants they look so healthy in there.


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## NoahG (Oct 24, 2011)

Mo said:


> If the The desk can't hold enough weight. SBD problems, feeding problems, having ADF's, etc. there are tons of reasons


Just simply wanting an open top aquarium can be added to this list of reasons. For example, I'm not planning to fill my 30 Cube all the way (perhaps just to, say, 25-gallons) and am thinking of doing a more or less open top and letting some plants grow up and out of the tank.

I'd also like to some day do a 50-55-gallon sorority, open top (again, letting plants grow up and out of it), filled to, say, perhaps 75% because I kind of like that look.

A lot of people leave a good deal of space in their tanks unfilled, especially when they have fish prone to jumping.


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

Hi Comet 

As long as you use low-light plants, they won't have a problem with the duckweed. It covers the entire surface of my tank, but I am still growing elodea, hornwort, java fern, java moss, anubias, rotala wallachi, lacefern, ambulia and ludwigia repens no problems.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

I have a betta sorority and its not that heavily planted and it works fine


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

And i even removed alot of decor just have the real plants and the colleseum now


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## Mo (Mar 15, 2012)

For best results you would want it to be heavily planted. IMO you didn't take enough precautions and you should have done more research because primarily most sororities will not work without being heavily planted, with such a lack of plants and no floating plants, aggression is likely to occur, I wouldn't recommend planting it as much as the above posters tank is, IMO you would need a lot more plants


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

o n the tiki heads


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

and they r fine, ive never seen agression in it since they established a hierarchy, even during feeding. they even work as a team if a foreign thing finds its way in, the attack it untill they realize its inanimate or until they get bored.


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## Mo (Mar 15, 2012)

Just becuase this has been attempted and has worked for one person doesn't mean it's fine for another person to take the slim chance as this could result in bettas Dieing. I would highly recommend against how lightly planted pog's tank is. That is IMO, severely under planted. Remember don't take the slim chance as it will most likely result in a bad ending

And pog the fish, please don't recommend something if it's only worked for you and possibly a couple of other peoples recommending something like that could result in misinformation and could lead to the death of multpiple fish if nobody is there to correct the person/you who did this

IMO if you are seeing aggression and the fish are attacking eachother regularly, I would remove them as it is causing stress to the fish


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## lilyth88 (Mar 15, 2012)

What Mo said.


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## michael0918 (Apr 9, 2012)

Nah i dont think it's necessary to be heavily planted. This lps in our area has a 2gal tank betta sorority. There were like 10 females in there.


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## MaisyDawgThirteen (Dec 7, 2011)

michael0918 said:


> Nah i dont think it's necessary to be heavily planted. This lps in our area has a 2gal tank betta sorority. There were like 10 females in there.


Were they 10 _*happy *_females?


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## Mo (Mar 15, 2012)

Yes. I dont think the sorororty had no aggression occurring. 2 gallons, lightly planted. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. at the time you probably werent noticing any aggression as stressed females IME usually dont fight as much, maybe if you observed the tank for atleast 10 minutes, would see some aggression


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## lilyth88 (Mar 15, 2012)

michael0918 said:


> Nah i dont think it's necessary to be heavily planted. This lps in our area has a 2gal tank betta sorority. There were like 10 females in there.


Again, there are people on these forums who have been doing this for decades. They have loads more experience than probably any of us. It is _*not okay*_ to post information like that because you saw it happen _*one time*_ and it _*might *_have worked out okay. 

*Misinformation like this could lead to the DEATH of someone's betta. *


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## Tikibirds (May 26, 2011)

Just because a petstore does something does not mean its healthy for the fish...it's only a matter of time before there are some deaths in that 2 gallon soriety, plus 2 gallons can't handle the ammonia load from TEN fish.

They should be heavily planted as you need to break up the line of sight in case of agression with a MINIMUM of 10 gallons with no more then 6 females.


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## MaisyDawgThirteen (Dec 7, 2011)

I don't think that people realize that when they give out mis-information they can be the cause of a death of a living thing.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

Well what can I do to make my tank better? I'm not all that good with aquatic plants..


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## sunlight (Apr 24, 2012)

how big is your tank? how many girls do you have in there?


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Yeah when my sorority wasn't as heavily planted none of my females showed very vivid colouring and the less dominant ones hung out at the back and bottom refusing to come up for food.

If your tank is rarely sparsely decorated you will sometimes see no aggression as the females feel to exposed and stressed to fight.

If you don't do live plants, I'd fill it up with fake plants. Those imitating stem plants and plants such as swords and vallisneria are ideal as they will offer cover at all levels of the tank. I'd use some PVC pipe in T and L shapes on the ground as your females can swim in and out of these without getting trapped, which is what can happen in terracotta pots. 










This is what a healthy sorority looks like. All of my females are bright, healthy and while there is still the odd nip or two, no serious fighting or chasing occurs. Please note I have since added more plants since this photo as I was waiting on a delivery.


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## NoahG (Oct 24, 2011)

Very nice girls, LittleBettaFish -- is that black and red marble the same girl in your avatar? They look similar...


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## sunlight (Apr 24, 2012)

oh omg how cute!!!!


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

NoahG said:


> Very nice girls, LittleBettaFish -- is that black and red marble the same girl in your avatar? They look similar...


Yeah that's her standard photo pose. Her sister is the orange and black female at the top.


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## NoahG (Oct 24, 2011)

Haha, that's one of the ways I put it together: the pose.

Geeze, such beautiful girls. I came across an orange female once and managed to not impulse buy her...it was hard though.


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## Comet1993 (Jul 28, 2011)

Those are reallyyy pretty girls! =] I've started out the tank. Just letting the filter run and the lights (on a schedule). I tried leaving the lights on part of the time and turning them off part of the time, but lots of icky brown algae got on this one plant... So, we left the lights on more.. Now, there's green algae, too. -_- And the brown algae is still there!!!


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Nice sorority pic.


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## MaisyDawgThirteen (Dec 7, 2011)

Comet1993 said:


> Those are reallyyy pretty girls! =] I've started out the tank. Just letting the filter run and the lights (on a schedule). I tried leaving the lights on part of the time and turning them off part of the time, but lots of icky brown algae got on this one plant... So, we left the lights on more.. Now, there's green algae, too. -_- And the brown algae is still there!!!


 The more you have the lights on the more algae will appear. lol I'd just leave the lights off completely until it's been cycled. Once you have the fish in there turn one the lights for about 8-10 hours a day. 

Good Luck!


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