# Dividing a tank, yay or nay?



## AyalaCookiejar (Nov 20, 2012)

My VT DaBaDee started pineconing last Friday. I treated him with Kanaplex and now his scales are laying flat. Mercy, a girl in my sorority, started pineconing yesterday and was sinking like a rock so I had to move her to a QT tank (1 gallon but not filled all the way full).

If she makes it, I don't know if I want her back in the sorority tank because I know dropsy reoccurs, so I was thinking about dividing DaBaDee's five gallon and putting her in there? I have never had a divided tank but I do know how to make custom dividers. DaBaDee is getting old and less active and doesn't really use all the room he has in his tank, but he does use one decoration (his squidward house) and he sleeps behind the filter so I was thinking about may e putting his squidward house on the side of the filter and putting Mercy on the other side (again, IF she makes it :/)

But I'm a little unsure if this is a good idea. Mercy is not a jumper to my knowledge and DaBaDee has never been a jumper. He also doesn't seem to react as much to his reflection or other bettas anymore. I'm still worried about them being able to see each other... I have plastic craft mesh which is see through ish.

Mercy would be on the side of the tank without a hole for the filter obviously so if she were to jump she wouldn't get far. I lost a girl in my sorority a few weeks ago (I think she was the weakest and got picked on and stressed out - no signs of sickness. Mercy is a chunky girl so maybe that's why she got dropsy?) so now my sorority only has 4 girls. If I lose another I will have to divide the ten gallon sorority tank, too... But two of those girls are jumpers.

Idk :/ I'm just stressed from losing a girl then having two sick fish and I'm trying to plan ahead and figure out what to do next.


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

This was a 7 gallon divided tank and both fish seemed to like it when I had it set-up. 

People on here usually go on about females becoming egg-bound, but I've never seen it happen. I have groups of mixed sexed wilds living together and some of the females never spawn and no one has died from becoming egg-bound. Personally, I like to keep males and females together in divided tanks. 

If you were wanting to do it as a permanent home, I would look at using silicone to secure dividers in place. I would do it now if I had to divide up a tank. I have had dividers full over in the past or lean and make a gap big enough for a betta to get through.


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## AyalaCookiejar (Nov 20, 2012)

I have aquarium safe silicone. I heard that silicone easily comes off the glass? I might use it to secure dividers at the top but not to silicone the entire thing down the side the tank (if I can remove the silicone).

It's a permanent set up plan for these two. When I lose one of them, I'll remove the divider. My smallest tank for a single fish is 4 gallons and I only want to divide the 5.5 because I don't have another spot for her. I think dividing Zenvo's 5.5 wouldn't give him enough space whereas DaBaDee doesn't use as much space, and I personally think the 4 is too small to divide. DaBaDee is also getting old and I'm not sure how much longer he will be around but he's a fighter. He's already dealt with internal parasites twice and has now survived dropsy, plus Walmart and living in a 1 gallon unheated tank with too few water changes for 9 months (he's not that old - 2 years ish, but he's been through a lot).

Edit: thanks for your reply, btw!


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Maybe cut and drill a piece of acrylic so it fits really snugly down the centre of the tank? I was going to try this out on one of my tanks that I need to divide but don't want to wreck with silicone. 

Sounds like some of your bettas are going through a rough patch. It is frustrating as heck when that happens. Hopefully your two pull through so they can enjoy their planned tank.


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## AyalaCookiejar (Nov 20, 2012)

Hmmm... I think I might figure something out  thanks!

DaBaDee seems to have beaten dropsy miraculously but I'm not sure about Mercy yet... Thank you!

Btw your 7 gallon was beautiful


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## Wildbetta (Mar 26, 2013)

I have had several divided tanks with bettas (shared between males and females). I have used suction cups to secure the dividers and used silicon to hold the dividers to the side of the tank. I will say that for security purposes, the siliconed sides worked the best with least problems between the bettas. I have never really had issues with the bettas seeing the next door neighbor and stressing themselves out. The males would daily have some flaring time and then the rest of the time ignore each other. The way to fix most jumpers is to keep the water level down at least an inch from the top of the divider. A 5 gallon is plenty big enough to divide in half for your two. Here are a couple of pics of my divided setups. 

10 gallon I just set up yesterday (siliconed for almost 48 hrs prior)



5 gallon divided in 2 (these 2 males are in the new set-up 10 gallon above) This is one that I had used the suction cups and not siliconed in the divider. You can see the difference in stability although the suction cups with this tank never failed me.


10 gallon divided 4 ways (my very first divided tank) 


and then my biggest divided tank - a 20 gallon long divided 7 ways. This one was done with suction cups instead of silicon and I did have some issues with this one.


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## Shadyr (Mar 27, 2012)

Dividing a Bookshelf 6.6 has worked out well for Ghost and Redfish so far. I made one of the DIY dividers and haven't had any problems with it. It's held in place purely by tension.


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## AyalaCookiejar (Nov 20, 2012)

Thank you, everyone! I appreciate the pictures, too. Unfortunately, Mercy didn't make it. She went very fast, a lot faster than I expected, so I won't be dividing my five gallon, BUT I will keep all of this in mind because I've lost 2 of my 6 sorority girls already and if I lose any more, the sorority 10 gallon will have to be divided three ways.

Also, I'll be moving to my own apartment sometime soon and, who knows, I will probably (most likely, definitely) need to find some more room for more bettas. Wow, I joined this site less than a year ago with 1 Betta, and now I have had 10 more on top of him (I've lost 4 but my original Betta I joined this site with is still with me, DaBaDee<3)



Anyways, I have one more question for you... How much trouble did you have with sickness in divided tanks? I am very... cautious, since the whole Myco thing on the forum awhile back, and every one of my tanks even have their own siphons. I have separate buckets for clean and dirty water (well I had that before. It's just a good idea..)

I'm assuming that a sorority tank is going to have more sickness than a divided tank just because of stress factors. I had issues with sickness with DaBaDee (old age) and Bahari (horrible genetics) but so far, no problems with Zenvo and no issues with any of my girls except Mercy.. (Lotus passed away but I still didn't see any signs of sickness, just stress, I assume..)


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## Wildbetta (Mar 26, 2013)

Sorry to hear about your loss. 

I had more issues with my sororities and sickness than I did with any of my divided tanks. Even though they are "connected", they don't seem to stress as much as the girls did so healthier fish. You do still have to be watchful for stuff because if one does happen to get sick, the others you might as well say are infected. The thing with dropsy though (what you just had an issue with) is that it is hard to determine what the original cause was. Which means that treating all the girls could have helped or it might have not since there is no telling whether what caused the dropsy was even something that would carry to any of the other fish.


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## AyalaCookiejar (Nov 20, 2012)

Yeah, I know :/ I've lost two girls now to dropsy and have successfully treated DaBaDee. Internal issues are so hard to detect or identify until the scales start pineconing, and even then, you don't really know what it is. I mixed metro and Kanaplex when I treated Mercy, but cured DaBaDee with Kanaplex alone. I almost have a feeling that, even with such a low water level, that maybe she couldn't reach the surface. She was really struggling to swim upwards, she was actually shuffling around on her belly on the bottom of the tank.

I know Okami's dropsy had something to do with a power outage that caused a temp fluctuation. She was still in QT. I'm almost sure Lotus's random death (seriously, fine one day, dead the next) was because of stress. She was the weakest girl, picked on the most. I found her body missing an eye and it looked like her fins went through a lawn mower, but they likely did most of that after she died. But Mercy? Idk, all I know is she was a chunk since I got her and she got stress stripes on and off. So, maybe stress, maybe overeating, maybe both?

I just don't like losing one and worrying to death about the remaining ones.

Edit: My remaining girls (Stella, EE, Lotus's sibling) and the three dragon girls don't ever seem stressed, but I guess I can't really tell because they are light in color. Mercy was dark so her stress stripes stood out. They are the sassiest 4 of the 6 and the only ones remaining. Mercy and Lotus were really loners. Have you ever seen that in your sororities? The most stressed ones kind of, hanging outside of the group? I think it's ironic because Mercy was my biggest girl in size, Stella is my smallest. She's like, half Mercy's size. Okami was also a big girl.


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## Wildbetta (Mar 26, 2013)

It is hard to lose one especially when you have no idea why. I had a EE female in my sorority that up and died one day for no reason. Never did figure out the problem because no one ever got sick after that. I had one girl get columnaris but got her out before anyone else was affected thank god. 

Your chunky one might have had parasites that never showed themselves. That is something that happens quite frequently as well which is why a lot of people have started to treat the fish for parasites when they first get them with or without symptoms.


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