# Female betta very attached to other tank mates



## bettathannot (Sep 24, 2017)

Hey everyone, I just wanted to ask a question about my female betta sorority. One of my bettas is mostly blind and can't really see much (got her like this), the other is a really spritsy energetic and beginning to become cheeky and slowly aggressive female (will be keeping an extra close eye on her) and recently I got an additional female that I adopted from someone, cos her sister died from a tumour I believe. Nonetheless the new female is massive (almost double the size of my other bettas), but a very friendly giant and my main concern is the fact that she is VERY attached to my other females. She follows them around quite closely (as in touching them with some part of her body closely) and I think it is annoying my other females quite a bit as I am seeing my visually impaired betta flaring for the first time ever. 

My main question is whether this may become an issue or if she will learn to give them a little more space, etc or if I will have to separate her anytime soon to prevent issues from occurring. She has only been in there for a couple of days and I had her floating in a bag with holes punched in it for a day or two before that so they got used to each other and the method has always worked for me. Noting that she has shown absolutely no aggression whatsoever except for a bit of half arsed flaring at the gudgeon. She has also been protective of the visually impaired betta during feeding time from the younger one stealing her food. 

My assumption is that she has attachment issues due to losing her sister, but I'm not too sure. 


Here are my tank details if it will help in any way at all

*Housing:*
Tank size: 45L
Filtration: Built in aqua one above water internal hangon type style filter with active carbon, floss and ceramics.
Does it have a heater? yes
What temperature is your tank? 26 to 28 degrees celcius
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Tank residents: 3 female bettas, 1 firetail gudgeon and 1 juvenile common bristlenose catfish who will be moved into a larger tank once he gets a bit bigger. 
Lighting: Aqua one built in blue and white led light
Deco: few plastic plants ceramic glazed Japanese houses and ceramic glazed lucky cat ornament

*Food:*
Diet: Hikari gold betta pellets, 3-4 a day each(I keep an extra close eye on how much they eat). Sometimes black worms as a treat(very rare though cos a lot of money).


*Maintenance:*
How often do you change water? 25% per week
Do you vacuum the substrate or just dip out water? Vacuum
What additives do you use? What brand of conditioner? Prime by Seachem

*Water Parameters:*
Temperature: 26-27/28 degrees celcius
Ammonia:0
Nitrates: <5
Nitrites:0
pH:7.3Hardness (GH): unknown
Alkalinity (KH): unknown

If someone can give me more advice on this I would really appreciate it  I am very new to the whole betta sorority thing.


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## Tardigrade (Apr 17, 2017)

It seems like everything is working out nicely for now! You got big betta taking care of everyone. My male molly used to do that for his 2 deformed very tiny brothers. I guess you are just nervous. There are lots of advice what to do if your sorority falls apart, but maybe big betta is just getting to meet everyone and she might stop touching everyone eventually? Usually people recommend 4+ bettas in a sorority, but you it seems like all is ok for now.


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## AngelDemonWolf (Aug 16, 2017)

Maybe you could try distracting the big female with other tank mates.

I have a giant koi female that gets distracted easily with my corydoras. Maybe you can add some harlequin or cory to your tank so that they can get distracted, this in a good way of avoiding fights between females.


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## bettathannot (Sep 24, 2017)

Thanks so much for the replies 

Since I put her in, she has seemed to have glued herself to the visually impaired one. I have recently taken out the younger one, just cos I was planning on breeding her and am getting her ready for that (for the last two or three days she has been separated from the others and it was the reason I bought her). But it seems that without the younger one in the mix, the visually impaired girl seems a little less on guard and more relaxed when the bigger female touches her or comes near her. For the most part they are swimming alone on other sides of the tank, but occasionally the bigger one might come check on my other girl and swim with her for a bit before going off again. I am so in love with the larger betta because she literally the biggest teddy bear of a fish so far after almost a week in there. She hasn't been aggressive once or flared at all, despite the visually impaired girl flaring at her a couple of times, probably thinking it was the younger one who goes out for trouble. (questioning putting her back in the group tank to be honest)

I do have a catfish in the tank, but she doesn't seem too bothered with him XD and I did have a gudgeon in there as well before which she chased around a lot when he got near my impaired girl, so I thought I would move him to a tank with a group of gudgeons (I think he was getting territorial in the betta tank too).


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## faithbettafish (Sep 28, 2017)

I just thought I would post an update on my sorority since this incident.

Since posting this I ended up getting additional females (2 from the same tank at the LFS and 4 from a previous sorority setup) and moving them into a 40gal tank together. I now have 8 females, where 6 are together and two of them are too aggressive to put in. The same female that was very touchy feely and very connected with my other females, is in this tank and is the dominant female. She is very calm and actually takes care of everyone and disciplines any girls that get too nippy with each other. It has been a very successful period so far, with major learning curbs and luckily I have not had any girls get into any brawls or any damaging fights which is really great 

I feel very lucky and greatful for being able to have a tank so amazing


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

It's always good to have an update. Too many members leave us hanging.


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## ShadeSlayer (Jul 20, 2015)

Wow, your sorority sounds really neat! Do you have any pictures? Really cool you have a visual impared betta and she's still living a normal fishy life. :0)


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## faithbettafish (Sep 28, 2017)

I can see if I can upload a few. I even have an insta profile just for them XD, as well as my crayfish. But today I got a new phone for Christmas and forgot all my access passwords for that profile and insta blocked me out of my own pets' account :O

But needless to say i can take pretty spiffy photos of them now 

Some of the photos are a bit older though than others. I just thought I would upload my favourites 

So in order:
1. Faithy - visually impaired

2. Poncho the dominant female

3. Is Lilly, little cheeky one. She's small but she is sneeky as and sneaks up on the bigger girls to nip em from behind. Smart, but naughty.

4. Is Faith again

5. Poncho

6. Lilly and Faith

7. Faith - she was so fat then. She was super duper eggy and her tummy literally went up overnight and down overnight. It was crazy.

8. Cleo. Little feiry "red head" with purplely eyes and just about as cheeky as Lilly. They are my two smallest girls.

9. Rosa and she is fairly new. She is one of the ones that came out of a previous sorority tank along with 3 other females I have. Two of which are a bit too aggressive and one of those aggressive females is a bit sick at the moment so i can't get a good pic of her right now 

10. Is Poncho again. i took this photo today and you can actually see her brown spot/"birth mark" in this pic. Not sure what it is. It has been there since I have gotten her and it has spread quite a bit over the last few months. But it doesn't seem to affect her too much apart from it getting a bit lumpy in the fin portion of it. Also the fact that she almost always gets a fungal infection around that finnage area. She gets it nicked by the smallest little bit and it will go fuzzy, but it generally heals up by itself by parts of the dark "finnage" falling off weirdly enough? It just kinda shrivels up and falls off. But if it is something bad, I don't feel like there is anything I can do to stop it, i can just try and do the best i can to give her the best life ever!

11. Luna - she is very shy. Second dominant, but very shy and very sensitive. She throws stress stripes for the smallest things. I have a male like her too and he freaks out just when I have to do a water change. She basically prowls along the bottom of the tank and only really comes out from her hiding spots when I come to say hello or feed them oooorrr when another female "intrudes". But she is the most stunning dark chromey royal blue to purple colour.

12. This one of my newest girls. I got her a week ago with another female who is sick and they are both from the same tank as Rosa was. Her previous owner named her Eros, so I just extended it and her name is Eros-Snow.

But these are the best pics I have of most of my girls. A few of them I only took today lol.


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## ShadeSlayer (Jul 20, 2015)

Wow! Beautiful pics and beautiful girls! Thank you so much for sharing those.


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