# I am keeping male and female bettas together. My experience.



## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

Recently, I made the choice to put my male betta and 2 females into my 4,160 liters (1,099 gallon) pond. 
It was risky, but I wanted to see how they would react to the large space and their "natural" environment. 
They are in their with many goldfish and guppies.
They have been in for over a week, they all have no nips or injuries on their fins.
I have witnessed the male and females all school together, they eat together. There is no violence. The male is very protective over his females. He will flare at my goldfish and shubunkins if they come too close.
In winter I will be moving the trio to my 55 gallon and see how it goes.


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## tankman12 (Nov 13, 2012)

Okay, a 55 should be big enough for this. Still a huge risk. Is it heavily planted? If not i would never try this. Also make sure you have those one gallon tanks ready, just in case it doesnt work.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

I havn't set it up yet, but i plan to plant it heavily. I have many tanks or betta tanks I can put hem in if it doesn't work out.


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## Flint (Oct 22, 2013)

How are you going to heavily plant the tank when you set it up? I have over $200 in my moderately planted 10 gallon and that is AFTER it grew out for six+ months and I have a rather large piece of driftwood in there as well.


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

Flint said:


> How are you going to heavily plant the tank when you set it up? I have over $200 in my moderately planted 10 gallon and that is AFTER it grew out for six+ months and I have a rather large piece of driftwood in there as well.


I'm obsessed with plants, trust me I have enough.


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## Destinystar (May 26, 2012)

Beautiful tank Bettacrab !


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

While your tank looks beautiful and healthy, that's definitely _not_ heavily planted.


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## tankman12 (Nov 13, 2012)

Ya nice tank. But definitely not heavily planted. More like medium planted.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Flint (Oct 22, 2013)

I would call that lightly planted but _maybe_ just on the threshold of moderately. Maybe.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

I agree :/ not really heavily planted... If you would like too see heavily planted ask lil XD how bout you Russell didn't you have a "jungle"?!


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Yep, my "jungle". Thanks for remembering.  Hallyx calls it "Betta Heaven."


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Indeed! A betta heaven it is!!!! 

Now please, hand the whole tank and plants over too me please! :lol::twisted:


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## Pandanke (Jun 16, 2014)

What a beautiful jungle, haha. I fear for the day I don't keep up my trimmings and mine turn into that... Although, do I *really* fear for it... or do I dream about it?


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## Sathori (Jul 7, 2013)

RussellTheShihTzu said:


> Yep, my "jungle". Thanks for remembering.  Hallyx calls it "Betta Heaven."


I will take that tank, please and thanks  I'm in love <3


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## myexplodingcat (Apr 9, 2014)

RussellTheShihTzu said:


> Yep, my "jungle". Thanks for remembering.  Hallyx calls it "Betta Heaven."


Is that a 20 long? Maybe a 29? I thought it was so much bigger at first until I saw the AmmoAlert. XD The way you've done it up is really nice.


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## Litzi1964 (Jun 1, 2014)

Something else you might try in the winter is getting a livestock watering trough. Farm and Fleet sells sizes from 40 or 50 gallons all the way up to 300 gallons. They're made of a very heavy duty plastic designed to be outdoors all winter.

In my opinion much of the "classic" betta aggression we see is not inherent to the fish at all but it's a result of what humans have done to them. They manage to coexist with each other and other fish species in their native habitat. So I think the key is to move as far away from the betta-in-a-bowl and as close to their natural habitat as possible.

Annihilating potential mates is a very poor reproductive strategy. From a survival standpoint, aggression really only makes sense if you're a carnivorous predator or if you're trying to defend against those predators. Otherwise it's anti-survival.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Remember that these fish have been bred for ages to do nothing but fight each other... the "natural" habitat of the domestic B. Splendens is a small murky pond in youth, later transferred to a jar... There is a disconnect between a wild animal and its domesticated version, they can't be compared to each other...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## aselvarial (Feb 21, 2014)

I don't think betta splendens are anymore "natural" than my dog is. Sure, she COULD be a wild animal, and is descended from one, but I wouldn't treat her the same way I would a wolf. Betta splendens are NOT the wild betta. I seriously doubt they could survive in the wild long-term. 
That said, a big enough area would probably let them react differently than they would in a smaller tank. And there is no other male, so no one for the male betta to have to compete with for breeding rights to the two females. Interesting experiment.


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## bwywbi (Aug 21, 2014)

I have kept betta for about 10 years and have had some success with keeping a male and several females together in a well planted community tank before. I moved several times the last few years and only kept planted tanks until about 4 months ago when on a whim we bought 3 females and a male from several local pet stores. We introduced them all at the same time into a 55 gallon tank (only other fish are 3 albino plecos) and they lived completely at peace until about 2 weeks ago.

I saw the crowntail female and the male wrapping under the tiniest of bubble nests and I guess they were successful because we have several fry. There are probably many more but the tank is so planted there are few spots for me to see. The best thing is that the female is just as invested in the care of the fry as the male. She chased away the middle ranking female from a free swimming fry and caught the said fry in her mouth. I assumed she ate it but instead she swam to the male on the other side of the tank and deposited it there! It was the coolest thing to watch. Of course at that point the male just looked at it and I could practically see him shrug as the fry swam off into the java moss.
Now all the females ignore the free swimmers and the same female has had another batch of eggs!

This is completely new experience and I'm waiting to see if there is aggression because I don't want the 2 lower ranking females to get hurt. I have another tank I can move them to but I don't want to leave just 2 females in a community by themselves.

Well this was a really cool experiment that I would never have set up on purpose but like I said, I've never had a spawn before that I didn't specifically set up. I hope you have the same luck when you move yours to your 55 gallon too.


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Jungle tank is a 20 long.


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## ranetree (Jul 8, 2013)

Okay but is no one going to question why OP has put tropical bettas with coldwater goldfish? Like, am I reading this thread wrong?


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## Kithy (Nov 21, 2012)

ranetree said:


> Okay but is no one going to question why OP has put tropical bettas with coldwater goldfish? Like, am I reading this thread wrong?


 Erm. HUGE temp difference there. I've kept goldfish in like, 72-74 happy but any higher and they act funny.


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## Pandanke (Jun 16, 2014)

In their original thread proposing the idea, it was definitely brought up.


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## jessriggy (Apr 7, 2014)

ranetree said:


> Okay but is no one going to question why OP has put tropical bettas with coldwater goldfish? Like, am I reading this thread wrong?


Genuinely what I have been thinking this entire time as I have been reading through


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

ranetree said:


> Okay but is no one going to question why OP has put tropical bettas with coldwater goldfish? Like, am I reading this thread wrong?


Right now in my climate it's summer and it's hot. My pond has small cold water goldfish. The temperature is fine for bettas, and it will have to make do for the Goldie's because we are not buying a chiller.


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

Kithy said:


> Erm. HUGE temp difference there. I've kept goldfish in like, 72-74 happy but any higher and they act funny.


Guys it's a pond. It's 3 feet deep too. A lot of people down here keep goldfish In ponds without problem.


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## tankman12 (Nov 13, 2012)

Bettacrab said:


> Right now in my climate it's summer and it's hot. My pond has small cold water goldfish. The temperature is fine for bettas, and it will have to make do for the Goldie's because we are not buying a chiller.


It is starting to get cold at night up here. I would say it is almost time to bring them in...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

tankman12 said:


> It is starting to get cold at night up here. I would say it is almost time to bring them in...
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


It's still warm in NJ.


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

This week has been 91F


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## aselvarial (Feb 21, 2014)

lol where i live "cool at night" in the summer means it gets down out of the 90's.  If it's below 80 though it might be time to think about bringing the bettas in. Esp in a deeper pond as it would take longer to warm up in the morning.


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## tankman12 (Nov 13, 2012)

Ya im talking about at night. In mass it has been as low as 50 where im at.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

I am brining in the bettas when I have their tank setup. Their is no rush it will still be hot for at least a month or two


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

it stays hot throughout Sep.-Oct. where you live?? Lol  too bad that's not for me in Ca


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

litelboyblu said:


> it stays hot throughout Sep.-Oct. where you live?? Lol  too bad that's not for me in Ca



Really? It's not warm in ca? September stays warm but mid October it rapidly gets cold.


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## Bettacrab (Jun 30, 2013)

Right now the daily day time temp is low 90's and the night temp is high 70's to low 80's


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Yeah we people in north ca are dying of heat stroke throughout summer, once August ends it's just starting too freeze up haha  it's either really hot or really cold!


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## hrutan (Jun 25, 2014)

Southern California, on the other hand, is still dying of heat until the last two weeks of October. Or, last winter...until December. Yuck. It's a big state, and Northern CA has milder weather with more variations.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

U her it's either really cold or really hot haha that's why I hate living up here I miss living in socal!!!


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