# Please brag about your sororities!



## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

I've always wanted to try a female betta sorority, and I have been reading up on it even more recently. I'm a bit worried because most of the people who post on forums about sororities seem to be posting because they have problems. Well, I'm hoping that's because the people who don't have problems don't need to post.

*Please tell me about your awesome betta sororities!*

Pictures are a bonus. If you've ever wanted to brag, I'm a total captive audience here and will gush about your female fish. Seriously. I know pet owners; we all can talk for days about our babies. Tell me all about yours! Quirks, habits, etc...

I'm currently planning a 20gal+ tank with at least 6-7 female bettas. I want to do it right; I just need to convince myself they will not kill each other. This will probably be happening in the spring because we need to save up the money for a larger tank and have enough in reserve in case we need to house particularly aggressive females separately. I've read the separate recommendation threads for ideas, but I particularly want to hear from those who have had a sorority for 6 months or more (though anyone is welcome!). 

So please share your success stories!


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## LittleBettas (Jul 23, 2011)

Not a COMPLETE success story as I have had a set back in STARTING....
I have a 10 gallon with 6-7 females.... 5 are from the same spawn by Darkmoon (one, the smallest, has been having issues swimming so the start has been on hold) the other two are spawn sisters from Cajun.... everyone is floating in the 10 gallon heated... and so far there has been min. flaring... from everyone except Echo... one of my gals from Cajun.... shes a fierce gal and either will end up being Alpha... or if she turns out to aggressive, will be removed completely from the sorority... fingers crossed! 
right now Im certain if she does not end up being Alpha, my black girl from Darkmoon will be.... though Merle... my other female from Cajun is bigger... she is a mellow gal who prefers to stick to herself, lol

Most people recommend that you stick to spawn sisters.... at least on your first go around 

I dont have any pictures of my setup.... my phone pooped out on me  my only camera  but I do have pictures of the gals  though I need to get more recent ones!

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=87701


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

Thanks for responding LittleBettas! I'm definitely thinking it's worth it to stick with spawn sisters. I've been lurking for a bit and Darkmoon has gorgeous fish, doesn't she? Well, I guess you have them now too! I can't wait to see how yours get along.

It's so funny. The largest betta I ever had ended up being the best suited for a a community tank and one of the smaller ones was such a terror I couldn't even keep ghost shrimp with him. :roll:. We figured it was a Napoleon complex.


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## GreenTea (Jan 31, 2011)

Here's a link to my sorority log, keeping track of and explaining my process and why I did the things I did. It has tons of photos. I consider sororities and giant bettas my area of expertise in the betta world so feel free to ask me questions any time!

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=82286

Be sure to ask my friend Tisia about her sorority experience as well, she went with a natural planted tank and has a successful sorority.


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

Oh gosh, your girls are beautiful. I have a special fondness for royal blues, and that yellow/blue marbled girl you added recently is particularly stunning. 

I probably should have waited to post this thread! Both of the responses so far have made me want to start sooner than is advisable. I want to make sure I have a nicely established tank before I buy any fish for it. I will definitely be picking everyone's brain once I get started, and I really appreciate the offer of advice.


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## GreenTea (Jan 31, 2011)

And omg youre in Washington? Where in Washington? I'm adding you! I add the NW people so we can network! I'm currently growing out a spawn from a yellow marble and a koi marble, I have a spawn log in the breeding section, maybe there will be some girls you like in a couple months


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

Tacoma! I'm about 2-3 hours north I think. 

If your fry resemble their parents in the slightest, I'm sure I'll be part of a long line of people after them! It would be way cool to support a local breeder & know that the fish had been cared for well. 

Also, I just announced 'there is a girl near us who is breeding right now!' and got the strangest look.


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## GreenTea (Jan 31, 2011)

Hahahah awesome. Well I'm from Seattle and I'm up here now so it's not too far away! There's a girl in Everett I'm friends with, and Tisia is down in SW WA like I am.


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## BettaFriend15 (Mar 7, 2011)

I used to have a grand total of 10 females. i was addicted to rescuing haha still am. But i moved in with my nanny so i had to give up my big tank and most of my girls. I got a divider tank now. So cute fact, my girls used to blow bubbles and another girl would join in and pop those bubbles and this routine would go for maybe half an hour sometimes haha. But what they most like doing was hiding and chasing each other, kind of like hide and seek but in the fish world lol. I could go on all day, but my first soroitry was probably my pride and joy of fish keeping, most succesful set up i've ever had haha


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

@GreenTea: there really is a lot of us I guess!

@BettaFriend15: Love it! Did any of the girls get mad about another popping her bubbles?


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## GreenTea (Jan 31, 2011)

There's more too, a guy in Kennewick, a woman in Eugene, a woman (Gizmo) in Spokane, others too that I've added but haven't really kept in contact with.


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## BettaFriend15 (Mar 7, 2011)

No they never got mad surprisingly. Keeping female bettas together became just another normal part of fishkeeping and all my friends were like "what is this witchcraft?!" haha i don't see why more people don't do it


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## LittleBettas (Jul 23, 2011)

Visiting my BFs parents for 2 days and my roommate... thank goodness for him... is watching all of my bettas... girls included.... and doing 100% water changes and keeping me updated on how everyone is....
Well.... stopped off at a Walmart and fell in love with a little CT... the only female they had... Im in LOVE with her, she is SO tiny, if Echo (one of my females from Cajun) doesnt settle down, I may add this new girl... who has been dubbed Anchovy, LOL
so far her attitude/personality mirrors Peanut, one of the gals from Darkmoon... completely chill and mellow with the surroundings... so she may end up being a better fit for sorority life than Echo... but fingers are still crossed.... I want my ALL Dragon sorority to work out! lol, but safety first


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

This is my sorority. This was before I added any of my girls, though. I had just lost my pride and joy Athena after a sudden, vicious bout of dropsy and I went into a local petshop to look at a dwarf gourami to take her place. Then I saw these six gorgeous girls, looking a bit stressed out, in a bare tank. I held back and decided to shop around. I went into another shop (one I wouldn't normally touch with a barge pole, but I wanted to see if they'd improved, and whilst their staff were still ignorant, they had) to look at options there, and low and behold, a tank of ten females and an elephant nose. The elephant had the only shelter in the tank, and the girls were clearly unhappy with the bubble wall at the back. They were all extremely pale and very stripy, so I just chose six with different tail colours in the hope I'd be able to tell them all apart.

They all travelled home in the same bag in the topbox of a scooter. I let them float in my 15 gallon (the one in the picture), then released them. They all set off to explore the many hiding places, stare down the shrimp and snails and chase the tetras. Within an hour, everyone was living together peacefully.

They've changed a lot since that day. 
Hera is still a dark brown, but her fins are a rich red with a tinge of blue. 
Persephone has a brown body too, but with blue irridescence on her sides to a small degree. She is a mustard gas - her fins are mostly yellow with black edges, but the rays are a shiny blue. She looks plain til she catches the light, then WOW. 
Medea was always going to be pretty. She has a dark blue body and fins with red rays. 
Artemis was the prettiest when I first brought her home. She coloured up pretty quickly. She is a greenish turquoise and looks amazing.
Psyche has gone from being totally nondescript and colourless to being the belle of the ball. Her body is bluegreen, with a green and red tail.
Thetis was skinny and had trouble breathing when I first bought her. She is the most beautiful girl in the tank now, and a little bit chubby. She has developed a tail so big that she could be a plakat male, and has doubled in size. She's a royal blue with a red, blue and green tail, and is a total stunner.

All the girls look so much healthier than when I first got them, with rarely a stress stripe. They get on well with the ember tetras and only flare at each other when the weather gets really hot (I know how they feel). They all look like a tank of living jewels. 

Last Saturday I went into the only shop in this city I still hate with a passion, and saw a one litre tank with 5 tiny girls in it. One was taken away to be medicated in a bowl of cold water (great) when I mentioned it. Three were slightly larger than the others and had some colour, and were bullying the fourth. I had to adopt her. She's barely an inch long, with a colourless body and very distinct stress stripes. She might have a red tail, but I can't tell. She's now in a 3 gallon with two big caves, a small one, a heater, a filter, live plants and an IAL and she is active and happy, not shy and hiding on the filter. She eats well and has grown a little. I'm not sure when to add her to the sorority (whilst she's still little so she's not a threat, is my current theory), but I want to try her. Even if they chase her, she's fast and has plenty of hiding spots. 

So that's my sorority.


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

Awesome! I love hearing happy fish stories; I hope everyone's new additions work out.

@Bombalurina: Your sorority sounds exactly like my idealized mental image of one! The plants are gorgeous too and my heart always melts a little when I hear stories of stressed out pet store bettas brightening. I think it's so cool that they change so much physically/visually when we improve their conditions.


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## LittleBettas (Jul 23, 2011)

Bombalurina said:


> So that's my sorority.


WOW... looks like a Jungle!!!!
LOVE IT


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

Well, my sorority started out as a "poor female bettas are being neglected and no one wants them... I'll buy those two." therefore, Marge and Tina (heh heh heh) became to be, along with a 20 gallon that I got for 60.00 with hood and filter  and purple rocks. and ornaments. and plants.  They got along great, and then I went back to the store a month later and behold - the other two females still sat in their dirty, disgusting bowls that were maybe a cup or two of water total... the bottoms were black, and slimy brown x.x So, I got them too :lol: Marge and Tina met up with their sisters Rose and Zebra. 

I had Madame before all of them, because of her size and actually had color IN THE STORE -gasp!- but once Madame passed after the Mysterious Case of the Missing Cory Cat, Marge became the head honcho, her sister Tina runner up, Zebra as a passive follower and Rose the pain in the bumb stunted-growth sister. x.x

Pictures? of course. No one else can tell the difference between my girls, but I can  especially since Marge and Tina are the "feed me nao" fish who slap themselves against the side of the tank. (in my mind I hear, -SLAP...eeeee.....bloop!.... SLAP....eeee....bloop-) Only Madame had color, and all the girls except Rose who has red/purple, are irridescent purple.
I successfully kept them with balloon mollies (yes, that's right, added videos) with zero nips on either team :lol: The video is before I stuffed the tank with the plants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gECzoqNe6fw&feature=g-upl&context=G2731b40AUAAAAAAABAA


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## xXGalaxyXx (Oct 17, 2011)

My sorority is part community, haha. It's a 29 gallon with a herd of tetras, two pearl gourami's, a yoyo loach, two khuli loaches, and of course the girls. It started when I got Bleu, my silver and blue veiltail, and Ruka, my wild-type veiltail from my LFS. Ruka I kept separate since she was so playful and I wanted to be able to interact with her without other fish getting in the way. She was kept in a one and a half gallon in my room, and Bleu I put in the community. She established herself as the leader of the tank and pestered the other fish since there were no other girls to establish an order with. So I got Sapphira, my dark blue veiltail, who showed Bleu who was boss and became the 'alpha' girl. Bleu left the other fish alone and instead started annoying Sapphira instead. And then my female obsession grew, because I loved watching these two interact. I got Emerald, a dark green veiltail, shortly after Sapphira. She really didn't seem to care about anything and just relaxed on her favorite plant. Then came Scarlet, the cambodian crowntail. She was mostly just going to be a breeder and live in the sorority temporarily, but she started 'flaring' with her little non-existent beard at everyone and challenged Sapphira. So now she's our current alpha (although Sapphira turned depressed afterwards, haha). Lastly was our newest girl Luna, a blue marbled double-tail. I'm still not entirely sure she is a she, but she's very passive and doesn't bother anyone so she's staying. And Ruka's recently joined her 'sisters' as well, to make room for our newest boy Blitzen. Although she's easily the biggest girl in there and could probably kick everyone else's 'tail' if she wanted, she seems unaccustomed to living a community life so at the moment she spends most of her time hiding in a cave and dancing for attention when she sees me.
I love my girls, haha. Whoever claims that 'girl betta's are ugly, you shouldn't get them' should be smacked - sure, girls don't have long fins and some aren't colorful like the males are, but others are just as colorful, if not more, as the males and definitely have enough personality to make up for their lack of finnage.


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## Myrtaceae (Dec 17, 2011)

@Sena Hansler: Love pictures! Also the 'Mysterious Case of the Missing Cory Cat', lol. I don't know about everyone else, but I have a story like that too :roll:. The light colored girl with green fins is especially beautiful. 

@xXGalaxyXx: I completely agree about people who think females are ugly. In my experience, any 'ugly' betta is just a betta who has lost his/her color due to poor care-- so the owner is to blame, not the poor fish! But that's a rant for another day, even if you do agree with me...

*Anyway! BWAHAHAHA.*

I showed this thread to my husband, along with pictures of GreenTea's parents and...who has a brand spankin' new 15gal to set-up? This gal.


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

yup poor care  I got my girlies as nothing but "ugly dull offwhite brown colored fish with no movement, flaring, blah" and I got them home, they were "....so....much...space! -hides-" then later they were "SLAP! eeeee....bloop! feed meh!" -.-; lol.

and everyone has got to have a story like that. Heck if I write a book on my fish, there'll be weird titles to every chapter. Like the Mysterious Case of the Missing Cory Cat :lol:


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

Well, after the ridiculous local aquarium society waved some bags of fish under my nose last night for absolutely filthily cheap prices, I have added to the sorority/community. I had to free up Circe's tank for the crystal red shrimp I bought, and added her to the big tank along with 6 Endlers (2 males, 4 females) and 3 cories (a bronze, an albino and a peppered - not ideal but that's how they were sold, in a big group, and they needed me!).
Everyone is apparently getting on fine. No one is bothering Circe and the cories are shoaling loosely (the two pandas are inseperable). The ember tetras have adopted the Endler's. It's all very cute.


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

I had an endler :lol: he showed off for my balloon molly girl.... he didn't like the guppy girls. He also, looked up to Spartan as a giant guppy god :lol: :lol:


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

I love my males! They are so colourful! Like little rainbows. They are from a really strong strain so hopefully any fish puppies I get from them are going to be super pretty too.
Oddly enough, Circe has coloured up a bit since being added to the large tank. I thought it would be stressful and she'd hate it, but she's gone dark brown with only one stripe and her fins have gone very dark red. I'm not sure she's getting enough food, but she's still learning the rhythms of the tank, so as she builds up confidence she'll get more. No one is bothering her at all.


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