michaelb323

I have a male and female betta I was planning to breed. The male was in my 55 gallon tropical tank, the female was in my 10 gallon quarantine tank with some new fish. I have my quarantine tank next to my computer workststation so I can monitor my fish all day. Over the last few hours I witnessed a molly nipping at the fins of my female Betta. After a few more nips and my hand in the water as an act of intervention.

I decided that I would need to fill up the jar my Betta came and keep her away from trouble. On a hunch I took the jar and put the lid back on and dropped it into my 55 gallon tank to see how my Bettas would interact. After watching the male flare at the female a few times I watched the male lose interest even after pushing the jar around after him. Out of a mixture of boredom and scientific inquiry I popped the lid off the jar to see if my female would be attacked by the male.

As the jar fell to the bottom leaving the female exposed, I grabbed my net and stood watching my tank like a hawk, ready to swoop in to keep the fish from nipping each other. Well over an hour later I have been watching these fish nonstop, in fact, as I type this, they are both facing each other near the heater.

Over the past hour the male has flared his gills at the female, yet both fish have rubbed against each other. I got brave enough to feed the Bettas and watched them both come up to my finger covered with Betta flakes. At this point something shocked me and has left me baffled.

Both fish were eating right below my finger, the female a bit closer than the male, who was a bit below the female. I wiggled my finger around to shake the last of the fish flakes off and startled the female who swam down and behind the male who charged into my finger with gills flared and proceeded to bite me over and over as the female swam behind him. To summarize, the male defended the female.

I was quite shocked at what I had just witnessed, this makes no sense, everything I have read about Bettas says that this should not have happened. I quickly netted the fish that had been nipping the female Betta, and acclimated it to the 55 gallon tank water.(water parameters are the same due to sharing filters and water, temperature is the only difference.) Within a few minutes the Molly started to nip at the female Betta, but this time, the male Betta instaly started charging the Mollie, nipping back and chased the poor fish into a corner until I used my net to intervene.

At this point, the Bettas are swimming peacefully together around the tank.
What do you make of this, and should I keep them together? Are all the guides wrong, or are these fish an exception?

peacemaker92

Wow! That's something new. I've never heard of a male betta defending a female betta. It's so great that you actually witnessed that for yourself. I'd suggest leaving only both the bettas alone in the tank. Remove other tank mates as you don't want your male betta to hurt them. Continue to keep an eye on your betta couple's tank for any sudden signs of aggression. Try getting a video for our members here to see the male defending the female part It'd be so cool.

Question though, has the male been making any bubble nests?
If yes, then there could be a possible chance of breeding and if it happens, you'll have to prepare an extra tank for the female as the male will defend the nest at all cost. Keep us posted on the progress. Good luck!

Shawnie

unfortunately, that isnt going to last with the 2 bettas
heres a great link that one of our betta breeders wrote up for us...please read it to let you know what can and will happen Step by Step guide to breeding Bettas as well as the great amounts of money and space you need to breed them ....good luck!

michaelb323

I have several tanks cycling to be used for the bettas. A local school is going to be doing some biology stuff with them. I had a science teacher get referred to me. Aparently the teacher wants Bettas for a class experiment, but the school would rather add more bleachers to the football field than expand the budget for the science class. So this teacher wanted to know if I could have Bettas ready for him by late spring.

The best price for Bettas around here is $4.50 at wal-mart, whereas I can easily go below $.80 per fish and break even if this works.

michaelb323

Here you guys go.




So far the two bettas are getting along fine. I did take the female out for the time being since I am in another room away from the tank.

peacemaker92

Beautiful male and female! Try not to take the female out too often as it will stress her out. If you want and if you can, you can try putting her in a breeding net which separates the male away from her and allows the female to be safe while you're away.

Shawnie

these bettas were not conditioned and prepared for breeding ... and just put in together...these are your fish for sure and everyone does what they choose with their own fish, but she isnt looking in breeding mode with her barring and she looks scared to death..I hope you reconsider keeping them together before something serious happens

michaelb323

After several days of keeping these two together whenever I am around I have seen nothing but defense of the female by the male. Whenever my Mollys come close at feeding time the male chases them away from the female. I Know I have a fluke here but now I really want to grab another female to see if the male attacks her.
If the male is not going to fight other Bettas I would like to hand him off to a trained breeder in hopes that this is a genetic fluke that can be carried over a few generations and lead to very docile males that can be housed together.


Today I added a fancy guppy to see what kind of reaction I could get out of the Betta. A few minutes of flaring his gills at the guppy with the guppy swimming away and there has been complete peace in the tank. The funniest thing I saw today made me decide to leave my camera by my tank. The male and female betta both chased my poor guppy around the tank with flared gill plates.

Shawnie

you have had them together for just a few days...if you do a search on the forum, members have had their bettas in tanks like this for months and disaster strikes at the quickest moment....but, they have been with siblings of the same sex (females) and not so much with male/female combo...these are NOT community fish and adding another female betta will not help either of them ..its not a "fluke" of their breeding and it probably will not be bred into them ever...allot of us wish it would though as a community of betta fish would be dreams of many...I hope you do have that exception to EVERY rule, but I feel you are just playing with death by attempting this with these fish ...I hope im wrong!!

michaelb323

I appreciate the advice, and I am totally listening to everyone's advice against what I am doing. I am following your advice by keeping the fish apart when I can't jump in and separate them. The scientist in me is what is keeping these fish together. We should observe, poke, and prod the heck out of this until we figure out why these fish are not fighting.

I wonder if tank size has anything to do with this odd behavior?
One experiment I can think of to test this is to add both Bettas to a 10 gallon standby tank to see if they begin to fight. Unfortunately for me I think this experiment may have to wait as one of my Tetras is glancing on a rock, I don't want to introduce a possible disease to another tank.

Shawnie

I guess thats where we are different because im not willing to "We should observe, poke, and prod the heck out of this until we figure out why these fish are not fighting." as they are notorious for doing so...no different than putting a few pit bulls together and expect them not to fight when its been bred into their genes...but there are no laws for fish like there are dogs thats just my feelings for these amazing fish and not the views of anyone else....they can be in a 4g tank or a cut or even a 100g tank..they will eventually find one another and have it out..its their nature ...

michaelb323

Meh, I believe there is a difference between neglegence, cruelty, and care for animals.
One kid I knew bought 5 male bettas and a 10 gallon tank with no lid or filtration. The buffoon I speak of dumped tap water in his tank, dumped fish in his tank. According to the kid's story I can somewhat piece the timeline together.

The first betta died from temperature shock almost immediately. After a few minutes the rest were happily tearing each other to shreds. The lone survivor of the fray died a few hours later from the uncycled tank water building up ammonia.

My understanding is that this baddie took everything back to the store and got full refunds on everything including the fish. :O

In the meantime here is another picture of my female right in the middle of eating. Since this picture was taken my heater is now upright :P

TedsTank

Please comfirm for me...they are in the 55 gallon tank? Well planted with lots of cover?

In that case it could work (IMO) as long as you watch them close. As they mature and get into a breeding cycle, she will/must have a place to escape to....she seems a bit young at this time, by the pics.

What I have stated above is my opinion with little betta experience, and I am not a betta keeper of that type.

michaelb323

Freshly planted tank, but a 55 gallon nonetheless. I would go snap some pictures but I am at the end of a 24 hour hacking spree and was about to go to bed.

Tony G.

is that the females regular color?

She kinda looks pale

michaelb323

That's the color she was right out of her nasty cup. There really is color in there but the camera washes out the subtle colors.

Nick Goody

Bettas won't breed unless they've been conditioned, and even if the male blows a bubblenest in that tank, the water is too deep and there will be too much disturbance on the water surface. If you want to breed them I'd recommend separating them and conditioning them both for at least a month, and then trying a spawn in a fully cycled 10gal with about 4 inches of water and no filter.

sirdarksol

Pit bulls actually aren't genetically predisposed toward fighting. However, I entirely agree with your statement. Putting animals together that shouldn't get along and hoping that it will work is a pretty bad idea.

I have to say that the pictures you posted didn't look like the male was defending the female. It looked to me like he had her cornered.

I'm not going to get into the ethics of animal testing, because this isn't the place for it. However, please leave the risking of animal's lives in the name of science to people who have grants and who have the clout to have the results of their studies published.

Now that I've said all that, I agree that in a heavily-planted, large enough tank, it's possible for a male and female to get along indefinitely. However, in those cases, they will be at opposite ends of the tank, not right next to each other.