lukebeta

I have a tank with three dividers in it, with three different beta's seperated by this glass partition, this morning I woke up to find two of them together in 1 of the sectons... No one was hurt and I immediately seperated them... Could they have mated or more importantly, how did the one beta get the other seciton? did it jump? I am nervous that this will happen again.... Let me know if you have any advice...

Stradius011

The betta probably jumped because they can jump. What are the genders of the 2 bettas?

lukebeta

Stradius011

I will try to post a picture to show the differnce later.

Stradius011

Didn't get to post a pict. I will type instead.

Males usually have longer fins.
Males are usually more colorful
Males have longer pectoral fins.
Females have a ovipositor for laying eggs. It is white and is under the belly.

chickadee

Even a male and a female in a female in the same section is not a good idea unless they have been prepared to spawn. The chances of the male injuring or killing the female are HUGE. And we know that if the two are both males there is a very good chance that they both will be injured or die. My suggestion would be to get some plastic from the craft store and raise the tops of the dividers to the point where they cannot see each other. It is made of small squares and wil not allow them to see through and provide a privacy fence of sorts..

Rose

lukebeta

So rose..
You mean that they should not see each other either? The pet store sold me this tank with clear dividers? Now I am really confused.. I've had them for about 1 month and all is ok, except for the red jumping.. They gave me a top, but I feel that the fish will suffocate...

chickadee

It is not considered to be a good idea to have any two bettas together except during spawning and I would doubt that your two were spawning unless there was a bubble nest and your female was egg heavy. You would definitely know. It takes a while to prepare fish for the fish for spawning with a special diet and all and I doubt you did that. The top will not cause the bettas to suffocate unless it has no holes in it. If so I would please put some holes in somehow and use the top somehow and see if that helps. I would much rather see them be able to see each other if they are not flaring all the time than to be able to jump across the boundary. Try the top please.

Rose

panda bear

I don't know nearly as much as Rose does. All I know is that I put a divider in my 30 gallon tank and put one female on one side and the male on the other and the male keep freaking out (more than just flaring) and seemed to be hitting his head against the divider until I put him in his own 5 gallon tank away from the female.

chickadee

You are very right. The only really RIGHT solution is to seperate them completely. They are going to keep having behavior problems until they are seperated. I have even known of people who have difficulty with two bettas in two tanks in the same room flaring and stressing over each other. I thankfully haven't had that problem with my two tanks that sit right together but if I do I have a piece of paneling that goes between the tanks until whoever is upset cools down and then they learn soon that if they want to see out of that side of the tank they have to be nice. Bettas do learn lessons very well.

Rose