DaisjahMonay1
- #1
Hey guys! I’m new to FishLore and have recently started a betta sorority. Yes I’m new to the sorority scene but did a ton of research before introducing the girls. So I’ll tell you everything I’ve done to start my tank and hopefully someone will have a reason/solution to my girls starting to die one by one. (They’ll be swimming/acting/eating fine and then within a few hours they’re dead.)
So I have a 20 gallon tall tank and have had it up and running for a few years now as a community tank. I decided to do a sorority and that the fish in it currently would do fine with the female bettas. I had a black loach and 2 gourami’s. (I’ve heard that gourami’s can be aggressive especially with another gourami in the tank but since I’ve got them they have done 0 chasing or nipping, with each other nor any other fish.) So I went and got about 10 female bettas and kept them in their cups for about two weeks, doing water changes on them every few days. Monitoring their health and behavior aswell as letting them get used to seeing each other. During this time I heavily stocked my tank making sure that you couldn’t see the other side of the tank in any direction you look at it. I also went and got a few tank ornaments for them to hide in.
After the two weeks I acclimated them all to the tank for about 12 hours and released them all at the same time. There was minimal flaring or chasing except for a couple that were acting a bit too aggressive that I removed immediately. So with the 8 of them in the tank they were doing fine until I fed them. As soon as I fed them all they were all extremely aggressive and territorial. Even with all the hiding spots in the tank. I’d hoped the aggression would diminish after maybe 30 minutes but it didn’t. I then had to remove three more because they were being too aggressive and nipping fins. So now with the five females left that were previously doing perfectly fine they started acting extremely aggressive towards eachother. So I thought that being in a 20 gallon tank they needed more bettas to keep the aggression down. So I bought 5 more bettas and put them in the tank. These gals all did pretty well together and minimized the aggression. I saw absolutely no nipping or chasing with any ofBut the next day I notice a betta dead. Which was strange because there was NO nipping chasing or anything happening with any of them. The next day, I found 3 dead. and then the next day another one dead. They all were swimming and acting perfectly fine and then a few hours later they’d die.
know that typically you should only add 5 fish to a tank at a time but in many videos and articles they said that you should add 1 female betta per 2 gallons of water to reduce aggression. I didn’t know if the amount of fish I added was too much but in removing 5 of them, I thought I would be able to add 5 more. That might be where I went wrong. If so, if anyone has advice on how to stop this downhill slope or if it’s inevitable that the remaining 5 will die let me know.
I forgot to add that before I introduced the bettas I tested the water and everything was perfect. I also tested the water when the first bettas died and when I did a water change after the three died and everything was perfect.
So I have a 20 gallon tall tank and have had it up and running for a few years now as a community tank. I decided to do a sorority and that the fish in it currently would do fine with the female bettas. I had a black loach and 2 gourami’s. (I’ve heard that gourami’s can be aggressive especially with another gourami in the tank but since I’ve got them they have done 0 chasing or nipping, with each other nor any other fish.) So I went and got about 10 female bettas and kept them in their cups for about two weeks, doing water changes on them every few days. Monitoring their health and behavior aswell as letting them get used to seeing each other. During this time I heavily stocked my tank making sure that you couldn’t see the other side of the tank in any direction you look at it. I also went and got a few tank ornaments for them to hide in.
After the two weeks I acclimated them all to the tank for about 12 hours and released them all at the same time. There was minimal flaring or chasing except for a couple that were acting a bit too aggressive that I removed immediately. So with the 8 of them in the tank they were doing fine until I fed them. As soon as I fed them all they were all extremely aggressive and territorial. Even with all the hiding spots in the tank. I’d hoped the aggression would diminish after maybe 30 minutes but it didn’t. I then had to remove three more because they were being too aggressive and nipping fins. So now with the five females left that were previously doing perfectly fine they started acting extremely aggressive towards eachother. So I thought that being in a 20 gallon tank they needed more bettas to keep the aggression down. So I bought 5 more bettas and put them in the tank. These gals all did pretty well together and minimized the aggression. I saw absolutely no nipping or chasing with any ofBut the next day I notice a betta dead. Which was strange because there was NO nipping chasing or anything happening with any of them. The next day, I found 3 dead. and then the next day another one dead. They all were swimming and acting perfectly fine and then a few hours later they’d die.
know that typically you should only add 5 fish to a tank at a time but in many videos and articles they said that you should add 1 female betta per 2 gallons of water to reduce aggression. I didn’t know if the amount of fish I added was too much but in removing 5 of them, I thought I would be able to add 5 more. That might be where I went wrong. If so, if anyone has advice on how to stop this downhill slope or if it’s inevitable that the remaining 5 will die let me know.
I forgot to add that before I introduced the bettas I tested the water and everything was perfect. I also tested the water when the first bettas died and when I did a water change after the three died and everything was perfect.
