New and have done reading, but still have some ?? bettas

Hello,
I’ve recently gotten “back” into aquarium ownership. I say back with quotations because the tank I remember wasn’t mine, but I remember my dad having a huge freshwater tank when I was little with barbs, silver dollars, plecos, and Balas in it. Haven’t had that tanks for 20+ years, but I remember it.

For several reasons I’ve decided to tip-toe in by getting bettas to start with. I have 2 tanks; a 3.5gal with one male (and a few ghost shrimp) and a 29gal that I’m wanting a female sorority in (if I can get the ladies to play nice with each other) and a few more ghost shrimps and 3 Pygmy Cory cats right now.

I did something that’s I’ve never done before in my life and did research before jumping into something so I had my tanks cycled before I added fish. Tanks still not completed as I’d like more/different vegetation here and there and I’m in the process of “curing” some dried two of pieces to add in as well.

My male is very sweet and shy. PetSmart has him as a dragonscale but after some reading I know that he was a misclassified metallic. He hangs out in the most peculiar ways and is fun to interact with. He’s also stubborn and doesn’t like the pellets I bought for food, only goes for flakes— I’m lucky there was a flake smaller from Aqueon so I could test these with him. His name is Gallifrey.

My females... are where I’m having some issues/ concerns and I thought it would be best for me to get on a forum. Maybe I underestimated the tank requirements. I wanted a 3 female sorority.
Started with two precious sweet young girls who look very similar to each other; would be shocked if they came from same... litter? Clutch? That’s birds... I have no idea how sibling fish would be referred to. Anyways, I bought them as “assorted females” and they got along great. My roommates daughter asked to name one Peril and I like that; I named the other one Everest.
All was swimmingly well... until I was at the store this weekend and saw this other gorgeous “assorted female” and I thought I’d go for my trifecta. Once I was ready to add the third I watched them all intently for a long time to make sure there’d be no fighting. All transitions pretty smoothly. Third one would swim up to the others and flare the gills, and the girls would back down and give space kind of thing, and then they’d just swim close for a moment, then go about their businesses.

Recently I have noticed the third one is swimming pretty aggressively at them, enough to make the girls bolt away and the troublemaker will follow for a moment, then leaves them alone. No injuries that I can see yet. I suppose it’s wishful thinking for it to be play? Also am wondering if there’s anyway it could be a smaller fin’d male that I bought last? Spends most of its time swimming aggressively at it’s reflection.
Attached some pics of the gill flaring but otherwise peaceful moment from the first day.
First pic is with Peril. Last two are both with Everest.
Is you look at pics in reverse that’s the series of events that happened— first ‘greeted’ Everest, then swam over to Peril.
Maybe shouldn’t have included this much detail in intro post? Figured why beat around the bush.

!

 

Sorry, was very confusing.. Which one do you think is the possible male?

 

Sorry, was very confusing.. Which one do you think is the possible male?

No, I apologize I could have done better I’m sure. The larger and bluer of the fish in any given picture.

 

It looks like you accidentally bought a young male that was mislabeled as a female. The ventral and analfins are longer than what you would see in a female and there's a prominent gill membrane when flaring.

 

It looks like you accidentally bought a young male that was mislabeled as a female. The ventral and analfins are longer than what you would see in a female and there's a prominent gill membrane when flaring.

Yup, definetly looks like a male.

 

100% Male, I can see the beard in the latter two pictures. (This happens quite often actually, be mindful of this when buying from mixed sorority tanks as most shopkeepers can't tell gender well and rely on the seller sexing them, which happens at a very early age when they are supplied and so isn't 100% reliable (also depending on how expert the seller is).

Note btw that 3 females is too few for a sorority, it really tanks your odds of it going well. Get 5, the rest preferably from the same batch (that is the word used at least on here for a 'litter') if possible as that increases your chances of not getting any infighting.
Females are not always nicer than males, don't think that any aggressive fish will be a male. There are some very nasty females that just can't live in a sorority, if you suspect that this happens with one of your future fish make sure to remove her before accidents happen!
(Personally I end up rejecting about 30% of females from my sorority because they are too aggressive for my taste. This seems to work well as it has been a stable bunch for months now. So be picky! It will be helpful in the long run, as even if it doesn't end disastrous, having an overly aggressive female will cause a lot of stress which opens the door for diseases to strike in your tank).

 

Thank you all so much for your replies! I went ahead and separated them tonight as PascalKrypt brought up a good point about opening my group up for disease and I absolutely don’t want that!

Note btw that 3 females is too few for a sorority, it really tanks your odds of it going well. Get 5, the rest preferably from the same batch (that is the word used at least on here for a 'litter') if possible as that increases your chances of not getting any infighting.
Females are not always nicer than males, don't think that any aggressive fish will be a male. There are some very nasty females that just can't live in a sorority, if you suspect that this happens with one of your future fish make sure to remove her before accidents happen!
(Personally I end up rejecting about 30% of females from my sorority because they are too aggressive for my taste. This seems to work well as it has been a stable bunch for months now. So be picky! It will be helpful in the long run, as even if it doesn't end disastrous, having an overly aggressive female will cause a lot of stress which opens the door for diseases to strike in your tank).

Really, 3 too few even though I don’t have that big of a tank? I was thinking I was pushing my limit with 3 in my tank. I also want to have a small community of something else, perhaps galaxy rasboras. With that new info would that change your statement about having 5 in my size of tank? Also, what do you end up doing with your rejected fish? Rehome, giveaway..? I think this betta is gorgeous but since it won’t play nicely and I don’t want to subject my sweethearts to the harassment I’m not at a point right now where I can go get another tank.
Edit: I did some other reading on here about how having more fish helps take away the targeting of fish, which makes sense. I guess I still think that my tank size isn’t big enough to have a true sorority.

 

Thank you all so much for your replies! I went ahead and separated them tonight as PascalKrypt brought up a good point about opening my group up for disease and I absolutely don’t want that! View attachment 638232


Really, 3 too few even though I don’t have that big of a tank? I was thinking I was pushing my limit with 3 in my tank. I also want to have a small community of something else, perhaps galaxy rasboras. With that new info would that change your statement about having 5 in my size of tank? Also, what do you end up doing with your rejected fish? Rehome, giveaway..? I think this betta is gorgeous but since it won’t play nicely and I don’t want to subject my sweethearts to the harassment I’m not at a point right now where I can go get another tank.
Edit: I did some other reading on here about how having more fish helps take away the targeting of fish, which makes sense. I guess I still think that my tank size isn’t big enough to have a true sorority.

A 29 Gal? Oh you could probably do over 10 in there if you wanted to. Betta have an almost neglible bioload, and females are not territorial in the classic sense (usually). The idea of a group is that the crowd makes it less likely for any individual fish to get constantly targeted, so the bigger the better (read your edit after typing this, so you already got this). There are a handful of people on here who have a sorority with one or more males housed in it permanently, that is something that appears to only work when you have 10+ females so their attention is properly divided (this is not at all a recommendation as very few people make it work, just citing the example to make a point).
And yes, even then you could still put those rasboras in there. In general having a small group of dither fish appear to help with aggression because they help break up fixation with their activity but are not individually identifiable and so do not warrant aggression themselves.

I have a bunch of smaller tanks that a rejected female may end up in, or if she is intimated by some of the larger fish I may house her with those (different non-betta community). If that doesn't work out and I don't have a particular need/like of her, I do sometimes end up reselling them. That isn't hard for me, but I can't speak for your situation naturally. Maybe there are betta-fan facebook groups that you could try for this purpose?

Seriously, a 29 is more than enough to house 5-10 bettas without any issues. Just make sure to have a lot of planting, decorations or other hides.