Following an unsuccessful try at keeping guppies (none except one lived more than two months), I bought three beautiful female bettas six weeks ago, including one that was very young. They joined my one remaining alive-and-well fancy male guppy. All was well until I noticed today that one of the betta's tails was bitten off - poor BooBoo (aptly named, I see now). She is hanging out at the top, listless compared to her usual behavior, and can't swim all that well without a tail. I've been watching the guppy and caught him bullying her. There are places for her to hide, but I don't see her taking advantage of them too much.

They are all (four of them) living in an 8 gal Biorb. I don't own another aquarium. I'm tempted to buy a fish bowl and put the guppy in that for now (and don't think I didn't consider flushing the guppy). Or asking the lfs if they'll take him back (do they ever do that?)

Any suggestions?

erm ok dont say you will flush it lol!

LFS will most likely take it back

With female bettas, they can be just as agressive as the males so it's quite likely that they have bitten her fins. So if you're going to keep them then you need a minium of 4 + to help spread out the bullying. The tank needs to be heavily planted with places to hide. The other problem is that in a biorb they have no corners to hides in.....they would be better off in a normal rectangular tank IMO.

I've read that, but in this case, I caught him in the act more than once - very aggressive. When the guppy's gone, I'll get a fourth female, tho.

Also, there are actually a lot of places for the female to hide in this aquarium, I've found her hiding some times, but out in the open more frequently.

I had guppies and a male betta in together. he didnt go near them and they didnt go near him. my guppies wont go near anyone other than another guppie unless theyre soaling with my tetra (cute!)

but yeh, you might find that the guppie saw an oppurtunity with your female betta being weak.

my guppies never had the guts to swim upto anyone.

edit...
that was supposed to say shoaling

p.s

by betta loves corners.

Id love one of those orby things though, they look pretty.

This post has been edited by Bblou: Jun 29 2008, 08:36 PM

Hi
Just a thought but are you positive that all your bettas are female? Have yu got any good pics of them?

No, I wouldn't have really done that. I took your advice and the LFS cheerfully took him back, even offered a store credit. I didn't take it - I figured I rented him for a few months. I was just happy it all ended well.

BTW, how long does it take for a fish tail to grow back?

I believe they are, but I cant be positive - I'll see if I can figure out how to post them later (I couldn't find an emoticon with a dunce hat)

If she heals well, then you should probably start seeing regrowth in the next couple of days.
I would suggest getting her a breeders net so she won't have to struggle to rest near the top, but I don't think those would fit into a bio-orb.
So yeah.. maybe if you don't have one already, get a silk or real plant where the leaves reach close to the surface so she can rest on them.

Thanks! She'll be glad to hear that! She seems to be doing much better now that the guppy is gone, almost normal considering I can see it's a tad difficult to swim without one's tail fin. Sometimes Betty, the largest female, will nudge the baby and he'll swim away, but I've never seen her bite, nor seen any damage on the little one. She doesn't pay much attention to BooBoo at all.

BTW this is unrelated but this particular fish, BooBoo, and the baby of the group (named Baby), sometimes do this weird little dance: they swim in place, head to tail next to each other, but undulating their bodies. They'll do that for maybe 15 seconds or so. ???

All in all, I love my female bettas - they do have their own personalities and I'm quite attached to them!

Sounds like they're sizing eachother up.
If it's what I think you're describing, it sounds like what my females did (when they were actually feeling better and not dying on me! ).... they would get next to eachother one facing the others tail and flare up their fins at eachother, sometimes flaring their gils.
I think that's just sizing eachother up. I'm sure someone else who has kept a sorority longer than I will know better though.

That's it - side by side - haven't noticed that lately but perhaps BooBoo was too stressed with his own problems from the guppies.

Top photo of BooBoo (with tail intact) and big Betty - I don't have one of the baby yet

 booboo.JPG ( 37.85K ) Number of downloads: 0

 betty.JPG ( 13.38K ) Number of downloads: 2

they both look fairly female to me, the red cambodian is very very young though.

Yes, that one is the "teenager" of the three. Here is one of all three, with "Baby" the littlest one (and you can see BooBoo with his injured tail fin)

 thethree.JPG ( 30.5K ) Number of downloads: 0

booboo and baby both look worryingly thin to me. are they eating ok? it might be worth separating them temporarily to make sure the big girl isn't pinching all the food! if they are not eating (and its not because of betty) then it could be an internal bacteria issue. if they are eating then its possible they have internal parasites.

fingers crossed its neither of these, just betty being a piggy

Thank you for your opinion - I feed them all brine shrimp with an eyedropper - I've been so concerned that I might overfeed them that maybe I was underfeeding them, and I feed them less than Betty. I'll increase what they're getting and see how they are. I don't think they're thinner than when I got them...