A Group Of Female Betta's?

[Bellpepper]

I've been reading about compatibility with betta's, and I saw it mentioned several times about how (usually) a group of female betta's can live relatively peacefully together, if given a big enough tank. I love betta's, and I'd like a stocked tank of fish, and I was thinking a tank full of female betta's. I'm thinking of probably starting with a 20 gallon. and starting off with a fishless cycle.

If I do this (start up a 20 gal. for a group of female betta's), how many should go into a 20 gallon tank? It'll likely be very heavily planted with live plants, as I've been researching live plants, the diff. types, their care, ect.

Any advice or info on doing a tank of female betta's, and the do's and don'ts, would be highly helpful! Thanks!

 

[Netty]

Groups of females can look stunning these days as they come in so many great colours. I would say you could put around 10 females in. If you can add them all together then that would be better but if not, you'd have to remove all the females and re-arrange all the decor before adding the new ones, leaving the most dominant female until last.

Like you say, heavily planted is recommended so they have places to hide, also coconut caves and things like that will really benefit them. It can take days or even weeks for them to sort out their pecking order and it's inevitable that some may end up with nipped fins. As long as the water is super clean they do heal up quickly.

When buying your females you need to be quite careful as you can almost guarantee that in the lfs they will have the odd juvenile male amongst them. Out of a bunch of 8 we got last year, 3 turned out to be male and had to be removed.

 

[blue_betta]

an easy way ive found to introduce a new female to an established group is to put her in a large breeding trap with a little sand/gravel on the bottom and a few sprigs of plants for cover. leave her in there for a week or so and she will become familiar to the original girls and she can watch the hierachy and learn her place without fighting its always worked well for me