female betta tank issues

[GuppyDude]

ok, my female betta tank(20g) is possibly my favorite tank so far, and today i had to pull the fish. in recent weeks there has been a whole lot of fighting. the girls are all in taters and i pulled and isolated 2 of the fish that were in teh worst conditions. the fighting began when i found one of my girls dead last sunday, i had her for a while and i got her from walmart so i knew her time was coming to an end. i assumed old age and a past of poor care by walmart and neglective breeders was to blame. when i found her she was torn up, but i was sure that happend after she had died and began floating into teh space of the other females. her death leaves me with 3 left and there wasn't a minut where they weren't fighting. i plan to buy more females to space out the aggression, but for now it looks like bowls for them anyone have any help or advice to offer, it'd be much appritiated. im a bit frustrated by this since im also conditioning fish for a spawn next weekend and now im running low on individual bowls

 

[betta_CT]

you may have a plakat male (short fined) wich look like female and to the untrained eye can pass as a female.

 

[newfishies]

well, i've only had my giryl tank for a week now, but after the first few hours and several small rips to their fins, they are all getting along well now. i have 7 so i think there are plenty of places to spread the aggression. we only have minor flaring at feeding time and if anyone moves into sumatra's (the queen's) resting spot!!

maybe some new plants and a new layout, along with some new girls will help calm the girls down!

 

[ManyFISH4Me]

I don't know if it is just luck, but I have 15 females in a 20 long. They have been in for about 3 weeks. Most are 6 months or younger. Everythings just peachy. Even got bubble nests. There is the occasional chase, but that's about it.
I have a castle, and a couple fake plants, but they hang out in front, at the top most of the time. All in a row, looking to get fed.

 

[Kiarra]

Some females are just less aggressive than others. Some are heinous, evil hags intent upon the destruction of their fellow females.

I have 6 girls living together right now...only ONE of them has ever caused trouble upon entry. The other girls quickly put her in her place. There was peace before, and there was peace shortly after.

I also have one that WILL NOT quit trying to kill other females. She deliberately goes for kill spots, I tell you. She lives all by herself because she doesn't play well with others.

Advice: get more females! It sounds like yours are just intent upon picking on each other, so getting a couple more girls if your tank can handle it would be a pretty good idea. Could be that the larger numbers will actually prevent any aggression from really going on, rather than just spread it around. I have witnessed that with my own females...sometimes the larger number just stops ALL fights.

Also, it could be that, after being in their little bowls for a while, they'll be so happy to go back in their tank that they won't dare fight. I've observed this phenomenon (I think I spelled that right) more than once, and just recently had to do it in my four-female tank, after removing one of the girls for breeding purposes. Massive fighting broke out about a day after the fourth girl left, and so I pulled two of the three girls and stuck them in jars for a couple days. Put them back together today, and they get along fabulously.

 

[GuppyDude]

thank you for the responses

betta_CT, i have a male plakat and i know waht they look like, this fish is not a male. it has an egg spot, lacks the long pointy anal fin, and iv had her for quite a while. if it was indeed a male i would have noticed

i think teh problem is that there just isn't enough of the fish for the agression to be spread around, it was just fine with the original 4. all of my fish are pretty equal in temperment, they can all be triggered into a rage once in a while, but this is the first time the whole tank has been in a free for all brawl, what concerned me the most was the jaw locking, they nvr uses to do that so i think that was where it was time for me to step in.

thanx for all the help, its muchly appritiated

 

[Kiarra]

I agree. It was ABSOLUTELY time for you to jump in and stop them. Lip-locking is not normal...it is excessive aggression.

 

[Joby]

Sorry to hear about your old girl passing

I had the same problem recently. One of my girls was looking really old and tired and I moved her out into the hospital tank to keep a closer eye on her as evil Roxy was picking on her more than usual. She died yesterday

Anyway, since I took her out it brought the tank down to 3 and all hell broke loose. So I popped in my 2 juvies from my accidental spawn who are 4 months old and a smaller adult female as I figured they were now big enough to hold thier own. After about half an hour of sizing eachother up its so much calmer in there now. Roxy is still going for the kill on them all, but the agression is evened out and she gets tired chasing after a while and has to go and have a nap in the sand

So I would agree with advice already given, get more females

Good luck, and I hope it settles down for you.

 

[OohFeeshy]

If they don't calm down with more females, isolate them until their fins are better (if they were torn in the first place), then maybe re-introduce them on neutral ground. If I'm talking a load of nonsense feel free to ignore me.

 

[AlexsDaddy]

When you get new female(s), one thing I noticed when I did my switch from gravel to sand. I had to take everybody out to do the switch. After I did it I put all the decorations back in a different spot, then put everybody back in and added a female that I had by herself in a divided 10 gal. There's been minimal flaring and only one nipped fin since I put her in. I think it confused them when they got back in there and everything was in a different spot.

 

[BettaMomma]

I have 6 girlies in my 10G tank. I started out with 2 in a 5 gallon - and that was a very bad idea. lol (I didn't know any better at the time).
I ended up getting 3 more - put them all in together into a 10G tank, and when they were all in together, the 2 that were in the original 5G - the bigger one was still harrassing the smaller one, so much so that I had to take the small injured one out. She lived in a 1/2G fishbowl for several weeks until her fins had completely healed back up.

Since then, I reintroduced her back into the tank (I just took the other girls out and made them wait impatiently in a bucket while I gave little Liza a few minutes to swim the tank on her own before I started to add them back in). I then added them all in, one right after the other, starting w/the least aggressive. They all got along just beautifully once Liza got her 15 minutes of scrawny flaring over and done with.

I have also since added a 6th one - went about it the same exact way I did when re-introducing Liza into the tank and there is no bickering whatsoever now.

If I had to ever set up another tank, I'd probably start right out with 5 or more. It seems kind of like that's the magical number for the bickering and fighting to really drop off.