Female ?s

[Karou-sama]

A couple questions. How many females per gallon, generally speaking? 1 female per gallon or per 3 gallons?

I am considering a few options. some now, some future. Since I am now down to 1 male in my 29 gallon. I was considering putting several females in there with a divider. So essentially 15 gallons of room/half the tank. Since I doubt the male would put up with even a brood of females without a divider

If not, I will let him keep the tank to him self as he lives out his life, then populate the whole 29 with female bettas. He has been with me for about 13 months and he was decent size when I got him, so I don't know if he has months or years left in him.


So, how many female bettas can go into a 29 gallon without too many issues? 10? 20? 30?

I will be keeping a Penguin 100 gph bio-wheel filter with marineland cut to fit filter fiber in it, on the tank. Heated. Plenty of plants to put in it to keep it from being too open and them not having places to hide or call their own. Not sure if I want to use the airstones. My male likes to swim through them sometimes, other times he doesn't.


Thanks for any help, ideas, and/or info.

 

[Jaded12]

Generally the rule is 1 inch of fish per gallon, and a female betta full grown is usually no more then 1 1/2 -2 inches so figure you can get about 14 girls comfortably into a 29 gallon. I have a 29 gallon sorority and have 9 females in there at the moment with 6 more on the way.

 

[xcharmanderx421]

Generally the rule is 1 inch of fish per gallon, and a female betta full grown is usually no more then 1 1/2 -2 inches so figure you can get about 14 girls comfortably into a 29 gallon. I have a 29 gallon sorority and have 9 females in there at the moment with 6 more on the way.

so even if you have 10 females you cannot put 1 male in it?

 

[Phoenixbaby]

simply no

 

[InLoveWithFish]

males should no be kept with females or other males.. they are best left by themselves...

 

[nataliabeds]

You can only put male and female together when they breeding, otherwise one can kill the other.

 

[Karou-sama]

I am not a big subscriber to the 1" of fish per gallon rule, since, I have an Oscar, and, there is no way you could apply that rule to them for several reasons, two biggest one, aggression/territory and water quality.


I don't know how much bio-load bettas had (since I have always had at least 3 gallons per betta with 3.5-10x gph on the tank), so, I wasn't sure how many would begin to strain a bio-wheel filter with just about 3.45x filter rate (29 gallon tank, 100 gph filter). I did know that it is good to have at least 6 females, to prevent one establishing leadership and aggression, but wasn't sure on this size of a tank, where the upper limit would be.

So, 12-15 was the answer.


Jaded, you have pictures of your sorority tank somewhere?