Wondering.....

[love4aquatic]

ok soooo, in the wild what keeps betta fron meeting?

if possible when i get a big enough tank i want to plant it with

-rice(have some now but it always gets eaten ,not by me by the fish)
-guppy grass
-dwarf hair grass
-crinum thaianum
-java ferns(from same place as bettas?)
-java moss
-pennywort(floater for nest)
-anubias(thick leaves to rest)
-crypts
-frogbit(netty has it so it must be good)

dont yell at me for this!!

i want to replicate what they would live like in the wild
so yes that means boys and girls together, and more scary more than 1 boy in the tank.
would this ever be possible?
i want betta splendens not other kinds.

also how many of each gender?
remember this is for when i get a bigger tank in the future.
also tell me how many gallons i will need.

if this isnt possible dont be mad at me! i just want to replicate the natural environment

 

[Cdarmychi]

I wouldnt try it. no matter what, you will have a lot of stress in the tank.

 

[ReMz]

You will never replicate a natural environment in a tank. While the foliage and environment in a tank might "emulate" the real thing... I'm sure you are well aware that it is impossible to create the real thing. For this reason, you are talking about an experiment....... with potentially fatal results.

In a natural habitat, a betta will fight, breed, and hunt in a certain area. Males losing fights are given THOUSANDS if not millions of gallons to flee. Let alone, wild betta types are quite a bit different than betta splendinds. Keep in mind that bettas were originally bred in Thailand for fighting purposes before the "Betta Splendin" craze.

Even with a 300 gallon tank, you with end up with a male betta chasing the female.... the females ganging up on the male....... or the inevitable 2 males meeting up and ripping each other apart.

There is nothing pleasant about trying this. I promise you that.

Feel free to try it with a very overgrown environment and a net in hand to stop things if you need to see for yourself. Not recommended in the least though.

The whole idea is a like adding rocket fuel to a fire and saying you are a rocket scientist.......

 

[GSD]

Wouldnt work, you couldnt have a tank physically big enough to house 2 males, as in the wild they have miles of water to flee in. Also bettas have been bred to fight by humans and a specimin from say a LFS would not have the same temprement or look as a wild betta.

 

[bolivian_d]

I've heard a few stories of fishkeepers successfully keeping a few male betta's in one tank, but they were brothers raised together as fry. Likewise, I've heard that you may be able to keep a couple of male betta's in a tank if it's large enough. Apparently, "fighting to the death" is only true if the tank is so small that the betta has nowhere to retreat to. In a larger tank, a losing betta will simply retreat and the other one won't follow.

What defines "large"? I'm not sure. These stories may just be old wives' tales. I have never done it, nor seen it done successfully, but I think it is worthwhile researching.

Let us know what you find out.

 

[bronzecat]

Unless you're planning on having a tank of extreme proportions like 1000's of gallons you are going to cause the fish constant stress.
Stress = Lowered immune system = Illness

Its not generally the fight that kills them, but the resulting stress and injuries leading to infection. So a male may be able to escape a conflict, but cant escape the injuries it has received.

Also worth bearing in mind is that Bettas in the wild, i.e. the Plakat, are much hardier than their bred cousins. They are built for conflict, short fins, heavy bodies and are much faster than long finned varieties. You may think to use Plakats, but due to their attributes just listed and that they are generally more aggressive, the tank would have to be more like a small lake.

There have been many threads about people wanting to do this Love4aquatic, and what i just dont understand is why would you want to put the fish in a stressful situation? If males in the wild can find eachother and fight in 100,000's gallons of water, then they are sure to be able to do it in a smaller environment.

There may be a 50% chance that, in a big enough environment, they will not fight but, there's also a 50% chance that they will fight. So as i've said before, its an unnecessary risk.

As for siblings being raised together, i've had spawns where i have had to seperate siblings at 4 weeks old because they have started becoming aggressive. Even if they do appear to be fine, things can change rapidly and you cant watch them 24/7. Serious damage can be caused in a few seconds.

 

[love4aquatic]

if i do get wild b.splendens would they do?

also could you breed them to hybrid b.splendens for more color and less aggression?

i found this on [URL="http/smp.ibcbettas.org/species/splendens.html"]http/smp.ibcbettas.org/species/splendens.html[/URL]

Betta splendens
Regan 1910​

[size=-1]Betta splendens Nongjork male[/size]​

Keeping Betta splendens from an Aquarist View​

​

Housing

Betta splendens can be housed in pairs, species tanks, and community tanks. Pairs can be housed in a 10 gallon tank, groups should be housed in a 30 gallon tank or larger. Pairs should be given cover such as caves and plants. In a pair or species situation it is possible that fry could be discovered in the tanks. For best results remove a pair to a breeding tank with little to no filtration.​

Water Conditions

Not critical, splendens is very tolerant of water chemistry and thrives in almost any type of water as long as it is clean and well filtered. They should be kept at mid 70s to low 80s F.​

Sexing

Males are more intensely colored and might have longer fins while the females will be a browner in color however females should display an ovipositor or egg tube.​

Reproduction

Splendens is a surface bubblenester however the male may make a nest under objects on the surface of the water. Males normally initiate spawning and entice females to the nest for spawning.​

Similar SpeciesSimilar species would be all splendens complex members.IdentificationSplendens have red or yellow-red gill plates with no wild spots on the tail rays.

 

[LauraFrog]

Very incorrect information. A group of these in a 30 gallon = shredded bettas, most likely deaths. A pair in a 10 gallon = shredded bettas and dead female. You cannot trust everything you read on the internet. Quite simply the information above is utter @#%$.

When humans first started breeding Betta splendens, the idea was to create the most aggressive temperament possible. Betta breeding began as a means to create more aggressive fish for fighting, because betta fighting was and is a gambling sport in southeast Asia. After many generations of breeding in their foul tempers, the breeders discovered that they could alter the colours as well. The true colour breeding never really took off until a few decades ago. All our captive bred variants were based on stock that had been deliberately made more aggressive, so you aren't going to breed out the aggression by outcrossing wild fish with captive fish. The idea is ludicrous.

Most people who want to keep mixed sex groups of bettas are doing it for the 'ner ner' factor - as in 'Everybody says x is impossible, but I did x and my fish are still alive, UP YOURS!!!'
I don't think you're like that, and it seems like the main reason you want to do this is a true-to-nature biotype. Well, so far everybody is right. In the wild, bettas live in water that is knee to chest deep - let's call that 3 feet high. The average male's territory would be AT LEAST 3 x 3 foot surface area that he would defend vehemently from intruders. So that's 3 x 3 x 3, which is over 250 gallons (1000 litres). My aunt and uncle owned such a tank. They paid thousands of dollars for the setup, eventually took it down because of the vast amount of electricity and work involved with it, and it is now unofficially for sale for three hundred dollars. I would buy it, but the tank is so large that it cannot fit through a single door or window in my house. And that's just to replicate the actual natural size of ONE male's territory. To keep a truly natural condition of a mixed sex group, you'd need a tank about the width, length, and half the depth of a small room. Then four or so males and twelve or thirteen females. And to top it off, they would breed - and there would be absolutely nowhere for the fry to go, so five months or so down the line and let the shredding begin.

If you want to attempt a betta biotype in a tank that it's plausible you might get, you'd probably have better luck with Betta imbellis or Betta smaragdina, or one of the other wild species which can be kept as trios in 20-odd gallons.

 

[love4aquatic]

i have had smaragdina before but they are just not the same. and not color full!!

i like the imbellis tho...

 

[bronzecat]

That information is 100 years old if that is the Date and written by Regan? Dog fighting and badger baiting were still legal then!