Why Most Female Betta Sorority Aquariums Fail and How YOU Can Be Successful!

hello everyone this is jason from primetime aquatics and in today's video i wanted to cover a subject that can be very confusing and that is whether or not you can keep multiple betas together especially the female beta sorority i'm going to share with you some best practices that people who keep better sorority successful have employed over the years it's not to say this is the only way but this in my opinion is the way that's going to maximize the likelihood of your success as always if you try this make sure you have a backup plan just in case it doesn't work hope you enjoy the video appreciate you being here so the tanks that we're going to be looking at here are from aqua shella 2021 chicago this is the prism betta booth and they had a couple of really nice tanks one in particular which was this one here it was a 55 gallon tank with hundreds of female betas and we're going to use this as an example in terms of how to keep a betta sorority and maximize your success let's face it these fish are absolutely beautiful and when it comes to keeping multiples together we are pretty much left with trying trying to keep female bettas together because the males are far too aggressive towards one another and males are too aggressive towards other females so the option that we have are trying to keep multiple females together unfortunately when most people try this it fails and fails miserably why because even though female bettas aren't nearly as aggressive as males they still are aggressive towards one another and if you're trying to keep them together there are a number of aspects that you have to consider before you keep a female better sorority i think the first thing and this is one of the more the areas that are somewhat controversial on the internet and that is tank size if i were attempting a female beta sorority my minimum tank size would be a 29 gallon but if i were doing it i would really prefer to have at least a 40 gallon breeder or a 4 foot tank i think the larger the tank you have the higher the likelihood for success and i am fully aware a lot of places on the internet will tell you a 10 gallon will be sufficient i think again if you want to maximize your success a minimum of a 29 gallon but if you can really go all out and get at least a four foot tank you could have something special just like you see in this video if i were going to do a larger tank like a 40 gallon breeder or a 4 foot tank like a 55 gallon you have to keep in mind filtration you're going to be keeping a lot of bettas in this tank and so you're going to need adequate filtration but you're also going to want to have filters that have an adjustable flow i would probably opt for keeping two smaller filters on like let's say a 55 gallon or even a 40 gallon breeder something in the like a c-chem title 55 and by the way i've got some filters that will do well with bettas in the description below some videos that you can check out these filters have adjustable flow because your bettas aren't going to want a very heavy flow so i probably have a couple filters yes you're going to need a heater on your betta tank if the room temperature is going to be below mid 70s and so ideally we want to keep these fish right about 78 or so the other thing to consider and what you're seeing in this video is how the tank is set up to maximize your success you're going to want to have places that block line of sight in case there's one better that's maybe getting picked on by another one so you've got rocks you've got wood in this particular tank lots and lots of life plants if you don't want to do live plants you can do plastic plants but you do want to have the tank with a moderate amount of decorations rocks wood plants castles whatever you want to put in there just make sure whatever decorations you add don't have any sharp edges that could tear betta fins or scrape up their bodies [Music] something else to keep in mind when you're adding the fish and we'll talk about this in a second you're going to want to make sure that your fish tank is well cycled if you don't know what that means the video in the upper right hand corner will help you through that process i will also put a video down in the description that will show you how to get a tank cycled very quickly and very safely so that your bettas will have the highest likelihood for survival right when you add them now when it comes to the bettas themselves and i think this is where a lot of people when it goes wrong this is where they get it wrong as you can see throughout this video we have a 55 gallon tank that has hundreds of bettas in this 55 gallon you do want to overstock this tank now for those of you who have ever kept cichlids this is not an uncommon thing we keep a lot of cichlids in our fish room and it's not uncommon to keep our african cichlids heavily stocked to actually cut down on aggression i think one of the main reasons why betta sororities fail is there are too few bettas in a fish tank ideally what you're going to want is at least a betta for every couple of gallons so that means if you're going to be doing a 29 gallon you're going to want 14 or 15 bettas in that tank if i were doing a 55 like you see here i would easily have 30 to 50 bettas in that tank and what that's going to do is going to allow enough individuals where they're really not going to want to vie for dominance as much they're not going to have necessarily a territorial aspect because there are just so many fish that they would have to chase away and again this is a very common thing we do in the cichlid world and it really does help when we cross this over into the beta sorority world this is also the reason why i say you you're going to want a larger tank it's at some point the volume also becomes important if you were to try to do this with a 10 gallon and maybe even a 20 where you've got 10 or 15 betas in that very small volume of water there just isn't enough space for them to have a little bit of swimming room and so there's it's just bound to cause problems so larger tanks are going to be better for this thus at least a 29 gallon ideally a larger tank like this like a 55 is even better the second thing you're going to want to consider is the size of the bettas and the types of the bettas as you'll see throughout this video most of these fish are of similar size ideally you would want to add fish that are on the younger side so they're going to be a little bit smaller it would be even better if these fish were siblings a lot of people report being able to keep siblings together with a lot less aggression than if they're trying to get better from all kinds of different sources but that may not always be possible the best option is to try to get the betters around the same size [Music] you should also consider the color varieties of your bettas fish generally speaking if there's going to be aggression will be aggressive towards other fish that look similar to them so if you can get a wide variety of colors for your female bettas that may help cut down on aggression [Music] and you're definitely going to want to watch these fish as you add them to the tank make sure that there's no one fish that's really getting pushed up into a corner or being relentlessly chased by another one again what we're doing here is here is we're laying down rules that are going to maximize your success but it certainly isn't going to guarantee it so if you've got one fish that is absolutely a a bully that is just terrorizing every other fish you may have to remove it if you've got one fish that is just being beat up by the rest of them you may have to remove that fish as well so it's really important around that first week or two to watch your community and make sure that they're getting along relatively speaking they are going to probably chase each other around they're going to flare at one another what you're looking for is fin nipping is fish that are biting other fish that are bullying them preventing them from eating that's the type of aggression that we may have to step in and do something about also be prepared even using these best practices sometimes you do all the things that you think are right and it just doesn't work and you have to be ready to have a backup plan now when you are adding your betas it's best to try to add them at roughly the same time so if you're going to be let's say you've got a 29 gallon you're going to add 10 or 15 bettas to that tank do it all at the same time but again that means that that tank needs to be well cycled [Music] [Music] now once you've added your betas there are some things that you can do to minimize aggression the first thing we've already talked about blocking lines of sight giving bettas a place to retreat if they're being picked on giving places that a beta can go to if a another betta is bullying them where they can't see them as much so you've got your rocks you've got your wood you've got your fake or real plants but there are other things you can do such as how are you feeding your bettas it might be best to feed your bettas two to four smaller meals every day making sure they eat all of the food i have found fish that are well fed tend to be less aggressive we feed all of our fish including our bettas north fin flakes and north finn pellets you could also consider frozen bloodworms frozen brine shrimp we have found our bettas even larger ones really like live baby brine shrimp if you want to give them a treat so all of these things fed smaller meals over multiple times a day can help reduce better aggression you're going to have to keep an eye on your water quality make sure that you have no ammonia and no nitrite make sure you try to keep your nitrates less than maxing out at around 20 parts per million if it's a planted tank you can go as high as 30 parts per million i try not to go too much above that so it's important to test your nitrates and that will help guide you as to how much water you're going to be changing if you want more information about how to change water and what we do that video in the upper right hand corner will certainly help now we have a ton of good betta information in a playlist i will put more better information down in the description below if you want more info as well as the videos in the upper and lower right hand corners if you've had success before we'd love to hear from you down in the comments section below what did you do appreciate you being here and we'll see in the next one

Channel: Prime Time Aquatics

Views: 110,758

Keywords: how to set up a betta sorority, betta sorority aquarium, betta sorority 55 gallon, prime time aquatics, female betta tank, can you keep female bettas together, can you keep bettas together, how many bettas can you put in one tank, betta fish info, female betta fish, are female bettas colorful, are female bettas aggressive, how to set up a female betta tank

Id: 4KhgcgzY_r0

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 31 2021