Any Beta (Siamese Fighting) Fish Owners?

[LisaJean]

I recently bought my nearly-3-year-old niece a Beta Fish. Her first pet. I figured something low-maintenance would be best, and Betas are relatively hard to kill. She loves her pet. She named him "Fish," and I think that makes sense, since it's not like he can come if she calls him.

Anyways, after seeing her joy, I decided to get one for myself as well. He is just a delight, I love seeing him swimming in his little tank on the windowsill. And the cats love to watch him as well.

For awhile I was feeding Mr. Chips (his name...fish and chips) on live mosquito larvae that I fished out of my rain barrels. But he was eating so many that his little tummy would get sort of bloated, so I had to switch him back to flakes. He's been decidedly sulky since I put him back on the store-bought food, but oh well.

So anyway, on a whim I picked up another one tonight at the pet store. I know that you cannot put two male Betas in a tank together, because they beat the tar out of each other. So I got a female.

Mr. Chips has got hisself a girlfriend.

You should have seen him when I put her in the tank with him. The fins came out, the gills puffed up, and Mr. Chips put on the Barry White routine.

"Hello, baby.... You new in this tank?"

He's still showing off as I type this, swirling and dancing through the water for her. She's being coy and standoffish for now, but I can see she is defintiely intrigued by him.

So has anyone had a pair of Betas before? I'm not sure what to do with babies, if any come about.

 

[Varisha]

I'm so sorry to tell you

but.. Surprisingly beta females and males can not be kept together. After mating the male will try to drive the female off with the same type of agression he would a male in his territory.

Edit: so you know my background I worked in a pet store for several years and one of my ex-sweeties tried to raise bettas.

 

[Varisha]

Found a good site for you to read.

http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/bettas/betta_breeding.htm

 

[Poison Ivy]

My male killed my female and I have a nice size bowl they were in. But he attacked her so bad I had to put her in a separate container but it was to late.

here is my betta bowl.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Yeah, I always thought that males and females could not be put together either. You could always just separate them, or get one of those tanks with a divider. I'm pretty sure they sell large ones. I would hate to see either of them get hurt! The females can be just as vicious as the males!

I just bought a betta fish as my little dorm pet. He's really pretty. He's a crowntail betta that I got from petsmart. Also, don't keep them in those little betta bowls. I don't know what you have, but they love having space to swim! They can actually live ten years if you give them enough space! I keep mine in a gallon tank.

Here's a pic of him. I'd love to see pix of yours!

 

[SeaChick]

Olivia has a male... just the one guy. He was left on the porch of a rental house this summer when the vacationers left. Can you stand it? He was outside (in Maine= cold) without food for nearly a week. Then he got dropped and fell out of his bowl. Amazingly, he's now a strong and healthy fella. She has him in a BIG (+/- 3 gal) fishbowl. She built him a cave out of rocks and it's so cute: at night he goes down there to sleep (even if the lights are on in the room) but if you go over to the bowl he sees you and swims right out to say "hi".... friendliest fish I ever saw.

Good luck with yours, I don't know much about bettas except that most people keep them in way too small of tanks!

 

[LisaJean]

Thanks everyone for your input!

Now this may be a dumb question... but if males and females can't be put together... where do baby Beta fish come from?

I will put Mrs. Chips back in the little cup she came in for now, and move her to her own, larger home tomorrow.

Mr. Chips has a small tank that he has all to himself.

 

[peeps7]

Well baby betas come from female betas. You have to put the female in for just a brief period of time or put her and the male in a tube. You have to separate them or the male will kill her, sorry. I have a male beta that I just let out in our lily pond today, he wasn't quite sure what to do with all the room he had but he's doing fine.

 

[ChickenFanaticAB]

I also have a beta fish in my apartment at school. I decided to get him after my three mollies got ich, and unfortunately i didn't catch it soon enough, and the medicine was too late. Anyway, mine is a blue, with some red, male named Sgt. Pepper. I don't exactly remember when I got him but i think around march or so. So he's still fairly young.
Here's Sgt. Pepper hoping for some food. I feed him freeze dried blood worms, which I suppose are supposed to be used a treat, but he doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects. He also eats his tank mates algea pellets when he doesn't think I've fed him enough.

These are the two that he shares his tank with. I got these guys when I had my mollies, but I guess because they are not scaled, they didn't get the ich.
This is M.J (short for Michael Jackson, because let's face it. his looks could use some help. but i personally think he's pretty neat looking.) He's an albino cory catfish. And he goes crazy at feeding time.

And this is Sully (after monster's inc. character) He's a spotted cory catfish. He's quite a bit smaller than M.J. but both of them have definitely grown quite a bit since I got them.

They all live quite peacefully in a small (about 1 1/2 gal.) starter tank.

 

[helmstead]

Acknowledged fish geek here and cichlid breeder...

As has been said - they can't live together. It's a life of one night stands for Betas!

If you do want to start expanding your horizons, set up a 10 gallon tropical tank. Betas get along well with schooling tropical breeds (note - no breeds with long fins or bright colors, no goldfish and especially no Gouramis). I have always kept my Betas in a filtered tank with other fish as I believe they have a better quality of life.

Have fun with it! Before we started packing to move across three states, we had over 300 gallons worth of fish tanks running on our main floor alone. NERDS! Now I just have a 42 gallon, a 30 gallon cube and a 10 gallon of tropicals left...gotta figure out how to move them LOL!