Betta Fish Forum banner

Introducing Females

18K views 96 replies 10 participants last post by  LittleDeer 
#1 ·
Hello guys, its been a while since I last posted on here. I just was looking for some advice on female Bettas.

I know females can be kept in sororities if done correctly. I'm just not sure what the best way to go about introducing them to eachother would be. I went to Petsmart to buy some Tubifex worms and walked past the Bettas and they had a new shipment of them. They were all active and healthy looking and seemed to be pretty young, and the females were on sale for 99cents. I fell in love with two VT girls and ended up grabbing them. I have the resources to separate them if need be, but how would one go about introducing two females together? They seem like they are fairly young compared to the Bettas I usually see, and they had been sitting right next to eachother on the shelf. Not sure how much of a factor that is.

I'm also not sure if it would be better to have more than just two before introducing them, or if I should just see how these two girls do with eachother for now. If I should have more I can probably go pick out another, though I don't want to get too many fish at once.
 
#2 ·
Yes, you need to have at least 4 preferably 6 before introducing them to each other.
 
#3 · (Edited)
You will find many threads on introducing females in this site. Try the search feature, or Google "introducing female bettas" in Google and you will find a series of threads that take you to this site.

Also, http://www.bettysplendens.com/articles/page.imp?articleid=1097 Is a good article.

From what I hear, there's safety in numbers. The more females the less opportunity one will single out another to pick on. I will be introducing 6 females in a couple of weeks. I have two right now and when I tried to put them together it wasn't long that they were body slamming one another and aggressively chasing each other. The stress will lead to sickness and death, if they don't actually kill each other. I separated them at the good advice of one of the members of this great forum. They are in separate tanks until the others arrive.

How big is the aquarium you will be placing them? Rule of thumb is 1 female (preferably less) per 1 gallon of water.

Will there be any other tank mates?

Is your aquarium cycled and heavily planted? Your females will need a lot of hiding places as they sort out their pecking order, for there will be a few chases. I have my aquarium heavily planted now, top and bottom (floating plants, dense plants and tall plants), with decor like floating logs and driftwood and decor that the fish can hide in without tearing their fins.

Do you have another small holding place for any female that might be too aggressive? Do you have a plan on what to do with her if she really needs a place of her own?

From what I've read, they all need to be introduced at the same time to the aquarium, so one doesn't have the advantage over the other. They need to be watched carefully and continuously for awhile, for any overagressive female. If there is one, take her out and float her in a clear container in the tank. This way she gets used to her tank mates, but can't harm them. After a day or so, put her back in and watch carefully. If she repeats the behavior, take her out again and do the same. Bettas are smart and she should learn that aggressive behavior only gets her in isolation. There may be some that just don't learn. That's why you need plan B.

I'm sure there is more info I left out. Again, enter the word introduce betta in the Search and see what you get. Or go to the section in this forum for Betta Companions and you will find many that are asking the same questions as you.

Most important, do your research and you will have better chances of happy, healthy girls.
 
#4 ·
I had a 36 gal with 7 female. It worked but not well. These are not social fish they are happier when given their own space. They do not live together in the wild it's not in their DNA to play nice. Maybe some one should work on breeding Bettas for temperament. Female or no they are all Bettas. Female of any kind can be just as mean as males.

You will enjoy your Bettas a lot more if you keep them alone or with other fish that are Bettas.
 
#5 ·
I just started my sorority, so perhaps we are still in the happy days of little to no fighting. But so far, it's working well! I have four girls in the tank and another girl in a breeder's box, making friends with the others. I have another in quarantine right now while I make sure she's disease free before she can start acclimating to the sorority.

I agree with the above posters and they have given you great advice. I must respectfully disagree with snowflake, though. I noticed that one of my females actually seemed to become depressed when she was separated from the others to treat her fin damage. She is much happier now that she's back in the big tank, even if she's still isolated in the breeder's box. But it all depends on the fish... some are more social than others, just like any other animal species.

If you are one who will be upset by your babies being nipped and chased a bit, a sorority might not be for you. My tank is relatively peaceful, but my alpha, Kitkat, doesn't let the others get out of line. Especially the omega, Hershey. She has been nipped and chased a lot, but that's just part of establishing dominance and a pecking order.

Like others have said... have a back-up plan, and be sure you have at least 4 girls and a heavily planted, cycled tank before you put them into it. I have a couple separate tanks I can put girls into if need be, and I have enough cups that, in an emergency, everyone could be separated while I ran out and grabbed anything else I needed. Make sure you have stress coat on hand because there WILL be damaged fins and a missing scale here or there. But if you want a sorority, I say do it!! :)
 
#6 ·
How to do you know your fish is happy? Because she is more active? Maybe he likes being a lone and enjoys the time to relax.

Like I said I had a sorority for a year in a 36 gal with 7 females. My fish were short lived in the sorority and I blame it on them stressing each other out. Stress kills fish. My male that I got at the same time as my females and from the same place lived alone and was 4 years when I lost him. So IME it might seem like it is working but in the end it's sad. Also my alph female changed from month to month. They were always fighting to be number one. I had one female go missing. I found her hiding in a decoration she would only come out to eat them sat in her little save cave.

I would never ever have a sorority again devide the tank your fish will last longer if you do.

I would love to here from others that have had a sorority for a year or longer? Maybe I was just unlucky.
 
#7 ·
I would also like to add that "happy" is a human emotion which no other animal can experience. They can be content in their current state or fearful or stressed but happiness and anger and sadness are all human states of mind which cannot be expressed or measured in fish or other animals.

Anyway, I agree with all else, do not try to do just two females. Get at least two more (yay you can get two more lol) or three more.

By the way, what size tank are you doing this in?
 
#8 ·
Thank you guys for all your advice.

I did end up going back to the store, but I was only able to get one more girl. There were about 6-7 females there when I got my first two girls, and when I went back there were only two, and one was taken by someone else by the time I got there. But I grabbed the little white girl who was left. I almost got her with the first two I got anyway, so I guess that worked out okay. I'll probably end up checking back at the store a few times to see if they have any more. They are the only place near me that ever has females. The place I got my boy only has males.

So I have three right now, That isn't ideal, I know, but on other sites I have read that three can be okay. If not, I can divide and separate them, and worst case scenario, I do have a friend that said she could take one if it gets too out of hand, though I've already fallen in love with all three of them.

I will be doing this in a ten gallon. Its not yet cycled, unfortunately, but set up and I put filter media from my cycled tank into the new filter to give it a kick start. I'm debating whether to keep the girls in cups for a couple days, or if its best to just get them in now instead of waiting a couple days. I don't want to keep them in the cups too long. I am aware I should have had a cycled tank beforehand, but I think it will be okay. I'll probably take some gravel from my established tank too.

It is decently planted, though it could be better. I'll probably go out and get some more plants once I get paid. I could use a few more plants in my current tank as well, and there are a bunch on sale at Petsmart right now, that are plants I already own that I know at least my male has had no trouble with. So I will probably be getting a few of those.

For "housing" the girls have clay pots and a sort of asian lantern cave thing.

The girls are only maybe an inch and a half long including their tails, and about the size of my pinky finger, maybe a little smaller. Not sure if any of you have any idea of how old they might be.

If I had a decent camera, I'd take pictures, but it gets really blurry and grainy with my ipod camera unless its in very specific light.

Would they be okay to introduce these three first and if they get along, would it be okay to introduce a couple more if I can grab a few more (if the store has any more available when I go check)? I'd like too avoid keeping them in the cups longer than necessary.
 
#9 ·
Oh and something you can do for right now is keep them in their cups. I know you said you wanted them out but it's actually better if you keep them in there until you get more females. It's not hard on them, just do water changes every other day and they'll be just fine! Acclimate them to the tank water and float them in their cups in the water to keep warm until you can get at least one more. Three is still really super iffy in my books just because there really isn't enough to spread aggression around; that's the goal with sororities is to have an optimum amount of girls to spread aggression so that not just one girl is being picked on.

But anyway you can acclimate to the tank water and get a spare cup if you can. Then use that spare to fill with a bit of water, take out the first girl. Empty her cup over a bucket (Don't put her water into the tank since the point of QT is to get rid of disease, although this isn't your goal here but it's acting as a QT period anyway ^_^) and catch her with a net. Then put her in the extra cup for now with the water, then rinse out her cup with tap and then fill with water from the tank, she can now be put in her old cup and left to float since it's clean! And then do the same with the other two.

I do that method now for all my QT girls when they come in or for sick girls, it's easiest to do since they can float, i don't need extra tanks or heaters and they can still see each other. That's the biggest thing in a sorority is that they see each other and get used to their presence. If you take one out, even for a day they'll have to reorder their pecking order and start all over basically. Usually there isn't too much aggression at this point but if you take out a girl at the top or the Alpha, it can be severely stressful since she won't be able to keep things in check. Make sense?

For a 10 gallon you could even go up to 7 girls comfortably if you have enough plants :-D Your cory's are staying with Ben right? So if you don't do other fish you can have 7-8 just fine ^_^ and that will really help with spreading aggression and make for content fish.
 
#10 ·
Thank you very much, lilnaugrim n_n

I actually have a small half gallon critter keeper I use sometimes for acclimating and for isolating fish if I need to check on them. I used it to check up on my Cory that has a fin missing while he was growing his damaged fin back (he's doing very well now n_n). Anyway, I can probably use that critter keeper instead of an extra cup, or I could even keep a girl in there if that's better than a cup. I also have a 1 gallon, and I may have another older half gallon critter keeper somewhere (nothing ever actually lived in the tiny critter keepers, I just see them at my local thrift shop and I grab them because they're useful). I'm probably overthinking things, I just get worried that they may be unhappy in the small cups for any length of time, though I suppose if they had stayed in the store they would have been in them for a while, but that usually turns out bad for Bettas :(. I just want all my girls to stay as content and healthy as they seem right now. And I would like to avoid too much trouble between them. So I suppose if I keep them in the cups I can just keep them floating in the cups until I get more girls. Which will hopefully be sooner than later. The sale on the females at Petsmart lasts until the 21st, so they may get snatched up quickly. Actually, I think they may have had crowntail girls on another shelf, but they are much more expensive, and I would definitely have to wait until I get paid to get them. I don't know if Crowntails and Veiltails would be okay together, though. I assume it wouldn't be much of an issue, but I want to be safe.

And yes, the Cories are staying with Ben. He seems to enjoy/tolerate them pretty well, and they all seem pretty content, so I don't really see any reason to move any of them.

I'll keep an eye out for more girls. I wish they weren't so hard to get around here. People don't usually buy them, so they don't get stocked at all most places here. Even the Petsmart I got my three girls from usually only has boys.

I just may not be able to get more girls for another week, I don't know if that is an unreasonable amount of time for them to be floating in cups. Though I suppose a QT would last a decent amount of time. I guess as long as I keep the water nice and clean, it should be alright. I've had their cups all sitting so they can see eachother, and they seem to be acknowledging eachother, but no one has really tried to get at anyone else yet.

Also, I don't know how much of a concern this is, but The silvery blue girl I got had stress stripes for a little bit when I got her home, then they went away for about an hour, then they came back for maybe 20 minutes. The dark blue girl had them for a short time as well, though very briefly. Is this just from being shipped to the store, then being on the car ride home, or should I be concerned?
 
#11 ·
The only reason that it turns out bad for them in stores is because they don't have enough water changes. Since you can do water changes for them every day or every other then nothing bad will happen to them. You can use the .5 gallons if you want but trust me, it's going to be more of a hassle fitting it all in there or using extra heaters. Breeders do this all the time.

Also use the lids that the cups come with so they can't escape, much easier to work with :)

As far as tail types, that's just it, they're tail types. There's nothing different between a CT, a VT, a DT or DeT, HM and so on except that some have different ray counts. They are all the same species though. In my sorority I have everything from VT, CT, HM, HMPK, DeT and DT and they all do fine oh yeah and one regular PK too ^_^

And stress stripes are very normal, anything from moving to being introduced some where else, different water parameters, different food, different girls. I have one girl, actually my DT Phoenix who always gets stress stripes at feeding time as does Cherry. it's their way of saying "you can go first, I don't want any trouble!" same goes for "breeding" stripes which can also act as submission stripes, just telling the other girls that she doesn't want any trouble! Baby Betta's can exhibit this as well.

And for the length of time, you are certainly over thinking this ^_^ I keep my girls in their QT cups for at least 2 weeks and that's with water changes 3-4 times a week (depends if I'm there or not) and sometimes I keep them in even longer! One of my girls; Lady, she was super feisty and had gotten out of her cup once when I didn't have the lid on and she started to try to attack her sister who was in another container. So the three sisters all had a vendetta against each other. So the smallest of the three, Jewel was the first to come out after 2 weeks then her sister Emma after 4 more days and then Lady came out a full week and a half later to make a full 3.5 weeks in the cup. I thought she was going to be super feisty still but the time in QT when she realized that she can't get at her sisters and the other fish made her calm down and she's still one of the sweeter girls in there right now!

That brings me to another point, sometimes you'll come across bullies like my girl Lady there and you'll see her picking on some other girls or just one girl in particular. If you see this continuing for a few days then you can scoop her up and keep her in either a clear breeder box or a cup like that for a week or so to calm her down. Basically they can still see each other but inflict no harm and after some time in there they realize how stupid it was and they kind of forget about it and then when you release they're just like "eh". I once did this to Stardust for 2 days because she had claimed the entire water sprite floating on top as "her" spot so in order to let the other girls actually swim around, I QT'd her in her cup for 2 days and let her out and she was totally chill!

But at the first two-three weeks you're going to see lots of aggression most likely, some flaring, biting, nipping, body slamming and chasing. This is completely normal and you need to let it run it's course. This is their time to pick their leader or Alpha and get things in order. If you disrupt the process it's going to take them much longer to get over things and realize that they'll be living together. However, that said, if you see one girl that is seriously ganging up on one other girl, you need to QT that bully and put her in time out so that she can see the girls but can't do anything about it. Make sense?
 
#12 ·
Okay, that all makes a ton of sense to me.

I just get very worried about fish in small containers for any length of time, but it does make sense to keep them in the cups for at least a week or two. So I think they'll be okay n_n And the cups they have are bigger than the cups they used to use at my local Petsmart, so there's that, as well.

What would be the best way to change the water in the cups. I've never had to deal with a container so small. Do i only do 50% or should I do 100% water changes? I haven't changed any water since I brought them home yesterday afternoon, should I get rid of the store water right away? Its kind of got a blue tinge to it that I've never been sure about when I've seen Bettas in it. Not like bright blue, but like a very pastel blue tinge. I just don't want to end up shocking them or anything. But I can't imagine what might be in the store water.

Keeping them in the cups will also give me the opportunity to go out and grab a bottle of stress coat. Any time I've needed it, I've borrowed a little from a friend, but I would be good to have some on hand for the girls when anyone gets hurt. I'll also probably grab a breeding box, because I think it might be better than just floating in cups if anyone needs to be put in time out or needs to be temporarily separated for whatever reason, since water can circulate in and out of it.

Goodness, my shopping list keeps getting longer, haha. But I'm sure it will be worth it n_n Even if it doesn't work out, it will be a learning experience I can rememeber in the future.
 
#13 ·
Okay for water changes for the small cups:

Right now you can empty out half of their water down a drain or bucket or something and then pour in water from the tank every 10-15 minutes or so to acclimate them to the tank water. Then after it's full again empty out half again and continue to tablespoon in water from the tank every 10-15 minutes until it's full. That's step one ^_^

So now they're acclimated to the tank water and the good thing about this is that you don't have to worry about getting the temp right from the tap and all.

So take your extra container (preferably smaller than their cups because they'll only be in it for like 2 seconds really and you don't want to take out a ton of water from the tank) so put some water in the small container. Now take the girl in her cup, pour out half her water in the bucket and then keep going and hold a net at the end and pour her into the net. Then you can plop her into the small container while you rinse out her actual cup if needed. If it's not needed then just go right ahead and fill that cup back up with new tank water, leave some room and take the small girl and pour her and the water into that cup to top it off. Leave about half an inch or so of air space just so they can't jump out or whatever.

You can do that everyday or every other day, really doesn't matter :) and do the full 100% to get rid of any ammonia and dissolve organic compounds in their cups :)

And yes, breeder boxes are good for time outs but not QT, obviously as QT would be trying to get rid of diseases or whatever and breeder boxes would not do that haha.

Yeah, Stress Coat is great, i always use it in my sorority tank because there's always someone with ripped fins or whatever but they heal really fast ^_^

Oh and when you do release the girls you can do it all at once and just watch them for an hour or so. You can feed them once they're released as well, this will take their minds off the fact that they can now touch each other. Then they'll explore and start staking out their territories ^_^ When you get new girls to add, you MUST QT them for at least 2 weeks if not longer if you can. You really don't want to have to deal with disease in your tank, it's much easier to treat one girl rather than 6 ><
 
#14 ·
Alright, thank you very much for the help n_n

And I do understand that Breeder boxes can't be used for QT, I would only be using it as a barrier.

Just one more question. At this point, I think I'm probably gonna shoot for getting six girls for the ten gallon, however, if in the future I wanted to move all the girls to a 30 gallon, would I be able to add more girls to the group, or would that completely disrupt the hierarchy and be asking for trouble? I don't want to cause any serious problems. Obviously this is currently hypothetical, since I don't think I would have room currently for the 30 gallon, but I will hopefully have my girls for a long time and I don't know how well they would react to new girls.

And what about other species? I won't be adding anything else with them to the ten gallon, but if I were to move them to the 30 in the future, would them being an established group have any effect on me adding tank mates (if I don't add more girls)?
 
#15 ·
Yeah, I was mostly joking for the breeder box thing lol that's fine ^_^

As far as adding more girls, yes you can! I add girls all the time to my 33 XD

This is why QT'ing them in the cups is the easiest way to do it. You float them in the tank with the girls, they inspect and maybe flare for a bit but both sides of the party end up getting used to each other and really don't care. So then after the two weeks they've gotten used to their presence and when you release the new girl (I release them in the back while I feed the older girls up front) they immediately go to the bottom of the pecking order usually. Once in a while you'll get one that challenges the Alpha but it usually doesn't last long and they just sort of mope around the tank and then they're fine again ^_^ girls can be pretty silly sometimes lol

But no, it really doesn't disrupt their pecking order for the most part. Sometimes there is some rearranging but they get over it in a few days as opposed to two weeks initially.

As far as other species, it depends on what you want. I tried a school of tetras with my girls and the tetras ended up getting pretty rowdy. They weren't nipping the girls or nothing but they were sparring between themselves and I could see that it was stressing my girls out. I took them out and the girls went back to being content with their tank. Corydoras, however, make great tankmates because they are bottom dwellers as you know and Betta's are mid-high tank dwellers. Although I swear one of my girls thinks she's a cory and shoals with them and is basically their leader XD

But it all depends on what you're thinking, if your water parameters are good you could even add a pair of German Blue Rams (one of my goals lol) and they'll be fine. For the most part the girls ignore each other and ignore everything else in the tank. And no you can add tankmates whenever you want if they were in the 30, since they really don't care about other species of fish.
 
#16 ·
That's great n_n Most likely, I may be adding some kuhli loaches, because I've been wanting kuhlis for some time, now. But they stay on the bottom and hide a lot, so I doubt they'd be much of a problem.

Oh goodness, they have some gorgeous Blue Rams at the place I got Ben and the Cories from. I went there yesterday to see if they had Betta girls (they didnt), and I always stop and look at all the fish they happen to have. They also have a massive, handsome resident Arrowana that I always walk over and say hello to.

By the way, I tried to get some halfway decent pictures of the girls I got. I apologize for how blurry they are, my ipod camera is horrendous.



^This is Alice, you can't see in the picture, but her ventrals are bright red.



^This is Gylfie. She's the one who keeps getting stress stripes.



^And this is Sonata. She looked black at the store, but now that I see her in better light, she's a dark blue. I imagine once she grows a bit and gets more comfortable, she'll end up being the same color as Ben. Though she probably won't have red ventrals like he does.

And I don't know if I've ever posted a picture of Ben, but this is him.Though he looks more purple in the picture than he actually does. He has patches of a red-violet color, and his ventrals are a deep blood red. His head is also a red violet color. Excuse the water color, right now I'm dealing with an algae bloom, that I'm slowly getting to clear up, but my water is a little green and cloudy from it right now. Its mostly from the heat and my light, so I'm gonna be keeping the light off until things clear up. (Also excuse the glare and the reflection of me taking the picture XD).

 
#17 ·
I'm only at +6 months, but *knocks on wood* so far so good with my girls. I have 12 girls in a 36 gallon planted tank. The only time I see any nipping is at feeding time, and that's mostly as they try to lunge around each other to get that one last pellet.

To introduce females after the initial batch, I would do this: After their QT time was up, I would put the girl back in her cup and float it in the big tank. I would do partial water changes of tank water into the cup 2-3 times a day for 2-3 days. At that point, the girls in the tank would have satisfied their curiosity about the New Girl and the New Girl had time to get used to the idea of the big tank. Each time I have done this, the sorority is HUGELY curious about the new fish, and the most dominant ones will initially circle the cup and flare a bit, but so far they get bored of that after a few hours and then don't bother with the cup at all...till it's time to release. And then....

Organism Textile Plant Shoe


Yes that's 5 girls that swam INTO the cup, with two more considering.

I am really pleased with how this sorority has turned out. I admit due to my own inexperience it got off to a rough start, but more research has fixed that. So far :)
 
#18 ·
That's awesome! I'm glad your sorority has worked out so well.

I'm so excited and anxious to get my sorority going, I really hope everything works out. I've been wanting a sorority for a while now, and didn't think I would end up doing it, but it feels good to actually be preparing for it now. I'm probably gonna shoot for getting three more girls in addition to the current three I got yesterday to start the Sorority off.

I've been reading varying opinions on this: Is it better to introduce only one new girl to a sorority at a time, or should you introduce two at a time so one doesn't get ganged up on?
 
#19 ·
I'd just throw them all in lol Don't give them down time to explore, just put them all in at once. Some do the least aggressive to the most aggressive but that's terribly hard to determine when they are in their cups.

The girl who I thought was the sweetest girl ended up being Alpha for two weeks until she gave it up to Mystique so sometimes you just never know until they're in. So just put them all in at once and it's just a lot easier.

You kind of just have to let them do what they do and leave them at that. :)
 
#21 ·
Your initial group of girls should be released more or less together. I believe the rule on this is when you start letting them loose, free the *least* aggressive seeming one first, wait a few minutes, release the next least aggressive, and so on, working your way up to releasing the one that seems the *most* aggressive last. No less than 4 initially. And be prepared to watch and intervene if things seem to be too wild at first. I had a breeder cage that was my Time Out box. I had to use it a few times on one particular girl at first, but she got the idea after a few rounds.

I'll be honest, after 6 months, I have no idea who my alpha is. I know a few that it is *not* but there are about 8 of them that typically hang out together. Of the rest, my orange is a loner, my two smallest ones like to chill in the plants, and one thinks she is a tetra.
 
#22 ·
I wake up and check on the girls this morning and I almost had a heart attack. Looks like little Sonata is having swim bladder issues. I have their cups floating in the tank and its 80 degrees, and their water is clean, I did 100% changes in their cups yesterday. She's floating up on her side, though not too dramatically. Just enough to look a bit distressed, and she has very bold stripes right now. I don't know if it has anything to do with my food. I only gave them each one pellet and a small piece of a bloodworm yesterday (at completely different times of day). I don't know if its the bloodworm or the pellets, but I'm gonna be changing the pellets for both the girls and Ben to Hikari, because I looked at the ingredients of my current pellets and the third ingredient is Soybean Meal, and there are a few other fillers in there too. I do have a sample packet of Hikari in my drawer, so I can use that until I get paid and can buy an actual packet of it. But the sample comes with enough for at least a month, with the feeding schedule I use, and the number of Bettas I have. So I think I'll be okay for a little bit. I'm probably gonna fast Sonata until she looks a bit better. And then try the frozen pea thing I read.
 
#23 ·
Don't use pea's, Betta's are insectivores and cannot digest vegetables so it would really hurt to use pea's. You can if you really want to though, but I just don't suggest it.

What you should do is get some Epsom Salt from walmart/pharmacy or somewhere like that. Usually in the first aid section, need to get 100% Magnesium Sulfate no additives or scent. But Epsom is a laxative in both humans and fish so you can mix up a gallon of water and use that for her water changes. Use your conditioner and then mix in 1 teaspoon of Epsom salt and dissolve it. Then you can take out 50% of her water from the cup, add in some from the new salt water and then do another 50% 15-20 minutes later and add in more new salty water to make 100% water change.

So anyway, keep that up until you no longer see her floating like that. It could be the stress of it all and in which case she'll get over it in time. Don't use the salt for more than 14 days though, well at that dose it won't hurt her but you really shouldnt need to for very long. And in fact you can just fast her for a day or so and she should be fine. So don't use the salt unless this persists for 3 days or more. Also, what kind of Bloodworms were they; frozen or freeze-dried?

Also I suggest you look into Omega One and/or New Life Spectrum. NLS has one filler but over all the ingredients are better and they actually just improved the formula. And Omega has no fillers in the first three so therefore best ;-) But Hikari will work for now too ^_^
 
#24 ·
Thank you so much.

I actually ended up moving her to my small critter keeper for now just to make sure she's okay. She looked really stressed out and one of the other girls just kept trying to get at her and she was already stressed out from the swim bladder problem as well as everything that's gone on for her in he past few days. I don't want to lose her, so trying to keep her comfortable. I have her on a shelf in the half gallon critter keeper with a bare bottom and I'm keeping her tank covered enough to keep it dark to calm her down and help her feel safer. Though I made sure to keep the cover vents uncovered on the side facing the shelf so she has air. She's been like that all day, and I was out of the house all day, but I just checked on her and I think she had been sleeping when I checked, because it took her a second to respond, but she darted toward the bottom and actually was able to swim the length of the critter keeper twice staying at the bottom before floating up much more slowly than this morning. This morning she wasn't able to do that. She seems to be able to stay a bit more upright now too, though she still is floating slightly. I have my fingers crossed for her. She seems like such a sweet girl and is very cute, I really hope she ends up alright and it's just from the stress of everything. I'm just worried about it possibly happening again.


Okay, I was looking up foods today and I think I may get Omega One instead of Hikari. Though I can't right now, so all four of my Bettas will be eating the Hikari from the sample packet I have until I am able to get new food.

The Bloodworms are freeze dried, which may be part of the problem. I'm not sure, as Ben has never had an issue with them. The girls only got pieces about the same size as a single pellet.

I'll keep a close eye on her, and hopefully she improves and heals up on her own. I didn't feed her at all today, and if she is still floating tomorrow, I'll continue to fast her and probably see if my CVS has Epsom salt for a price I can afford right now. I think they have small cartons of it for around $2 but I don't remember. I have a feeling she may do okay on her own though. It seems like she's a lot more comfortable now, anyway.
 
#25 ·
Yeah even if it's a small piece of anything freeze-dried, I still wouldn't do it. It promotes constipation which obviously wouldn't help :)

Oh and for ES, Walmart has a brand; Swan for 88 cents! and it's big too :-D

And was your girl bloated at all? If not, continue to feed her the pellets, there's no point in fasting her once you get the ES in there because it's a laxative and if you don't eat, you don't poop!
 
#26 ·
Good news, she looks about 80% better this morning. She's actually able to swim almost normally now. It looks as if her back end is pulling her up slightly, so when she swims downward she stays at an angle, but it doesn't seem to be too much of a pull for her to fight anymore. If she stops moving, she slowly floats upwards, but as long as she keeps moving, she can swim almost normally. When she floats, she seems to be able to keep herself from going sideways too, now. Her stress stripes are gone, too, right now. I'm so relieved. I think I'm gonna fast her today again, just to be safe. But I think she'll be completely fine by tomorrow, or maybe even later on today.

I'll probably get some Epsom salt ASAP anyway, just in case, so I have it handy. I've never had to deal with any kind of medical problems with Bettas before, so I don't really have anything to help them medically. But since I have four now and will probably have more, I should have some rings for medical care and such. I'd like to keep everyone happy and healthy as possible.

Alright, I'll stop feeding the freeze dried bloodworms. I had a feeling they may have been part of the problem. I imagine they haven't done anything to Ben since he's so much bigger than the girls and he only eats one. How exctly do the frozen ones work, though? Or is there anything else I can give them as treats that is safer for them. I'd still like to keep them on a slightly varied diet, at least. Ben even eats some of the Cories' food, so I know he gets good variety.

She didn't look bloated to me, either. I didn't see any bumps on her belly, though its been hard to tell with the way she's been holding her body to keep herself steady. But unless its very subtle, I don't think she was bloated.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top