one for the books

[cnbufford]

A week ago I brought home 2 baby bettas and a 2.5 gallon betta bow tank that comes with a divider. Let me warn you that the divider does not fit like a glove, so if your bettas are small enough they'll become acquinted at one time or another. Trying to prevent their meeting again, I customised the divider to fit the tank as closely as possible with electrical tape. This solution held up for about a week and I walked in on the result: my larger baby betta had practically devoured the smaller baby betta. I found the the attacked betta hiding (quite intelligently) against the divider which matched his coloring perfectly. I'm glad I was able to save him in time; this tiny fish's perseverance has been pretty cool to watch. The 2 are now living in completely separate aquariums. Miraculously the attacked fish is swimming around, eating and appears to be on the road to recovery. This episode in my first attempt of raising baby bettas has inspired their names. The smaller baby betta that was attacked is now David, based on the biblical David that outwitted and defeated Goliath the giant and the perp is called Ares for his act of war. I'm just relieved and happy they're both still here. Word to the wise: secure your dividers if you use them.

[registereduser]

This is interesting! They say most babies sold are female but you may have a male in Aries. The smaller one could be male or female.

I plan on making a "baby sorority" and putting in several babies at once. I hope they don't attack like yours did.

Are they really tiny?

[cnbufford]

David is at least 4-5 weeks and Ares is between 6-8 weeks. I think they are both males. A friend suggested perhaps the males have a way of smelling the another male because these two had no way of seeing each other through the divider that was sealed (or so I thought pretty tightly). It was like he fought his way through the divider. After my experience, I wouldn't even put babies together again, at least until I knew their genders for sure.