Wild Bettas?

[Johnificent]

Does anyone on this forum own wild type bettas? O_O if you do, do they act any different from betta splendens? :) i'd like to know XD pictures would be awesome.

[LittleBettaFish]

I have a few wild bettas, and find them to be much more fun to watch than my Betta splendens. I have a group of four male Betta coccinas (I thought I'd chosen three females and a male) currently living somewhat peacefully in a 7 gallon tank, and a pair of Betta rutilans living in a 10 gallon tank. I am also hopefully purchasing a group of Betta Uberis and a trio of Betta unimaculatas to go in a divided 50 gallon tank sometimes next week.

There is the occasional torn fin or tail, but having just pulled apart two of my splenden males that were essentially fighting to the death, (one of them slid sideways under the divider after my water change disturbed the gravel), they are nowhere near as aggressive.

All of my wilds hand-feed from tweezers and like 'helping' me do water changes. One of my coccinas even took a recent,.unplanned trip on the siphon express. They were super shy to begin with, I didn't see my rutilans for a couple of weeks after I got them, but I persisted and now they love nibbling on my fingers when I stick them in.

I have no photos, but will try and upload some later

[copperarabian]

The fish dude at the Petco I go to has a absolutely huge River Betta in a 300 gallon aquarium. They are very expensive though.

[1fish2fish]

Wild bettas act very differently from domesticated bettas and even furthermore each species acts different from one another and still then you have individuals who act differently from members of their group. Wilds are amazing to watch but they tend to have many more upkeep need than your regular domesticated betta.

[Astro277]

I have Betta Unimaculatas and they act a lot differnt then the showy pet betta's.

I actully have 3 for sale right now. If anyone is interested let me know. They will be $35.00 plus shipping for all three.

[LittleBettaFish]

Here's some photos I took of my Betta coccina tank. It has a huge semi-decomposing leaf litter of Oak, Alder and Ketapang leaves, and there is a layer of peat mulm and chopped up Ketapang leaves over ADA Sarawak sand for the substrate. Since they inhabit very acidic water (from pH 4.0-6.0) I leave the leaf litter in and just top it up with newer stuff from time to time.

It's a great tank for upkeep. Whatever algae grows looks natural, and when the light is on, the tannin stained water looks amazing. My fish all seem content even if it is smaller than what I originally planned. Having the leaf litter made a massive difference to aggression levels as opposed to just plants. The temperature is also lower than in my Betta splenden tanks, sitting around 23-24 degrees celcius.







The little fish at the very front of the shot is my runt. I can't tell if it's male or female, but it doesn't seem to have grown much since I got it.


They've only striped/clamped up in the photos because they hate when I turn on the overhead light.

Personally I love the coccina complex, and am only sad a soon to be passed law will essentially ban further importation of them (along with domesticated splendens) to Australia

[YoshesMom]

I think I have a wild type male but Im not sure I bought him as a female but he isnt

[Astro277]

Where did you buy him from? Do you have any pics?