Blue Gill Group - Sorority and Community PIC HEAVY

[Super Fish]

Well, it all started with one female betta. She caught my eye at the store and I HAD to have her... it all went downhill from there. Now I have five female bettas, all of them are (mostly) blue. There has been surprisingly little fighting; just flairing and a bit of chasing.

The tank is a 20 gallon planted community tank.

Stock list:
5 bettas
8 glowlight tetras
3 amano shrimp (they're big, so aren't likely to be eaten!)
3 skunk cories
3 otos
2 guppies
and a golden bristlenose pleco.

The alpha female - she was the first female and is by far the largest.


Next in Command - she is missing part of her tail fins from battling with the alpha but has fallen in line and is now settled in nicely.


Number 3 - Red and blue female who is surprisingly less agressive then number 2, despite being larger.


Number 4 - She is a pretty relaxed fish and quickly back away from the others.


Last but not least - The smallest of the bunch, this girl quickly get out of everybody's way!


And a few group shots:







Names are still needed for these ladies, so if you have any ideas please share!

[ChelseaK]

Congrats on the new tank!

A few suggestions, be careful of those guppies. Are they both male? In which case they might kill each other if the bettas don't kill them first. Male guppies can be aggressive towards each other when there are no females around to spread the aggression. Also, sometime bettas are threatened by the flashiness of the guppies tails.
Next, your tank sounds just a little crowded, especially with the a pleco. Just watch that the ammonia doesn't spike and make frequent water changes to compensate for the extra waste being produced.

I love your setup! Is that black sand? It looks gorgeous!

[Super Fish]

Hi and thanks for your response.

The tank has been established for a quite a while and is well cycled - the bettas are the only new thing. I will be looking out for mini-cycles though, as the females have increased the bio-load. Water changes are done twice weekly and at the very least, once a week. It is a pretty croweded, busy tank so I make sure that the water quality remains perfect through frequent testing. I also have two filters because over filteration is a beautiful thing. :)

As for the guppies - they've been together for about six months and are both male. Originally there were five of them... the guppy stock at my LFS isn't great so the others have all passed. Once they're gone, they won't be replaced. Male guppies are often kept together without issue, in my experience. The females don't even look at the guppies but I will keep an eye on them just in case.

And yes, that is black sand. I love the look of it and I'm glad you do too.

[masshiimarro]

welcome to the forum! sounds like you know what your doing ^^
congrats on your sorority, great that its worked out! i like how you have a color scheme for them :D

[ChelseaK]

Yep sounds like you have it all under control! I've tried using sand but I couldn't get it to look how I wanted. What brand of sand are you using?

[Super Fish]

Thanks guys - I've only had the tank running since december so I am still kind of a newbie. I do tons of research and planning though so - knock on wood - there have been no tank disasters yet.

Unfortunately, I am not sure what the brand the sand is. I bought the tank used and the sand came with it.

[ChelseaK]

Dangit... I bought a cheap bag of regular play sand, which from my research is fine, but it was just such a hassle to get it clean enough and then I didn't even like how it looked and it just covered everything during water changes and when the filter was running. I would go with the crayola colored sand but it's super expensive, but maybe I'll have to suck it up. Haha

[Super Fish]

I am quite sure they got the sand from Big Al's as they lived like two blocks from the store. I am not sure if you have Big Al's in the US though? (I'm in Canada). Next time I'm there I will have a look around and see if I can find it.

[ChelseaK]

Nope, but I hear great things about this Big Al's place :p Makes me wish I lived there. Yeah if you could totally check the brand that would be awesome! :)

[doggyhog]

Beautiful tank!!!

Do you think you could get a few close up shots of the first and second fish? They look like plakat males to me. The way they are flaring in the group shots looks very suspicious to me. They could just be very large and aggressive females, but I can't tell from the pics..