Hi all, new (ish) betta owner here! Apologies in advance for the long post, but I'm looking for some advice. I've owned bettas in the past, always single males in smaller tanks, so I'm a bit out of my depth here.
A buddy of mine bought a 27 gallon tank and set it up with some live plants, 4 small plecos, about 6 tetras, 6 guppy-type fish ( I honestly dont remember what kind), and a sorority of 6 female bettas. However, shortly after getting that all established, one of her cats figured out how to open the tank lid, and would not leave the poor fish alone, so she gave me the set up.
I've had them for a week now, and they've been doing fabulously. No issues, they seem pretty happy, and my dogs very much enjoy watching them. But, when I got up this morning before work and started my daily routine of feeding all the critters, I went to feed the fish and, SOMEHOW, I now have 7 bettas in that tank.
Let me be clear. I'm no expert on bettas by any means, but I can typically look at one and tell you if its a male or female based on appearance. All 6 of the OG bettas appear female, and are all roughly the same size, with the smallest of the bunch being a red one. The apparent newest addition is significantly smaller than my little red lady. I work at a vet clinic, with a few doctors who frequently work with more exotic animals. I told them all about this when I got into work today, and everyone is stumped as to how a young betta appears to have randomly spawned in the middle of my established tank. I figured maybe if I posted here I could hopefully find some answers, as I was unable to find any reason for this occurrence anywhere else online 😅 all 7 of the bettas seem to be healthy, and no one is picking on the new baby betta thus far. So if anyone has any ideas as to how this happened (or really any advice on managing betta sororities in general as I'm fairly clueless) I'm all ears! Thanks in advance everyone. Pic of the randomly-spawned baby betta included, along with an (admittedly bad) pic of baby next to Lil Red, to show the size difference. Thinking I might call the newest one Anomaly, but not set on the name yet 🤣🤣🤣
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1oba46i
Posted by TheCritterQueenVT
3 Comments
You need to separate them or buy a bigger tank. Betta sorority need 40-60 gallons in my experience and you should have an odd number of bettas too. So the tank is too small and over stocked. Now for the baby he was probably hiding for the past month or two and your friend just didn’t watch the tank, males can have short fins, I hope you know that.
Maybe came in as a very tiny baby with a plant?
Omg so cute