Betta Fish: My best (but meanest) Girls

I adore this fish. She is the prettiest betta I’ve ever owned, the most interactive and curious too. But man…. She’s a rattle snake to any other lace makes I put in with her- I had my first fatality over the weekend, which is a heart breaker because the girl she killed had a PERFECT temperament for the 125 community tank I am getting ready to start. Now I am at a crossroads. She’s in my office community, I’ve had her about a month. When I bought her, I had a healthy colony of Blue Velvet neocardinia. I had hoped (and I know it was a gamble) that she wouldn’t eat too many, maybe just the smallest. Nope. Now I have 2 wild type neos. The rest were an expensive dinner.

Long story short, I don’t know that she’ll work long-term for my plans for my aquariums. I had intended to use the office tank as a sort of temperament testing zone for new Bettas (I would like a small sorority in the 125g, as well as a couple schooling fish and a large(ish) neocardinia colony.

I just don’t have the heart to take her back to the LFS for fear she’d end up in a bowl, nor do I have a safe space at home for her because my daughter with Autism is OBSESSED with pouring things into water (the 125g has a canopy that I am attaching to the base quite rigidly and I’ve added a combination lock to the opening, not that it has water or livestock yet, all in addition to being in my home office, which is locked while I’m at work), so I am afraid of having a small 5-10g aquarium on my desk at home because my daughter would want to play with the water and certainly kill the inhabitants.

All of that leads me to why I’m posting- is there anyone in the SoVa/Triangle/Gboro area that would be interested in adopting her? Or possibly trading her for another female Betta that has a known-good temperament towards other females and shrimp? She is EXTREMELY healthy, quite large, and my aquarium water parameters are always perfect… sort of. All the algae on the rocks is from a Nitrate and Phosphate crash I’ve had this week due to several new plants soaking up all the ferts I’ve continued to dose at my normal “2 pumps per week” rate. Turns out Water Wisteria is a nitrate sponge…. Who could have seen that coming (everyone but me).