Starting a sorority tank

[fishish]

I have a couple of pairs coming from someone. I think she's sending them immediately so they may arrive tomorrow, Yikes! lol I have one vacant spot for a male in a cycled divided tank and am possibly going to have to quickly grab a small tank from kmart to house the other or something? Is that safe? I have a bottle of seachem staility and had NO problem whatsoever using that to set up my first tank so I think its safe to do?

For the girls, I have an empty 2ft tank that I was intending to turn into a sorority tank. However its uncycled. Empty with fine gravel on the bottom atm. I have four java fern and an anubia that can go in there but they're REALLY small atm. Is that going to be safe? What I'm thinking is that I've read girls will chase, nip etc initially then establish a pecking order. However I'm thinking if thers only two this pecking order may not be possible?? What could I do? I could grab a couple (or more) girlies from LFS as they're cheap. Just for the purpose of maintaing some peace in the tank.

Also I'm thinking the girls are going to need some really good hiding spots so perhaps I should be stealing the java moss off my VT boy (poor guy lol) and putting it in there till I can afford more? Or is it not essential that they can hide, can they hold out a week or so?

Comments/opinions/other ideas?

Thanks :)

[Neffy]

itll all boil down to the personality of the fish, my females are agressive so i need a large number (about 8-10) to evenly distribute bullying even with a pecking order my girls always flare and chase each other, fins always have nips but they dont bully each other to death. Ive had girls that will always attack smaller bettas and nothing but seperating will work.

I think you will need more plants you might find one of the girls will bully the other if theres not many spots to hide so watch them, then just divide the tank and keep one on each side if it doesnt work out. or they could get on great. its hard to tell. The LFS girls could help and they would cycle the tank while u wait but without much plant cover could be pointless. A week is plenty of time for one to shred the others fins.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Neffy

[Sarah]

Usually it is best to get at least 4 females for the pecking order, but like what Neffy stated, it depends on the personalities of the females. I once had a pair of LFS females that were just inseparable. They would both sook so badly if one were away (pain when trying to spawn, neither did).

[delyall]

You could do some shuffling.. but best to keep all separated.

The 2ft is your spawning tank youve been talking about recently? Perhaps you can divide it in 2 and put the male you want to spawn in one end and the female in the other.. then youll have the divided tank for either the male or female (probably best to put the male there) and get a temporary 10l for the 'extra' fish.

Then you can get to spawning the pair quicker Though still not until you have some more plants and such..

Im hoping that made sense..

But if your set on the sorority, personality is really the biggest thing.. I have 2 girls and a boy in a 2ft, and theyre fine, but only because theyre all really mild-mannered bettas aka. pansies Heaps of hiding spots is really important, but be ready to separate if things go bad :)

Edited November 15, 2010 by delyall

[zhong89]

wow... I didn't even think of these when I setup the tank. I had three girls when I setup the tank and one of them turned out to be a male (he's still in there and not really aggressive at all to the girls). I just put them all together and I had ALOT of plants java ferns, java moss and some water sprite, there was some light nibbling but nothing a little an IAL won't fix in no time. The way I see it is observe them when you put them together, if it gets bad just take one out.

Good luck!

[fishish]

Thanks guys!

delyall I don't fully understand your idea If I divided the spawn tank in two, how would it make spawning faster? Plus I would have the issue of where to put the male and female once they've spawned. Am keen to not be moving fish around TOO much if can be avoided as seems to stress them out.

Neffy I like the idea of dividing the sorority tank in two temporarily IF the girls don't get on. However how could I do that? Because the only way I know how to divide is using silicon which would take about a week as it has to dry yada yada so doesn't really solve anything. Unless I put the girls in empty juice bottles for this time but I'm thinking that may not be a good idea? My boys did a 3 day stint in juice bottles a while ago and were not at all happy about it.

Think I'll explain what I've got tank wise. Bear with me!

So I have my first tank which is a 90 litre divided in three that housed my three LFS boys. It is cycled. There are plently of plants in there including a big junk of java moss in VT boys section (this is the java moss I thought I could 'borrow' ). PK be has been re-located so there is currently a vacant spot in there. As its a display tank I was planning on putting one of the new handsome lads in there and getting a small 10L for PK boy perhaps (I'm so mean to him, he's just a poor wee working class betta ). In the vacant section there is currently 4 small java fern and a small anubia just floating at the surface. I put them in there as storage until the sorority is ready to go.

I also have a 2.5ft that I was planning to use as a spawning tank. I have discovered its mirrored and have not yet dealt with this. PK boy is in there. It has in it and IAL, medium junk of java moss, two small anubias attached to driftwood, three small Java fern attached to a rock and a terrecota hiding pot.

I also have a 2ft on a stand that I was planning to use as a sorority tank. That is the one that is empty aside from dry gravel.

AND... I also have a small Jebo tank (built in light and filter do not work ) that has 16 golden barbs in it and a fake wood tunnel thing. Tunnel thing is fairly big but a few slightly jagged edges so I figured not betta friendly. The barbs love it.

I also still have my 195 litre tank that is empty and on auction. Due to sell (hopefully!) in about 5 days.

and thats it! Thank goodness for that lol

What I thought to do is: Maybe pink carnation boy into the vacant spot in the display tank. Get a small 10L tank for PK boy and pop guns n roses lad in spawn tank instead (or other way round for carnation/guns n roses depending on what I want to spawn first). Girls go into sorority and if they fight....