60gallon tank

Hi

I have had a 60gallon tank running for around a week now, and added fish around 3 days ago. i now have 12 neons, 2 swordtail and 2 female betta and 1 male red betta. I know its only been 3 days, but there has not been any aggresion at all, there is some flaring but nothing else. The female have stress lines, but they are fading all the time.

Thanks

haha....you posted :D

Yeh three days is early days. In the early stages of trying a set-up like this all may seem fine and peaceful. This is due to no individual fish having established its territory. Its a similar thing when setting up an all female tank.

The problems may arise over the next few weeks and could materialise itself in a number of ways. So, the possible problems i can foresee are -
The large shoal of Neons may find the male bettas fins to much of a temptation.
Only having 2 female bettas, may or may not cause an issue between them. Females are notorious for squabbling amongst themselves and we have found that keeping a minimum of 5/6 relieves the pressure on any one individual who may be getting bullied.
The male betta, once established, will defend its territory vigorously. He may or may not seek out the 2 females, which will either result in the females becoming stressed or the females attacking the male.
Females can be every bit as aggressive as males, and people have had males beaten up by the female in the spawning tank, even leading to the death of the male afterwards.

It is likely, although not definate, that the 2 females and 1 male will be at a heightened level of stress, which can lead to infection due to lowering the immune sytems of the stressed fish.

Should a problem occur, its likely to happen very fast. The fins of either the male or the females can be destroyed within minutes. Once this happens, the damaged fish will be an open target for every fish in the tank and will have to be removed to a safe haven to be treated.

Whilst i have heard of people that have kept similar set-ups, they are few and far between, and normally result in having to move or rehome certain fish.

My opinion on keeping a male with female bettas is that it shouldn't be done, unless it was in a huge pond or tank in excess of 500gallons. The risks from my perspective are just far too big to take, hence my avatar :D

nb. I know these types of threads can cause inflamatory replies, so i would ask any posters to remain calm and relaxed :D :D

I have always kept male and females together and had no problems yet, been keeping them for 3 years.

You still need to remain vigilant though :shock: It can be a bit of a lottery where compatibility is concerned. We've had males that would seek and destroy Oto's! and you know how fast oto's are.