The Sketchy Ethics Of Betta Sorority Tanks

[SennaTea]

First and foremost I want to say that this thread is not intended to throw shade at anyone who may own a Betta sorority tank, this is merely to get people's opinion on this topic and to share insight. If this thread gets heated I will be deleting it. This is my opinion.

We all know that fish are used to living in close-knit communities. Considering that most types of fish have an increased chance of survival when living in groups, it is no surprise, either. Nevertheless, it is not an easy thing to replicate when it comes to an aquarium environment. There are several complications that you encounter from the start if you were to attempt a betta sorority in addition to the ethical issues. Typically, you do not have to be an expert to take care of Betta fish. However, when you force them into an environment together and they start forming sororities, things become a little different. I do not believe you should ever attempt a Betta sorority if you are a beginner, period, you may endanger the existence of the fish even more so if you are not prepared for what may happen. I can not stress it enough if you do you must have a holistic understanding of Betta sororities and how they work before even thinking of setting one up and even then, the risk involved could prove to be to much, and even then I personally do not recommend it.

Why am I so set in this belief? Well there are fish horror stories and there are fish massacres, it is quite dramatic to suggest it would be world ending because I myself have had two Betta fish that randomly get along so I stuck them in a tank but if you are going for anything above two you are really pushing it. In the start, I just wasn't comfortable with the subject because I was ignorant to how it might play out, but now after really digging deep and looking closer I still am not convinced this is a good healthy thing for your animal. Some would argue that it is all situational but I am not just talking about the physical dangers, but the mental ones. Betta fish get incredibly uncomfortable and skittish around other Bettas, that is a fact, and imagine how the Betta who is at the bottom of the pecking order feels. Yes that may be an emotional argument, and I have seen some work arounds and arguments around the internet like "I have thick foliage and cover in my tank, so the Bettas can hide and rest after battles!" and while that is all fine and dandy I can't help but feel like it really rides the line on endangerment. Betta fish do not crave contact with other Betta fish, even while breeding Bettas are known for taring one another apart, and even when given the benefit of the doubt and lets say they won't do it in your tank, the added stress is just not worth it. There are much better options that are easier and more ethical like any actual schooling fish.

What do you guys think?

Edited December 11, 2022 by SennaTea

[TheSwissAquarist]

Any pics of the bettas? When you first mentioned bettas, I was thinking B. Splendens, not B. Sorority!

[SennaTea]

@TheSwissAquarist
I myself do not own a Betta sorority, nor would I.
I do no longer have the two Bettas I was housing together either, that was years ago. The ethics of this kind of tank just has always pulled me in for some reason.

[BeeD]

Well... I try not to get into a r/aquariums style debate outside of r/aquariums, but based on everything I've seen, a 2 betta sorority is more likely to fight to the death than a 30 betta sorority. Whether or not its "ethical" probably does depend on the person doing it. If someone is prepared to end the sorority by separating the females into their own tanks before damage is done, okay. I'm not going to tell that fish store in Illinois with hundreds of female bettas in a 300g that they don't know what they're doing. By all accounts that tank has been peaceful for years. 

 

[DaniV]

On 12/11/2022 at 9:30 AM, SennaTea said:

I do not believe you should ever attempt a Betta sorority if you are a beginner, period, you may endanger the existence of the fish even more so if you are not prepared for what may happen. I can not stress it enough if you do you must have a holistic understanding of Betta sororities and how they work before even thinking of setting one up and even then, the risk involved could prove to be to much, and even then I personally do not recommend it.

100% agree.  I'm new to the hobby and I'm still debating on whether I want a Betta or a Gourami for my centerpiece fish.  I am in no way capable of handling a Betta sorority when I haven't even learned how to handle a single fish (that and I don't have the tanks to do it if I wanted to, lol).  If someone does have years of experience with the fish and can handle the load no problem, I say god speed!

[PineSong]

I think if there was a moratorium on people advocating for betta sororities unless they'd successfully managed one for 12+ months, we'd hear much less about them. 

I tried one @20 years ago when I first heard they were possible. Lots of plants, lots of hides, and 5 young females. I was uncomfortable with the high-alerts and skirmishes I saw; before anyone actually got a bite taken out of them, I divided them back up and rehomed the 2 I did not have room for. 

Sure, 5 is a far cry from 30 or 300 fish. Maybe with a larger tank and more fish it would have had a different outcome. Maybe if I'd shut my eyes for a week they'd have worked out their pecking order and moved ahead smoothly. But it wasn't for me.

I have a low tolerance for watching fish harass each other--I keep tanks to feel appreciation and peace, not adrenalin.

That said, it seems there are many other "maybe safe, maybe not" fish combos that we fishkeepers routinely try and we have to trust ourselves to identify unacceptable aggression and relocate one fish or the other in situations where they aren't working out on a case by case basis. So in that way betta sororities are perhaps like lots of community or multispecies tanks.  

 

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 12/11/2022 at 2:11 PM, PineSong said:

seems there are many other "maybe safe, maybe not" fish combos that we fishkeepers routinely try

Exactly this. You could say the same about pit bulls, which were originally bred to do, exactly what the name suggests- fight in pits. They were bred to be human friendly but not dog friendly. However, often depending on the dog, how they were raised and their personality they get along with other dogs or even another pit bull just fine. But a good dog owner, knowing this history should always proceed with caution. 

I see lots of fish keepers trying this or that with fish even among the same type (CPD males will fight to the death), several types of cichlids and etc. I think the answer is always always "it depends". 

Bettas even with other fish can be iffy. I just removed 2 Guppies from my Mum's tank because we suspect (never witnessed but they were fine before) that the Betta Mum took on was attacking them. But I have another Betta who does just fine with MY Guppies- and is totally chill. 

I had experience in a rescue situation where there were almost 100 baby hamsters- dwarf Russians. Hamsters are typically NOT hamster friendly. Sadly even when they were very small we ran into massacres that were pretty horrific. I ended up with 2 of them- they were brothers, Sasquatch and Chupacabra- they lived their lives out in the same cage, would get grumpy with each other (often just squinted eyes and a vocalized "MEH!" and that was it). Should it have worked? No absolutely not - but it did. Didn't stop me from picking them up and kissing their little faces either. (never got bit and I got the same "MEH!")

I think someone who is attempting an iffy combo (even putting Betta in a community tank is in this category) has to be VERY aware of the consequences and have a back up plan. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[Rita]

On 12/11/2022 at 2:26 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I think someone who is attempting an iffy combo (even putting Betta in a community tank is in this category) has to be VERY aware of the consequences and have a back up plan. 

So my two cents: I agree that betta sororities in general are a bad idea... people may claim to have back up plans but splitting up 30 bettas seems like a tall order to even the most prepared aquarist. I also agree completely that even a community tank with a betta is risky... but I feel like an acceptable back up plan is more practical in that scenario. I have 7 tanks and 6 bettas, and in my community tanks I've had to shuffle fish around to try and achieve harmony. For a friendly betta my favorite community combo are one betta with corydoras, shrimp and snails. I recently impulse bought a cute little female crown tail betta that I'm going to attempt to put in my tetra community tank after I rehab her in a quarantine tank first... BUT I also have an extra 5 gallon just sitting around so if that doesn't work out at least I have a back up plan.

[mynameisnobody]

Maybe it’s me, but I don’t see a reason for these sororities. Why not pick a fish that enjoys being amongst its own? Seems like a giant waste of time. Not judging anyone that has one, just my opinion. 

[SennaTea]

@MynameisnobodyFactual

[Biotope Biologist]

I have setup a bunch of betta sororities but I don’t believe I ever actually suggested them to others. Same with stores who have had them in the past. I worked at a pet store chain in college. You know the ones that put all bettas in cups and call that fine. 
 

Well turns out betta turnover is far slower than they tell you. I always heard “bettas turn over in a week its fine.” Try closer to a month. 2-3 months for the females. So I started taking as many bettas out of cups as I could. We condensed the gold fish wall and made room. So since this topic is female sorority specific I’ll stay on topic.

I would put 15-30 females into a tank with hides and plants. The real reason for this is that female bettas in the wild are skittish and really don’t like to be seen. They are far more healthy if they can get away from the chaos for a bit. This sorority needed to be watched for the first few hours. So my coworkers and I would take shifts. Any female who presented as a bully ie flaring, tail nips, locking lips. Would be separated. We found that older females just couldn’t hang with the younger ones without being bullies. We still sold them separately. There were a few breeders and hydroponics people who came in and bought a handful of females at a time.
 

Fish have big personalities. Even the schooling fish. Every so often a Jeffrey Dahmer fish appears and is just a menace. Bettas and gouramis in general have complex social lives that need to be accounted for. Tanks are not like the wild where if there is a dispute the defeated fish can retreat a mile away. So I am not saying don’t attempt it or it’s morally reprehensible. But just do your research and try to provide a good home for your fish friends. All of them.

[OnlyGenusCaps]

Betta species are aggressive fish.  I think people have a more realistic view of cichlids and their level of aggression than they do with bettas.  Maybe it is because bettas are mostly aggressive with conspecifics?  Maybe it is because they can work in planted tanks?  I don't know.  But people should probably better understand they are an aggressive species.  That doesn't mean they can't be housed together if you learn about the species and its needs, as @Biotope Biologist mentioned.  If people took the same stance with cichlids as with bettas, there wouldn't be many (or any?) cichlids in the hobby.  Certainly mbuna would be far less popular.  Just as it seems to me a novice mistake to toss two mbuna in a 20 gallon tank together, I think doing as little homework on any fish, including bettas, indicates a novice level of understanding of this hobby.  That's okay.  We were all there.  But, aquarists who stick around tend to learn quickly to really try to understand their captives' needs and that there are few absolutes. 

[RachelElizabeth]

I would never attempt a betta sorority personally. I am way too afraid of things going sour when I'm not around and coming home to dead or severely mauled fish. 

That being said, I do have a single female betta in a 75 gallon community tank with other peaceful fish species, and she is THRIVING. 😀 I added her to the community as a baby, so I'm not sure if that makes a difference on how well they get along.

[BeeD]

I guess I just don't frequently hear about people even attempting sororities, and whenever I do hear about it the person was successful but wouldn't recommend it to beginners. I don't think it's common, and the people who do it usually seem to be able to stabilize things. I know every store and every Youtuber has their take on it, but until someone wants to do a long term study on fish keepers I'm not interested in hearing any given person's ethical decree over another's. 

And I'm not really sure how people are gauging fish happiness. The last sorority I've seen in person lived in a breeder's tank for years, started with dozens and they still weren't fighting even as they reached old age and death. No one seemed to want these particular female bettas, so he just kept them. They just drifted around hunting for baby snails all day. The only other fish in there were a fat bunch of cories. Is that happy? How many times have you heard "oh I didn't know it would get big enough to eat all my danios", or "oh I didn't know they ate shrimp"? Is that happy? Why are people more appalled by one type of death than another? Would you rather get beaten up by an angry rando at a bar or swallowed whole by a massive catfish? 

Just sayin'... 

[Biotope Biologist]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:01 AM, BrettD said:

I'm not interested in hearing any given person's ethical decree over another's. 

And I'm not really sure how people are gauging fish happiness.

Animal ethics is so sticky. That’s probably why us scientists avoid it entirely. 
 

I loathe monster fishkeepers. Shoving 10 5’ fish into a glass box with no decor not even substrate because their bioload is so intense it’s just not feasible to clean up after them is not my idea of ‘happiness.’ But who knows those tiger cats might be happy as a clam being able to just veg out and be hand fed all day. I steer clear of leveraging my morals over someone else’s because I just truly don’t know and will never know how an animal feels.
 

Best I can do is try.

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 12/16/2022 at 1:46 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

steer clear of leveraging my morals over someone else’s because I just truly don’t know and will never know how an animal feels.

^^^^This!!!  Very well said!

There is a huge debate in snake keeping about enclosure size and environmental richness. 

On one side are the folks who feel keeping a snake in a small drawer tub is appropriate because snakes spend most of their lives curled up and hiding in the wild, and say they feel more secure in small spaces (here I am generalizing as there are snakes with differing natural histories).

On the other side are the folks who claim that snakes are only happy in the largest possible enclosures because they have the entire world to explore when they are wild, and the ability to explore a complex environment is what makes them happy.

Both sides are rationalizing their arguments for what they themselves want, and trying to determine what makes a species that is very unlike ourselves "happy".  As a fellow biologist, I realize how unlike our own the preferences of other species can be.  Even species we think we know well. 

I therefore applaud anyone who is trying in earnest to care for their captives, and only feel I can truly rebuke those who display maliciousness, purposeful disregard, or contempt for the creatures in their care. 

[tolstoy21]

I have no rigid opinion on this topic, but my feeling is that keeping a larger number of 'same species' fish in a space that isn't how they would naturally co-mingle does reduce or alleviates aggression amongst fish that would otherwise want to establish and defend a territory (sometimes to the death) because there is no possibility of establishing that territory. 

Do the fish enjoy this arrangement? Dunno, they can't really answer that other than to perhaps exhibit stress. I personally wouldn't keep fish in this type of setup except in a grow-out tank, or a holding tank that is not meant to be a fish's lifelong home. But this is just me and my personal opinion.

If someone else sets this kind of environment up, I won't judge. If someone else has done it and has had healthy, long-lived fish that have coexisted peacefully despite the fact that this isn't how we would find them in nature, all the power to them.

A lot of what we do in this hobby isn't how a fish would exist in nature. Some of this is good, like no predators and a consistent, easy food supply! Some of this is bad, but usually the bad stems from either neglect or lack of experience.  Either way, responsible pet owners should just look to exhibit some common sense and take whatever actions are needed to alleviate a bad environment they might have created for their pets, be it re-homing them, getting more tanks or dividers, etc.