# Overly Agressive Female Strikes Again!



## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

If you have been following my posts you'll remember that just before Christmas my Female Shayan (mother of my 2 current spawns) got over the split and mauled my DR CT male Kayto. Well she's done it again, but this time it's another female (Lexa) she has been sharing a tank with. I just went to feed them and could only see Shayan - there is black gravel in the tank and they are both dark colours- because she was at the top of the tank eating, so I grabbed a tourch and looked for Lexa, only to find her cowarded in a corner with all her beautiful fins gone, alot of scales missing in a patch on one side and showing her stress bars. I immediatly grabbed my net and put Shayan into my community tank (she's lived in ther before with no problems) and added some sea salt to the tank with Lexa to try and help her heal. I've heard of females being pushy but this seems a little extreme! She's mauled a male, which are supposed to be more agressive, and come out of it without a scratch and now a fellow female.

Should I just right her off as an agressor and retier her from spawning? She ate 90% of the eggs her first spawn and I'm pretty sure the only reason she didn't do it again the second time was because I caught them within an hour of them spawning (checked then nest as I was leaving and there was nothing , went out for an hour, came home and there were eggs) so she didn't get a chance to sneak up and eat any with the male furiously trying to get them all into the nest. I wasn't planning on using her to spawn again any time soon, but might do again one day, she had a beautiful green/blue.yellow iridescant glow to her when under light which she has passed onto my most recent spawn.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Its normal betta behavior. Its never a good idea to put 2 female bettas together. If you are going to keep them together you need at least 3-4 to even out the aggression. Otherwise the dominant continually picks on the same one. I prefer 4+ as I did have once instance where the 2nd betta just followed the first around helping her pick on the 3rd lol. The 2nd girl was just evil always waiting til no one was looking to attack..sneaking up behind and such. Then looking like who me? Not me! They will establish a pecking order... and there will be some aggression seen during that time most likely.

Also, if you left for the store and there was nothing in the nest... and you came back in an hour and removed her, you probably interrupted them. None of my spawns have been that fast. Sometimes the girl will run off & then return. I had one spawn where the girl ran off after every single wrap. It was stupid crazy LOL. Im surprised the male put up with it.

I would say shes a normal spunky betta that just happens to be a bit high maintenance, requiring a bit more caution than the others do.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Oh yea, I should add - give her separate digs if you are worried about her. Alot of breeders keep their females separated (its just easier & safer). My adult females all have their own containers. I don't have to worry about fights or disease spread.


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Yeah well she's in the community tank at the moment, which she doesn't like coz she's not the boss in there, the black serpaes are, so she's showing stress bars! But I've decided to go for a drive today and buy some more of those betta hex things for my females and also for my fry. They hold more water than the cups they are currently in and they stack etc. I spoke to the deli manager at my local Coles and he said no to selling me some deli-cups and I couldn't get the ones I wanted at my local discount store. I've asked to open an account with a comapany that imports the hex's (they call them Betta Mono's) here in Australia and will be looking at buying a lot of them in the near future.


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