Female (Betta) Dorm

[AmberD]

I have a zillion pictures, but I'm going to try to keep it limited. Try

I originally had two females, Sita and Sati. I bought two more from Wal*Mart, but (unrelated to the new girls) Sati passed away a couple days later. So I had three: Sita, Sprite, and Spirit. All in separate containers. So I set up my ten gallon and nervously added the three girls. No fighting whatsoever! Wow The next day, they were still peaceful, so I thought... "Let's get 1, maybe 2, more." So I went to Wal*Mart.

I came home with 3: Storm, SunniD, and Cecilia (after the Simon and Garfunkel song). Added them, and still no problem. 72 hours after the first set, and 48 hours after the second set, all was still well in my tank. But... For the first 2 days, Sprite was the alpha female, even though Sita, my huge blue girl, is twice her size. I totally expected Sita to dominate, and we were all suprised when Sprite seemed to take over. This morning at breakfast time, though, there was a bit of a tiff, and Sita took over as alpha female.

This is my tank (all 6 are visible if you know what you're looking for):

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/girldorm.jpg [/img]

One of my favorite pictures ever, this is Sprite, the then-alpha female, with SunniD. Sunni is one of the new ones, but it didn't take her long to join the pack!

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/sisterhood.jpg [/img]

Four (from top: Sita, Storm, Cecilia, and Sunni) by their pet turtle :

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/girlsnturtle.jpg [/img]

Storm (top) and Cecilia kind of hang back from the pack a little bit, though Cecilia gets up and about a lot more than Storm, who's still pretty shy. Storm is my baby

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/stormncecilia.jpg [/img]

Kind of blurry picture of SunniD. She's an amazingly clean orange. Shocking find at Wal*Mart, I think:

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/sunni.jpg [/img]

Sita, the biggest, and certainly the one I expected to be the alpha (and now is):

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/sitashine.jpg [/img]

Spirit and Cecilia (and their reflections):



Last one (for now anyway ) - Sunni and Storm. I'm having the worst time trying to capture what both Storm and Spirit (miss stripe) look like in person, because the flash makes them look different than how they look in the tank.

www.msu.edu/~doughe29/sunninstorm.jpg [/img]

Sorry for all the pictures! I'm just excited

Amber

P.S. I have plans to relocate one of the girls to a desk-top aquarium once I get my desk cleaned off. If Sita is a violent alpha, it will be her, although I'd rather not, since I love the splash of dark blue she brings to the tank of mostly pale fish). If she's a peaceful leader, I will put Storm on my desk, she's such a sweet, shy girl

[Brandi]

hehe, that first picture there is like a puzzle. I've found four and will have to keep looking for the rest.

What beauties they all are!!

[Rachel - old]

They are all amazing and the pictures look really good! I agree with Brandi that the 1st picture is somewhat of a puzzle! He, hee. I've only found 5 so far.

[AmberD]

*laughs* At first, I only found 4, myself. There are four very obvious ones (3 up top, one in the middle). My mom had to point out #5 to me (Spirit is behind Sita up top, making it 4 at the top, not 3)... And I finally found #6: Storm, the little shy one, is at the bottom by her turtle friend

Amber

[Rachel - old]

Oh! I see them all now! Little Storm was hiding from me! They're all so cute!

[Betta MVP]

Absolutely gorgeous girls! I really like the color of SunniD. You say you got these fish at Walmart? What a lucky find, I wish my Walmart had such pretty girls.

Your tank looks great, a really nice setup!

[ana]

your tank and fish are so nice i love the setup of the tank, the colours are perfect for the babies inside

heh i know that lets get more feeling i went from one betta to 8 and 15 other fish since january, its so addicting, theyre very hard to walk by in the stores

my tanks though are quite boring in decoration compared to yours, i can see you put a lot of thought and hard work into getting it just right

[AmberD]

Oh, more pictures to add, lol

First, I'm excited, because I got a couple pictures of Stormi that *almost* show her as pretty as she is in person.




My cute baby Such a sweet little girl Stormi is. Here's Sprite and Sita (blue) the former and current (Sita) alphas:



Here's Sita again with Stormi and her sister Cecilia. I'm sure they're sisters, they looked almost identical in their cups. Go figure, because they don't look alike in these pictures:



Sita must be in the middle of everything, can you tell? Here's her and Cecilia, plus little SunniD up there:



Here's Cecilia, with Sprite beside/behind her:



Spirit, showing up blue instead of brown (she's a strange, strange fish, I tell you) with SunniD:



Oh, and Spritewarning off a potential intruder:



Amber

[subo]

Amber,

What a great tank! Your girls are beauties. (I have to admit, I found 5, but had to read further & cheat to find Little Storm : )

Excellent pics, too!

[BettaGirl]

They are so pretty. Now I want females.

[GypsyBetta]

They are all beautiful. There is such a variety of color!

(But, my heart belongs to the blues. Sita is incredible, very deep, satiny color. She's gorgeous.)

[bettaluv]

Great picture!! They're all so pretty. Quick question: How big is the tank? It looks pretty big.

I'd love to own female bettas, but theres no place around here that sells them. I'll have to stick to the males.

[BettaBGood]

bettaluv, F.Y.I. -

If you live in an area with a W***Mart, they occasionally have females. Many people on this board have ordered bettas from aquabid.com (with good results), which usually has plenty of females.

[Gudrun]

Amber,
I have a 10 gallon female tank (I was inspired by you!) with 6 girls and I have a question for everyone about fear stripes: I've had the girls for less than 24 hours and four out of the 6 girls are showing very distinct brown horizontal "fear" stripes. I would ike to know how long before the stripes subside and their true colors appear. They all have brilliantly colored fins and if their bodies morph into any of the colors in their fins they will be truly gorgeous!

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your replys!

-Gudrun

[Megan]

Most girls will loose their fear stripes within a few days, though I have noticed that some females that live in community situations never loose them. These are usually the girls on the bottom rung of the pecking order. If you have a girl that is being picked on constantly and relentlessly, you may have to remove her. Same as with a girl that is constantly picking on the others and never letting up. It is normal for them to establish a pecking order, and pick on each other sometimes, but keep an eye on them... some girls are just not suited for community life.