A ‘sorority’ of betta fish is an aquarium that contains multiple female betta fish.
It sounds ideal doesn’t it? Betta fish are so beautiful but you can’t have more than one male or they’ll fight each other – but the idea of keeping multiple females together means you can have lots of beautiful fish in one tank! However – be aware – keeping a sorority is a bit more complex than it sounds.
If you’re considering a sorority of betta fish, please make sure that you do lots of research to understand how to go about it – and also consider whether a sorority is right for you, or even, right for the fish? You’ll find that there’s a lot of disagreement on the internet about whether a betta sorority is a good idea or that your female fish can be happy. Betta sororities are not easy to set up and keep with any level of success.
So female bettas can get along together?
Aggression has been bred into betta fish over generations – and it’s not possible to selectively breed only the males, so you’ll find that the female betta fish that you can buy today are also very aggressive. They are definitely less feisty than the males, but you still need to keep in mind that they naturally won’t be that keen on hanging around each other all the time, and sometimes this does progress to attacks, and even death.
Because of this, if you decide to create a betta sorority it needs to be done very carefully, and it’s a bit of a balancing act. Whether or not sororities are a good idea, or whether they can ever be healthy for the fish still seems to be up for debate which we talk about a bit later, but the essential thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to watch your females carefully to see how they’re interacting, and be ready to remove one if it’s being particularly difficult. For this reason, make sure you have cycled tanks ready in case someone needs some alone time.
How do I make it work?
Most people say that the trick to a successful sorority is down to what the individual ladies are like – if you have a set of fairly peaceful and good natured fish, then you’re much more likely to have a successful sorority! There’s two key aspects to keep in mind when you’re planning and setting up a sorority: The Right Fish, and The Right Environment.
The Right Fish
There are a few tactics which have been found to be useful by sorority owners in the past, when selecting your fish:
- Choose younger fish, who are more adaptable and won’t have been kept alone for a long time
- If it’s possible, look for fish who have been raised within sight or in the same tank as other juveniles
- Choose the least aggressive females that you can
- Make doubley sure there aren’t any short-finned males in the mix! (There are guides to how to be sure here: https://bettasource.com/betta-sorority/)
- If the fish are a consistent size and age, they are less likely to feel threatened by each other
Unfortunately this can be quite difficult, unless you’re familiar with a particular seller or breeder who you can talk to about the history and behaviour of their fish and recommend suitable ladies. It’s going to give you that extra chance at success though if you can try and pick your fish carefully.
There are a couple of suggestions that we’ve heard of that are supposed to help in addition to those above, but they’re not confirmed:
- Choosing young females that are siblings is said to mean that they get along with each other better
- The less similar the fish look to each other, the less likely they are to be threatened, so choose a range of colours
Finally, the number of females is important. Most advice is consistent that below 4 is too few, but there’s variation between people who say that it has to be at least 4, or at least 6, or sometimes more. Less than 4 fish tends to mean that an imbalance is created, and one of them is more likely to be bullied.
There’s obviously a limit to how many betta are a good idea too – but this varies depending on the size of the tank that you have.
The Right Environment
Firstly, make sure that you’re following all the best practice guides for keeping a betta fish: that’s heating, filtration, a good size, lots of hiding places, and healthy water! Without this, you’ve got no chance of keeping a betta sorority successfully. If you’ve never kept a betta fish on their own before, you shouldn’t take on a betta sorority, as it isn’t easy.
Plan and follow these guidelines when you set up your sorority tank:
- ‘Line of sight’ is very important to a betta – they need to feel like they can find somewhere to hide without being seen, or being able to see other fish. Think lots of hidey holes, plants and places to loiter. What you’re looking for is a ‘heavily planted tank’, even if they aren’t real plants!
- Make sure that there’s enough space. This will help with the point above, and they will be able to separate and cool off if there’s a problem.
- Introduce your fish slowly, gently, and carefully, with a lot of observation!
- Have fully cycled other tanks on standby if you need to remove one of several of the fish in case of trouble.
How ‘heavily planted’ is enough?
Like many things, this is subjective, but a good guide is to put yourself in the shoes (fins!) of your fish!
Put yourself in a dark mood, on a bad day, when you’re going to bite the head off anyone who dares speak to you. Now look in your tank and see if there are at least as many places in your tank that you’d feel happy to sit in and be left alone, as you are going to have fish.
Here are some beautiful heavily planted tanks which would have plenty of lovely hiding places for a betta sorority. While these are all real plants, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a heavily planted tank full of sink plants – they just need to be arranged carefully to create lots of areas to hide in.
To contrast, here are some more tanks which are beautiful in their own right, and just the same size as the ones above, but just don’t have enough places to block the line of sight for even 4 female bettas in a sorority.
What size for a sorority?
This is another subjective one, where advice varies. The majority of sources on the internet are consistent that a sorority tank should never be smaller than 10 gallons, but at least 20 gallons is going to be more appropriate. Choose a long tank rather than a tall tank, as this more closely matches their natural environment and will give them more space to reach the surface to feed.
Here is a guide which is fairly consistent of average advice from Hepper.com:
- 20 G – 6 females
- 25 G – 7 females
- 30 G – 8 females
- 40 G – 10 females
If you got to the original source you’ll see that I’ve missed two options from this list – 10 G for 3 females (too few fish) and 55 G for 12 females. The latter has been missed out because many sources suggest that over 10 females in one sorority contains too many variables to be able to guarantee a peaceful group.
You may find that you’ll see tanks that are stocked with lots of fish that far exceed these numbers when you’re researching betta sororities, but this doesn’t mean that it’s in any way recommendable. The image below looks beautiful, but if we assume that the tank limits match the edge of the photo, this is far too many fish and not enough places to hide for a sorority to be successful. It’s more likely that this tank is full of juveniles, which will need to be separated when they’re older.
Introduction
All of your betta need to be added at the same time for the best chance of success. This is because if you put one or two females in first, they will claim their territory and immediately get defensive when new girls join them. Adding them all at the same time helps leave them feeling equal to each other, and therefore less likely to bully.
Introduce your new fish in the same way that you would with a single fish – float the bag and allow the water temperature and water parameteres to aclimatise (how to release your fish). What’s slightly different here is that your females will – and should – be able to see each other during this process. This will allow them to get used to the concept of each other slowly.
Monitoring
During the first few days to week, the fish will be testing each other and looking to establish a pecking order – a bit like dogs might. This is normal behaviour in a sorority, as is some light quarrels and aggression, perhaps some chasing and nipping at fins.
However, there is a limit to how much of this behaviour should be tolerated, especially when things get more physical. If you’re seeing injuries – especially bodily ones which are more serious than small nips to the tail or fins – you need to think about intervening. Ultimately, be prepared to remove fish to a separate tank if necessary.
Multiple females bullying one
If you have one female that is being bullied by multiple other females, watch carefully to see the dynamic at play. Either the attack will always be led by a single aggressive female and the others will follow suit, or the attacking females will seem to be equal in their aggression.
If it seems as though this poor lady is getting bullied by several fish, it means that they have singled her out as a weak link, and you will want to remove her from the tank permanantly. This situation is likely to end in serious injury or death for this female if it’s allowed to continue. Once she’s removed, this doesn’t mean that the remaining females will definitely get along, but they might see each other as equal enough to find peace.
However, if all of the drama appears to be started by one really aggressive female, you may want to think about whether she is right for a sorority at all. Read on…
One female bullying others
Some females are just too aggressive to be kept in a sorority, and you might have encountered one here. In the same way, there are stories of male betta fish who are so relaxed and laid back that they can be happily kept with females on a permanant basis, because all fish are different, just like people!
If you have one female leading the attack on others, or maybe just attacking everyone on her own, you’ll want to consider removing her from the sorority altogether. If she’s picking on just one other female all the time you could remove that female to see if she just had beef with that one girl, but it’s quite likely that she’ll pick up again with someone new.
Trying again with the same fish
There is guidance online about how to try again with the same set of fish if they don’t seem to get along and you have to restart. Keep in mind – betta fish are smart. They will remember each other, so what you’re trying to do is change some other variable to make them calm down. If you re-add them to the exact same situation, why do you thin that they will behave any differently?
If you’re close to the limit of how small the tank is based on the guidance above, you might want to try a larger tank, because that could be what’s causing problems. Or you could add more hiding places and plants if the tank seems comfortably big enough. Finally, you could change how you introduce them. There are guides out there that suggest introducing them one by one – but these do seem to be in the minority compared to the much more common advice to introduce them at once. If you have a way to divide the tank this could also help, as the fish would be able to see and smell each other, but not cause any harm.
Risks Associated with A Betta Sorority Tank
There are a number of risks with a sorority which you need to keep in mind:
- If one fish gets ill, it is likely to spreadh quickly through the other aquarium residents. You can remove the ill betta, but then you will have to keep in mind that reintroducing her when she is healthy again could upset the peace in the tank.
- Feeding is very important – you can’t just pop some food in and leave them to it. The dominant females will get to their food first, and bettas are notorious over eaters so she will try and stuff everything she can. You’ll need to monitor at feeding time to make sure that everybody is getting the right amount, and nobody is getting fat or starving.
- There is likely to be an ongoing undercurrent of stress in the community with multiple female bettas. Consider that keeping fish that dislike each other’s company in an enclosed space is perhaps just not a good idea – potentially shortening their lifespans and making illness more likely.
Further to this, as part of my investigation I decided to set myself a task to work out whether there is a ‘magic formula’ to create a happy betta sorority. This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole of research and stories which exposed the darker side of keeping a betta sorority, and what happens when it goes wrong.
I would strongly recommend reading my findings to get a balanced picture of how female betta interact and behave with each other if you’re trying to decide if a sorority is the right thing to do.
My Better Betta 