You may have heard of the concept of a ‘betta sorority’ before: an aquarium filled with multiple female bettas in a group. The word ‘sorority’ makes it sound like these ladies are going to be doing keg stands and braiding each others fins, but the truth is that a betta sorority is very difficult to get right.
Their temperament does not lead them to being very compatible aquarium-mates to each other, and you also have to contend with the possibility that your chosen females might be particularly aggressive and it won’t work out, however hard you try. You have to be prepared for isolating one fish in case of illness, and for the possibility that the others will catch what she has even before you isolate. Finally, it’s becoming a wider topic of discussion within the betta community that there is a strong possibility that all of the females in a sorority are under a constant low level of stress, which soon leads to stress-related illnesses.
Below we consider what the possible drawbacks and difficulties to a sorority are, and look at evidence and opinion outside of the standard guides that you encounter on how to set one up.
Back up plans
If you haven’t read the article on how to set up and keep a sorority yet, have a read over there to understand roughly what you need to do if you’re going to set one up – the content here is to weigh up whether it’s right to keep a sorority of betts fish in an aquarium, whereas that one explains the basics and how it is meant to work.
You’ll have seen that when you’re setting up a sorority you need to be prepared to remove one or more of the fish if they aren’t getting along, but it’s more accurate to say that you always need to be prepared to remove one or more of them.
To quarantine a betta fish, you need to have a tank set up with the correct water parameters, the nitrogen cycle completed, a heater, a filter, etc. If you don’t have an environment where the water is at least as healthy as the tank they were in, you’re going to find it impossible to treat them and make them more healthy without running into more problems. Add to this that there are reports of people whose fish have suddenly turned on each other due to unexpected stimulus, and you’re going to have to have a couple of betta-friendly tanks on standby.
Another thing to consider is that you won’t know what the temperament of your fish is like until you put them in together, so it’s possible that you’re going to end up with at least one female that lives alone permananelty (it’s not fair to assume that if she doesn’t work out you can return her, as that may not be possible).
So in summary, if you look only at the practical side of a betta sorority, you need to spend quite a lot of money on back up plans, and you’re likely to have to have several tanks on the go for quarantine. Betta sororities are definitely not a beginner’s scenario to try, so keep in mind how much time, effort, money and research you’ll need to invest.
Scientific Research
It may not occur to most aquarists to delve into scientific study to help with their decisions, but there are a lot of papers about behaviour in betta splendens, which I’ve picked a couple of relevant findings from here:
Do female bettas like being together?
In this study, we presented male and female Betta with a single male, a single female, and a group of three females in dichotomous choice tests in order to better understand basic social interactions in this largely nonsocial species. The highly territorial Betta preferred associating with conspecifics in nearly every configuration we tested, with exceptions noted when single females were given the choice between a lone male and an empty chamber, and when males were presented with a single female and an empty chamber. Also, in most tests, the fish chose to spend more time with the larger group of females. The motivation for this preference certainly varied from reproductive to anti-predator.
Snekser JL, McRobert SP, Clotfelter ED. Social partner preferences of male and female fighting fish (Betta splendens). Behav Processes. 2006 Mar;72(1):38-41. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2005.11.014. Epub 2006 Jan 6. PMID: 16406374.
This concludes that female betta fish prefer the company of large groups of females – which is an interesting insight into their choices. Of course the study focuses on what the fish chose rather than going into detail on why, so you could theorise a number of reasons for this decision, but it’s interesting context to be aware of.
These tests were conducted with three females as the ‘group’ to choose between, and the measurement for what was preferred was based on which of the options the test fish spent most of its time nearest (the sections were divided).
Which sorority conditions performed best?
Now this is an interesting one, because the findings actually go against the majority of guidance given be experts and aquarists, who have found that between 5 and 10 bettas in at least 20 gallons will get the best results.
In 1955, researchers Braddock and Braddock did studies on the aggressive behaviours of female betta fish, and found that with a combination of dense vegetation and a very large tank, having a high density of females in an aquarium led to the females establishing a hierarchy without actually fighting. Previous studies had confirmed that betta fish do establish dominance and hierarchies naturally, but the findings in this study seem to say that they find it easier to achieve this with a crowded tank.
Adult females, if sufficiently crowded, may be kept together, although it is sometimes necessary to remove an overly aggressive individual.
Braddock, James Conger and Zora I. Braddock. “Aggressive Behavior among Females of the Siamese Fighting Fish, Betta splendens.” Physiological Zoology 28 (1955): 152 – 172.
Unfortunately this paper isn’t readily available so I couldn’t find what the size of aquarium was that they were using or the number of fish were they discovered this optimal balance – if someone has access to the paper please email me so that I can share the details here.
Contrary to common guidance, this study implies that rather than providing lots of room for your females, keeping them crowded might actually keep them from fighting – though I imagine that the size of tank is crucial with this balance, and it may be very large. There’s also the consideration that these tests were performed over short periods of time – below you’ll read that stress over a long period of time and the illness that this induces could be the core problem with betta sororities.
Experience on Sororities
When I was researching a betta sorority, I read all of the advice that you can find online and did my research. I knew what to look for, I read the warnings, and the summary of my findings can be found on my Ladies Night page, where I gathered together everything I learnt.
So how did my sorority experience go? Well, it didn’t. I chickened out. I did think about not creating my guide above, but I think that unless I know for sure that something isn’t a good idea, I didn’t want to leave people without any guidance at all. If people want to try something you’re pretty unlikely to talk them out of it, so providing the best information I can is better than none (even if my guide is peppered with a lot of suggestions that people reconsider).
What I do want to do, is share the information that put me off trying a sorority. Obviously I care about the fish that I keep, just like I care for any animal. If I think that an animal won’t be happy with the care I can provide it, I won’t keep it, it’s as simple as that. During my research, I came across this video from @aquagirltalks479, where she shows her beautiful betta sororities behind her (showing in the thumbnail), full of females that seem to be interacting peacefully. Feel free to watch it, but the reason that I was put off isn’t in the video.
There’s quite a lot of arguing in the comments (but when isn’t there on youtube?), but the creator of the videos has also replied to some of these comments, and that’s what made me change my mind on a sorority:
“I stopped keeping betta together about a year and a half ago…. In my opinion they don’t work out in the long run. They die of stress induce illnesses between 3 months to 1 year. No fighting, just constant stress. One by one the die, every single time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZZFjxhkf4
There are a number of these responses to comments confirming that she has stopped keeping betta sororities for this reason – and I think that there’s no better way to know whether something is going to work out then when someone who has previously said how well something is going comes back to say that they were wrong.
This long term impact is crucial to understanding whether a sorority will be cruel to your fish. We don’t know enough about betta to identify low level stress in them, and all of the scientific tests were performed over a limited time period.
It might work for me, right?
Of all the things I’ve read, I think this sums it up best for me:
“Just think about it: almost all the major guides for keeping a “successful” Betta sorority essentially tell people how to try and stop their Bettas from hurting and killing each other. If you have to frame keeping a Betta sorority in such a way, it’s obviously not in the best interest of the fish!”
https://www.aquariadise.com/betta-sorority-the-ugly-truth/
This is a really interesting article, because it goes into a lot of detail about what’s going on behind the scenes, and how many people don’t even notice what’s happening.
People have their own pre-established opinions about things, and often are just looking for an echo of their thoughts to make themselves that they have made the right decision – and there are plenty of articles and people out there who are happy to tell you how well a sorority has worked out for them. But if you start looking for evidence for the other side of it, you’ll find just as many people who have horror stories about sororities.
One that sticks in my memory is a story about an established betta sorority of 4 bettas which had apparently been going for around a year without any problems. The owner wanted to introduce a new female (I think that it was because a friend had given them the fish), and followed all the recommended steps that you can find online for introducing a new fish to an established sorority. Over the space of a couple of hours, the alpha female of the aquarium beat the poor newcomer to death, and even after this had happened, she didn’t return to the peaceful situation of before, and continued to bully the others.
There’s a lot about betta fish that we don’t understand, and it seems as though there are many stories out there that suggest that a betta sorority usually balances on a knife edge – where one small change can tip them over the edge and cause huge problems.
Conclusion
I think that it’s hard to drawa a definitive conclusion from everything you can read about female betta preferences and experiences, even though they range from hearsay to peer reviewed scientific journals and studies.
Ultimately, you’re going to have to decide whether you are comfortable to invest the time and money involved in setting up a sorority, and take the risk that it is possible for at least one fish to get hurt during the process. Personally I’ve still decided against having a sorority, because after everything I’ve read, I think it is unlikely that I would be able to have one without one of them being hurt. Perhaps for someone who has the space and ability to move fish into separate solo tanks when and if needed, and who has a very large tank and the ability to get the fish to other happy homes if something goes wrong, it might be a viable option, but not for me!
Read More…
My Better Betta 