Harem Hex

Harem Hex Tank

This is my Harem Hex, or tank full of Female Bettas:

Below you will see pictures of my Female Bettas. They are in a 5 gallon Eclipse Hex with live and artificial plants and driftwood and terracotta pots. I have four girls named Shirley, Roxy, Francis (or Francis Dreamsicle as Mendal insists on calling her!), and Eden.

My dream is to one day move these girls to a 10 or 12 gallon and increase the numbers to 6 or 9. Keeping Female Bettas together is possible if in enough numbers and is sometimes called a Sorority. You would not want to keep only 2 or 3 together because there would be constant fighting with no pecking order being found. With a minimum of 4 a pecking order can be established and the hierarchy will keep order with in the tank. The order will changed on occasion, but this is the natural way Females are in the wild.

Learn more about keeping Female Bettas together here: http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/333/ and here: http://www.healthybetta.com/keeping-female-bettas-together and here: http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/316/

Now on to my beauties!

Shirley: the first girl, she’s our baby! Mendal picked her out and we kept her in a old coffee pot in the kitchen during the summer last year. With the winter she needed heat and more water so we moved her to our 5 gallon Hex.

Roxy: our second girl bought before I realized the need for multiple numbers. She was kept with Shirley in the Hex, with Shirley in a glass tube to keep them separate for about 2 days.

We then bought,

Francis:

And Eden:

At the same time.

I took Shirley and Roxy out and put them in my fish cups that have lids. Did a water change and rearranged the entire aquarium aquascape. Added new plants, moved old ones, added some fake drift wood and two small terracotta pots. I added water from the tank to the cups and then reduced the amount of water in each cup to keep the splash down and make the “dump” easier. Then Mendal and I held two each and we dumped them into the tank together. The “fighting” didn’t start immediately but when it did it looked viscous. About an hour later it was down to Shirley and Francis. By the next day it was clear Francis had won.

Shirley and Eden had the most damaged fins, but have begun healing well. Eden looks good as new but Shirley is still looking ragged. Eden is the smallest and was picked on pretty badly and Shirley is the largest and thought she should be the Queen!

The girl’s are loving the tank and play in the plants and the pots. It is quite fun to watch them and I’ve been thinking of adding a 5^th. I believe the biological filter in the tank can handle it. I hope the tank size gives enough space for each girl’s territory.

Here are more pictures of the girls together:

I get a little camera happy sometimes!