Tropical Fish Keeping banner

New 20 Long

2K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  Wildbetta 
#1 ·
Much thanks to a friend on another forum, I now have a 20 gallon long that is now my sorority. My husband and I drove up to PA to meet the friend holding it for me, who got it from another member so we wouldn't have to drive as far.

Currently waiting for the weather to warm up a bit so Randy can ship me some more girls to up the numbers to 15. Have 7 currently due to a few unfortunate deaths. 2 random cases of dropsy and a case of columnaris with Ich prior. Lost the black and white girl, one of the blue females and my nice little copper. The remaining girls are all doing well, and we are now at 2 weeks without signs of ANY illnesses, finally.

Included with the 20 was a lid, light, LOTS of plants, assassin snails and some amanos as well as a male/female juvie Bristlenose pleco pair. We got home around 11pm last night and by 130 am I finally had everyone acclimated and the tank scaped. Can't wait to see everything grown out. Will be adding some ferts today sometime, as I forgot to when I did the initial scape.

I plan to eventually switch the substrate to black as well as paint the back of the tank black and get rid of the awful current one.

(also an update of Vesuvius at the bottom)

Old tank:


New tank:


A recent pic of 5 of the girls:


Swarming some algae wafers...


The male BN


The female



Vesuvius' 5.5 gal too (so I don't have to start another topic :p ):





 
See less See more
9
#2 · (Edited)
Oh my goodness that is a gorgeous tank(love that pleco too...some kind of BN pleco, is he?). And that male is quite a looker too. What kind of betta is he? I've kept bettas forever, but I'm only really used to veiltails and crowntails(though I've seen several types, I'm not uh...what's the word...I don't know many by type), I haven't seen any with the rounded tails like that before, not ones that long anyways.

If you want 15 girls though, you're going to want a bigger tank! 30+ gallons long or so. Gonna be tight otherwise...but so far that new tank is looking good. I'm always jealous of what people are able to do with their tanks, I never really learned how to "Landscape" my tanks, I just kinda...went with it. lol Well, I suppose my tanks ended up being random like a normal lake or river would be, but eh! I wish I could make some tanks of art, one day I'll try it out and see if I have any talent for it.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Thanks! :)

15 has actually been recommended to me by many other sorority keepers as the ideal amount for a 20 long ;).

As for Vesuvius, he's just a multicolored Super Delta halfmoon-never reached the 180* tail spread. And not sure exactly on the exact type of BN, but yea. They're both BNs. :)
 
#4 ·
Well indeed! Most sorority keepers stick to 5-7 per tank, and a twenty long is great for that number. But having 15 fish in a twenty gallon tank...that's not even one inch of fish per gallon of water(which is the worst info ever). I'm wondering who in the world told you to put fifteen of them in a twenty gallon tank, it absolutely cannot support the bioload of fifteen carnivores. o_o; But then again, -a lot- of people keep goldfish in bowls and insist it's proper, and we know how THAT turns out.

Think of it like this...For one, female bettas require more space than males, they're more active...if you have 15 1.5-2+ inch females in a 20 gallon tank, that's...not leaving much swimming space at all, it's going to be extremely dangerous on the bioload too since you have 15 carnivorous fish(who have a much higher bioload than omnivores let alone vegetarian fish) in a space that doesn't even have enough room for them to properly get around in when there's too many. This will cause more of those...random cases of dropsy and columnaris, among many other diseases and parasites. You will not be able to keep up with the filth they drop out unless you're going to be doing 50% water changes every other day, which as you know is dangerous.
Even female betta can be aggressive(contrary to very popular belief), some worse than males, and being kept in a sorority requires they have proper space, and proper numbers to keep them evened out. If there's no space they may kill each other for it. Fish swim, they don't like bumping into someone every inch or two of movement.


I'm not trying to trash you, but think on it. You should really stick to the numbers you currently have. Fish have to swim, and to swim they need space. I personally never went past five in a twenty gallon tank, anymore in my opinion is pushing it in many ways. =)
 
#9 ·
Thanks! Yea, I know! Eventually I'll paint a black background on there, but for now I got lucky. The original backgrounds back was black, so I flipped them. :)

Now, I just need to get some black substrate and switch that over...but not looking forward to getting all the assassin snails pulled out of the old stuff. xD
 
#10 · (Edited)
Your bettas are gorgeous. I have tried bettas in the past, but don't have much luck. I did try a sorority once, but it didn't work out. It may have been because I had too many in the tank (5 in 10 gal), but they picked on each other and weren't happy.
So, I too would suggest that the 5 you have would do well in a 20 gal, but 15 is very questionable. And you need to count your BN's as well when figuring out the tank's capacity for fish numbers.
 
#11 ·
Tank is looking great! Love the black background instead of the other one. Can't wait to see the new girls in this tank and the plants grown up in the tank. :D


With a betta sorority you want to have them "crowded" or there will be big issues. If you have too few with too much space, you are going to have torn up fish or deaths. They need that to spread out the aggression along with lots of line of sight breaks with plants and decor. I have kept multiple sororities that worked out great for long periods of time. You can tell the difference when the numbers are lower or the plants/line of sights are moved. Fins get ripped and scales go missing and in worst case scenarios, a female will die from the abuse the others do to her.

A sorority is a fragile balance that once reached, you try not to mess with.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top