 Wild betta splendens are originally red-blue fishes with short fins. Their original habitat is located in Asia, mainly in Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia. There you can find them in small lakes, rice fields, swamps and bog forests. The original wild form of betta splendens however seems to not or barely not exist anymore. The old (and in the meantime forbidden) Asian tradition of betta fights seems to have played a major role in their disappearance. Chasing for the strongest and hardiest fish, breeders caught betta splendens from all areas; the fish were further bred and sometimes outcrossed with other wild forms. Many of those fish were released back onto the wild. This is the reason why the original gene pool of all wild betta splendens certainly got manipulated. Local strains got lost this way for sure – if not even the whole original betta splendens per se. Today of course neither legal betta fights nor the historic breeding traditions exist anymore. What remained though is the pleasure to breed these wonderful fishes, but today the focus lies on their beauty, variety and balanced look, taking vitality and health into account.
Breeders learned a lot in those last decades also regarding genetics. This is why today’s showbettas exist in a large variety of colour and fin types and many people fell in love with those beautiful fishes. As well as the looks of a showbetta, also the maintenance in a tank is somewhat special, although not complicated. However you should keep a few things in mind, if you want to be happy with your betta for a long time. Their social behaviour is quite aggressive towards their own species and they build and defend their own separate territories. Males strictly live alone and seem to claim a territory of about 40-50cm. Females on the other hand seem to have smaller territories of about 20-30cm, but mostly also prefer to live alone. Sometimes however small groups of sisters were found, that obviously live together permanently. Within those kinds of groups a strict pecking order exists. However males and females were never watched living together permanently in their natural habitat. The common recommendation to keep bettas in harems has to be critically discussed, because it seems to be a way of living that is strictly contradicting their natural behaviour. Males and females accept each other only during the spawning process. After that the male defends the central area around the nest, while the female takes over defence of the outer areas. However from the nest itself the female will be ruthlessly chased away. After the spawning the temporary relationship dissolves again. Experience shows that keeping males and females at all times together means permanent stress and can lead to diseases and a shortened life span. The body length of showbettas is between 4-7cm and usually the male is bigger then the female. Solely a rather new variety of showbettas exceed these measurements, the so called “giants”.
Betta splendens are labyrinth fish, who need additionally to breathing
through their gills also atmospheric air.
Betta splendens are because of their easy maintenance, social behaviour, their natural habitat und their biology not difficult to keep in a tank. However some basic rules have to be followed. Males should always be kept in a tank alone and have no permanent visual contact to other betta splendens. This also applies for females. However small groups of sisters, that have never been separated, can be kept somewhat peacefully together in an accordingly sized tank (see sizes of territories). Keeping unrelated females together might sometimes not work out at all and only result in constant fighting, stress and diseases. Both sexes in one tank should only be put together for breeding purposes. Usually the female will be taken out of the breeding tank right after the spawning process is finished, the male after the youngsters can swim on their own. Tanks where males are permanently kept (to the contrary to temporary breeding tanks) should offer enough space to establish a natural territory. Therefore a tank should be about 40-50cm long. By Austrian law 60cm are necessary. However the current regulation does not pay enough attention to their territorial behaviour – the 60cm are supposed to be enough for a harem – 1 male and 2-3 females. However if you calculate the necessary space for 3 bettas, you’d need a tank of a minimum of 80cm netto, neutral zones between the territories not even included yet. Even in a tank 1m long, keeping betta splendens as a harem is usually not possible and therefore not recommendable to my opinion. However there is also a regulation that claims, that fishes who build and defend their territories very aggressively and consequently have to be housed separately, have to be offered space enough to establish an adequate territory. The way a betta splendens tank should look like is ideally very close to their natural habitat. Therefore a lot of plants that reach up to the water surface should be provided, as well as swimming plants and optionally also sand or gravel (not too light colorwise). The temperature should be between 25°28°C. The water in the tanks should move only minimally (a strongly reduced filter flow is necessary). The tanks should be covered at all times (betta splendens can jump very well). Constant parameters of ph and GH should be provided (ph 6-8, GH 0-15).
Keeping bettas in community tanks is possible but accompanying fish have to be chosen wisely. You should not choose fish that swim mainly in the upper areas of a tank, as betta territories are defined exactly there. Therefore ideally calm and peaceful fish should be chosen that live mostly on the ground like e.g. corydoras, ancistrus, loaches, but also snails and amano shrimps (if grown up, otherwise they are at risk to become betta snacks). The general rule is to avoid stress, hectic and physical endangerment for bettas. A betta itself will barely attack another type of fish, except their physical appearance reminds of a betta also, e.g. the so often mentioned long finned guppies. If you want to keep a betta in a community tank you also have to pay attention to the necessary size of the tank as well as of course to the needs of the other fish in there. Nutritionwise you should offer your betta a large variety of live and frozen food, sometimes you can of course also feed them with high quality dry food that is appropriate for bettas. Especially white and black mosquito larvae, artemia and daphnia can be recommended. Because there are negative rumours about red mosquito larvae and tubifex in Austria – they are under suspicion to transfer diseases – I will not recommend feeding those, until those issues are cleared up.
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