Our Betta Sorority

 Over the past several months, Alaina has gained an interest in keeping fish. (She follows several Youtubers who talk about hamsters and mice, and some of them have fish as well.) She has spent lots of time looking up different varieties and how to keep them.

Eric has had a small fish tank since his third birthday, where he's had one male betta after another: Nemo, Nemo II, Nemo III, and Nemo IV. In September--on Alaina's advice--he switched to guppies, which have been more social and fun to watch. 

Alaina, however, has continued to research fish and dream about assembling her ideal group. Recently she started asking for an aquarium of her own, and as school was winding down, I told her she could get a larger fish tank at the end of June. I suggested that maybe she and Eric could run it together.

Alaina liked this idea, and she and Eric started planning for their new 10-gallon aquarium. 

Alaina really wanted to get a female betta, which could live with the guppies and be the "queen" of the tank. So, when we went to the pet store, she chose a beautiful, dark blue/purple one and named her May. We also got a clean-up crew: two bottom feeders (Fred and George) and a glass cleaner (Filch).

These new fish worked out really well. The betta nipped at the guppies a bit, but overall, everyone seemed happy.

Then Alaina brought up the idea of a betta sorority tank--an aquarium filled with female bettas living together in harmony. At first I was reluctant to add any more fish to our lives, but after looking at pictures of all the brightly colored bettas swimming around peacefully in the same tank, I was convinced we should give it a try.

We went and got two new sisters for May, whom Alaina named April and June. Unfortunately, our regular pet store (which keeps the female bettas together) didn't have any, so we got these new ones from a place that keeps the females in small cups, just like the males.

These fish were obviously not used to being with others, and they seemed very nervous when we put them into our tank. June lost all her bright color and got "stress stripes" right away, and April stayed in a bottom corner. May constantly harassed them, chasing and nipping at them.

The next morning, April had died. We went back to the pet store and got a lively new replacement (Alaina named her Harmony ... hoping!), but she only lived two days.

We decided to give up, but then we did a bit more research. We learned that the best way to introduce new bettas was to take the existing ones out of the aquarium, move everything around to eliminate any territorial claims, then add the old and new bettas all together. 

Yesterday we saw a tank FULL of female bettas at the pet store, so we took May and June out of our aquarium this morning and moved everything around. At the pet store, we bought another live plant and a sunken ship to provide more hideouts.

Alaina and Eric picked out three beautiful young bettas and--on the drive home--named them Belle, Ella, and Little Red. 

We added the new décor, floated the new fish and our other two bettas for an hour or so, then added them all in, fingers crossed. 

And ... success!

Nobody is chasing or nipping; they're just swimming around, sometimes together and sometimes on their own ... probably getting along better than some human sisters :)

And since the new three are used to living together, with other fish as well, we have high hopes for them living long and happy lives!

But just in case someone's missing by morning, here they are (in blurry pictures): 

Belle

Ella

Little Red

June and May