dragonlady7

Whoa, there's a starling beating up a crow up above our yard. Dramatic. Especially because both are such ugly-voiced birds. "Ehh! Ehh!" "Ack! Ack!"
Peaceful early-summer morning, eh?

So, the Foosh Saga I was going to tell last night. I am actually rather heartbroken I wasn't at home for any of this, but if I'd had Dave wait until I was home, God only knows when it would've happened. (How did this happen, that I, a waitress, am suddenly so in-demand at work? Meh, I should enjoy it while I can-- once they hire enough new people they'll cut my hours again. If only someone would hire Dave, I could happily ignore their frantic calls for me to come in on my day off. And then I would feel smug. "What, I thought you only wanted me four days a week." "That was so we could call you if someone called in!" "Oh. Well, too bad: I made plans." "But we don't have anyone to fill the shift!" "Too bad. Should've scheduled me; I never call off." An appealing fantasy.)

Anyhow. On to the Foosh Saga:

Dave pondered this problem for a while. Mai Tai, as we're tentatively calling her, was purchased with the intention of putting her in with Shirley, as female bettas are usually kept socially in tanks. When Dave picked Shirley out, she was in a big tank with several other female bettas and some tetras and gouramis, and she was chasing another female around quite happily. He had assumed she was somewhat dominant in personality. She was certainly the cutest fish there.

So she's spent a few months now in the Foosh Palace with our two boys, being very interested in them through the mesh and being, mostly, ignored, because we think they're gay but that's another story.

So we bought Mai, isolated her for a little while, and then, impatient to see the tank done, put her into the Palace with Shirley.

It did not go well. Mai and Shirley flared at one another for a little while (which was cute, because female bettas have eensy little gill covers and aren't very intimidating when they flare, unlike the boys. But then Shirley decided to run away, which is always, always, always a bad idea in the animal kingdom. Because if you run, you will be chased. So Mai chased her all over the tank, and we finally pulled Mai out because poor Shirley was looking distressed.

So Mai sat in her bowl for another couple days, looking very disgruntled and also flipping out a lot, because she doesn't like the bowl. Dave was distressed by this. He didn't want to simply close off a partition and subdivide one of the divisions into two; all three fish we already have very much enjoy having the tunnels in the middle so they can choose between two chambers to be in, and to block it off, he felt, would sort of lose a lot of the point of the Foosh Palace. (Which is, for the uninitiated, a 15-gallon hex tank divided into six chambers, each chamber paired with another to which it is linked via a tunnel in the middle. So all the fooshes can see all the other fooshes, and have quite a lot of swimming range.)

So he tried again, and put Mai in with Shirley. This time Mai bit Shirley, and much ruckus ensued. (insofar as 1.5-inch fish with no vocal chords can make a ruckus.) So he dumped Mai back in her bowl. He pondered a little while.

In a bit, curious as to what would happen, he dumped Gibson into her bowl. Gibson is the smaller male, who used to be exceedingly timid. We'd had him for nearly six months before he finally realized he could flare. But now he refuses to back down when Al flares at him, and so has obviously grown a pair.

Mai Tai bit him. Gibson ran away. Dave fished him out and put him back in his tank.

And pondered a little while. Did he dare? Well, he had no more options. So he took Alexander, the big blue bully of a male, and put him into Mai's bowl.

A mild rumpus ensued. Eventually Mai ran away. Al did not deign to pursue. Mai and Al hung out a lot carefully not looking at one another, in the manner of a dog who has been bad and is wondering if you're going to notice. Stasis was achieved, sort of.

Interestingly, Mai demonstrated during this whole process that bettas can change color at will. She is normally yellow and red with green accents; when she was being submissive, she changed color, nose to tail, to a dull, uniridescent brown.

So Dave dumped Al back into his tank and pondered a little while.

Finally he put Mai into Gibson's partition of the tank. She turned bright again and went up and bit Gibson. On his home turf, Gibson did not run away; he turned over in his own length and flared as big as he could go. Which is not inconsiderable.

Mai Tai ran away. Gibson didn't chase. So now for probably twelve hours or more they've been together in the tank, carefully ignoring each other. Gibson hangs out on top of the plastic tube that's in there as a hidey hole-- he seems to have determined that he's more invisible on it than in it, as it's fastened high up on the wall. Mai hangs out in the other partition, fighting with her reflection. Occasionally she comes up to sniff at Gibson, and he gives her A Look, and she retreats.

Amusingly, shortly after she was put in, she was hanging out near the wall. Shirley came up to the other side of the wall, and bit her through the mesh. Sneaky courage, our girl has.

I was so tired this morning I forgot to worry about leaving them alone, and so when I surfaced from unconsciousness this morning I went out to look, and neither of them has any fin damage. I'm still a little iffy about the prospect, but they're still behaving themselves.

Some may wonder whether they'll spawn if left together like that. So far I haven't seen any evidence of courtship behavior. The first thing is that the male would build a bubble nest. So, we'd have some warning; it takes a while to build a nest, especially in a tank with a filter. (But we know it's possible; Al used to build them and we think he was courting Gibson. He's definitely gay. Which is tragic.)

But if they do spawn, we won't let the eggs hatch. That would yield 40 betta fish, all of whom would have to be jarred separately. We don't have 40 jars. So no.

I'm still worried that one or the other of them is going to decide to stand up for him or herself and will eat the other one's fins, but we'll see. I haven't found any documentation on leaving male and female bettas alone together long-term and whether either one will be aggressive.