Curiosity About My Betta

[Syn]

I have had my betta for...About 6 months i think, bought out of walmart and he has been happy as can be since. I have him in a gallon tank and i keep it clean, i change the water once a week, rinse the gravel, etc. Ive noticed on my attempts to place him in my larger tank before, which failed and is kept in his tank with a few smaller fish. A gold fish and 3 cory cats to be specific.

My curiosity is that in the past when i placed my some 4-5in gourami in with him, he went what i refer to as psychotic and attacked my gourami, i had to separate them to avoid any more harm coming to my gourami. When i placed him in my larger tank with my oscar, which at the time wasnt much larger than the betta, he attacked my oscar, and the oscar was hiding from him. I even put my second betta in with him, and though after an hour of flaring they resorted to swimming side by side, instead of fighting. I find it strange, and i can only assume the betta is that aggressive towards only the fish larger than himself because he wont attack the smaller fish i have with him.

Any ideas why he might be so..Crazy?

[William]

Bettas ar aggressive fish especially in small tanks. The large fish is seen as a rivla for territory wjile the smaller isn't. However it is a bit strange that he accepted the other betta. was it a male or female?

[Syn]

Strangely it is a male, Even stranger was when he went postal so to speak about the oscar, it was only him, the oscar, and another fish in my like 10-15 gallon tank

[Slow Cheetah]

That is strange... maybe a homosexual fish! Don't know if that can happen in the animal kingdom lol.

[Syn]

Ummm...What? I don't think so, and i am not too sure how that could be even remotely related to my curiousity.

[William]

I think he means that the your betta might have been getting along with the other male because it was gay. Even though homosexuality is know in animals and female fish can try to spawn together in the absence of males I don't think this is the case.

Likely just a bit screwed up view on which fish that are competitors and which aren't.
Perhaps the males decided they were equally strong while flaring and therefore avoided to fight as there was nothing to gain by fighting, ie no female present.

[Syn]

I agree. From having watched the fish before, and i am By far not an expert about fish, i just sort of threw all the possibilities into my mind, mixed them up, and came out with the fact I Thought my Betta only percieves fish of equal or larger size to be a challenge, competition, or a threat. That and i took into consideration that they were both introduced into a tank in which they possessed no sort of territorial boundaries.

On a related note i bought a betta female today with intent to breed them, and my rather unusual betta didnt bother to flare at her. Then again she is barely 1" long, and i know ive plenty of conditioning as it were to get handled before i can begin any attempts at breeding. I did notice plenty of interest from the male in the female, to the degree he was chasing every other fish away from her up until i separated the female from him.

[mariposa]

Jealous male...also common among the human animal. :wink: I bet that was interesting to watch though. I think it would be really cool to breed them but I'm so far from that point. Right now I'm just trying to get him into a better set up than hes currently in.