depression or just plain boredom?

[themuffinbandit]

so i bought a new betta fish and was soon going to make my once solitary betta fish into a community one by adding two other female bettas (so i would have 3 females total). So i bought the betta fish and isolated it for about a week now. it isnt that aggressive and doesnt seem to ever be hungry or attack the food like my male or other female does. whats going on? is she bored or depressed or something? i mean she looks around at stuff and will swim to u if u go near her bowl, but lol... whats going on? Also, any ideas on how to introduce 3 females to each other? one of them is pretty aggressive, the one that had fin rot a few weeks ago. shes like a frickin nazi almost... haha... but hopefully she wont kill anyone but she did chase my zebra danios around almost every day at least a few times. lol

[invadertoast]

It's best to have them seperate, then indroduce them all at the same time so nobody has the advantage. If you already have one in the tank, move everything around and mess up her territory. Some of mine were more mellow at feeding time than others (when they were seperate) so it could just be a personality trait. Watch them closely for a few days - a week and make sure nobody is really getting hurt. Fin-nipping and chasing is totally normal. They'll get over it eventually and establish a pecking order. Mine only chase eachother occassionaly and it never lasts for more than 2 seconds or amounts to anything, lol. Good luck!

[themuffinbandit]

what are the signs that a pecking order has been established and how can i tell who the dominant one is?

[invadertoast]

Well, when the stop flaring at eachother and chasing alot it's probably established. Honestly I'm not sure how to tell who is the queen of the tank, I'm pretty sure I know who's dominant in my tank, mostly because the other girls give her space and generally she's really peaceful towards them, but if they get too close she'll chase them and they leave her alone. I never see her get chased so I can only assume she's on top.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

I always reckon pecking order can be seen in who gets to the food first, how much they get and if they chase away anyone else.

Leader always gets the most and first pickings...bottom of the heap gets a little and last.