Okay, so I have had both SW and FW fish for quite sometime and am very savvy on many issues including compatibility. We got our 10 year old son a nice little 6 gallon tank to start into the hobby himself and I fell preyto his own wide-eyes when perusing the LFS. For his selection, he decided to get a 2 inch crawfish in lieu of the ghost shrimp we initially decided for his clean-up crew because it was really cool looking (dad agreed). He kows it is a small tank and that the craw fish will nip fins and eat smaller fish, so what did we bring home last night...a male and female betta I rationed it out that the bettas are themselves aggressive, I have plenty of hiding places and plants, and I will keep the crawfish well fed so he doesn't look swimming meals. (Mr. Logical, right) So we put the 2 bettas in and they saw each other right away and the female immidiately acted very passive and "bowed" to the male and was actually interested in him. Other than the male getting ruffled at the sight of her initially, they had no adverse reactions to each other and ate decently last night. The crawfish ignored both of them and ate his meaty dinner I gave him.
Fast worward to this morning...The male has lost 60 percent of his tail fins and the female has a small nip out of her bottom caudal fin area. Both otherwise alive and healthy and swimming around just fine with each other. This all being the case, I assume that the crawfish did the damage and the male tried to fight him (not her). Bettas aren't nocturnal like crawfish, the crawfish has also eaten a guppy in the past, and Bettas seemed to be fine with each other. If the Bettas were going to fight, wouldn't it be during the day?
I removed the crawfish and took pics of the Bettas to compare their fin damage to see if they fight going forward..
What do you think?
Fast worward to this morning...The male has lost 60 percent of his tail fins and the female has a small nip out of her bottom caudal fin area. Both otherwise alive and healthy and swimming around just fine with each other. This all being the case, I assume that the crawfish did the damage and the male tried to fight him (not her). Bettas aren't nocturnal like crawfish, the crawfish has also eaten a guppy in the past, and Bettas seemed to be fine with each other. If the Bettas were going to fight, wouldn't it be during the day?
I removed the crawfish and took pics of the Bettas to compare their fin damage to see if they fight going forward..
What do you think?