With betta fish being the most commonly kept fresh water fish within the fish keeping hobby right now, it is not surprising that the bulk of the questions that we see from people new to the hobby each month are based around keeping their betta fish happy.
Although they are a generally easy fish to keep for the most part, some people do common make mistakes that are easily avoidable that result in their betta fish fighting each other as well as some of their betta fish potentially fighting to the death.
This is why so many people who have just got involved in keeping betta fish reach out every single month to ask how they are able to stop their betta fish fighting to the death.
Although this may sound like a difficult task for people new to fish keeping, it is actually much easier than most people think but may involved having to get additional tanks or upgrading to suitably sized tanks depending on exactly what you are trying to do.
In addition to that, with a number of new lines of rare and unique looking betta fish just going viral on social media, we only expect the number of people keeping betta fish as pets to continue to increase with each month that goes by.
This is why we have decided to publish this dedicated article going over exactly how you can stop your betta fish fighting to the death as well as offer some insight into the more commonly asked questions that we see month in and month out about keeping betta fish as pets and preventing them from fighting each other.
Will All Bettas Fight To The Death?
Not all betta fish will fight to the death with females often being much easier to keep in the same tank as each other provided the tank is large enough for the fight.
Male betta fish are far more common to try and fight each other to the death if they are in the same tank as each other, especially if the tank is small and doesn’t offer the space required for multiple betta fish to be kept in the same tank.
Keeping betta sorority tanks of female betta fight together is becoming more and more common within the fish keeping hobby and we only expect it to become more popular moving forward.
If you are wanting to mix as many rare or unique looking betta fish in the same aquarium setup as each other then that is definitely the best route to take and we would always recommend that you go with a decent 10 gallon aquarium as an absolute minimum with larger tanks being highly recommended.
A 10 gallon tank is far too small to have multiple male betta fish in the same aquarium though and the chances of the males fighting to the death is still high in such a small tank so only ever mix female betta fish in such a small tank.
Even then, in a 10 gallon tank, you can’t add many female betta fish to the tank or the females will start to show signs of aggression towards each other too as although their drive for territory is much lower than the males, it is still a thing.
Can Male Betta Fish Live Together?
There are some very specific situations where adult male betta fish can live in the same aquarium as each other without fighting to the death but only experienced fish keepers should every try this.
The concept is a betta harem tank where multiple male and female betta fish will be added to a huge tank to simulate the large ponds they live in when in the wild.
As we covered in our article going over our tips and tricks for keeping a betta harem aquarium, even experienced fish keepers who have been keeping betta fish for decades can have problems keeping multiple male betta fish in the same aquarium setup.
This can occur in large tanks where everything should in theory be perfect for the fish to live without issue so it really is not recommended for people new to keeping betta fish.
One of the main issues that the betta fish keeping community is having right now is that a large number of the beautiful looking, advanced multi-betta fish tank setups go viral on social media and many beginners try to set their own tanks up in the same style.
This then results in many betta fish fighting to the death as the tank may have slight subtle things setup incorrectly or the fish are simply hyper aggressive and would fight no matter what.
How To Stop Betta Fish Fighting To The Death!
The only really way that the majority of people are able to keep multiple male betta fish in the same tank without them trying to fight to the death is to have a huge aquarium, usually over 50 gallons minimum.
The tank should have plenty of plants be it live or fake as well as plenty of fish hideouts to break the line of sight of the male bettas in the tank but even then fighting can be common.
This is why setting up harem tanks where you have multiple male betta fish in the same tanks with a number of female bettas is often only really done by advanced betta fish keepers.
Even if you do everything right, the male betta fish can still end up fighting each other for even more territory resulting in a fight to the death that could otherwise have easily been avoided.
If you do notice this problem in your own aquariums then you will have to separate the fighting betta fish as soon as possible to try and prevent them from causing serious harm to each other.
Just keeping the betta fish in their own separate tanks is often the best route to take anyway as it just avoids all of the potential problems that people run into when trying to keep multiple bettas, especially male bettas in the same tanks as each other.
Conclusion
That concludes our article going over how you can try to stop betta fish fighting to the death but the best path is to just separate the fish and keep them in their own individual tanks. If you are new to keeping betta fish and like the idea of keeping a betta sorority tank or even a betta harem tank one day then you may be able to do it in the future but focus on the learning the basic fundamentals of keeping betta fish as pets and then slowly work your way up.
