Marine Bettas are one of the "older" fish to be tank-bred. The issue is that it takes 6 months to a year or even more to get them to a sellable size which is a lot of commitment and cost. C-Quest, Sustainable Aquatics, ORA, and I think also Sea&Reef all bred them for a time but stopped because they couldn't get the money for them it cost them to raise them.
The Dutch aquarist Herman Wassink was the first to breed them in 1986 or 1987 and published it first in 1988 in the German Aquarium and Terrarium magazine DATZ.
To my knowledge, I was the second to breed them successfully in captivity in 1992.
But I was likely the first to "build" pairs for breeding purposes by picking males and females and putting them together. Wassink just got lucky to find a pair and didn't know which of them was the male and the female.
For some, they are reclusive as singles. I never had that issue (never had a big enough tank to "lose" a fish in). Much has to do with the tank mates and the appropriate rockwork with plenty of caves with large entries. My Marine Bettas usually like to stand in the entry of their cave.
I also noticed that captive-bred and small wild-caught specimen will be more outgoing, even as fully grown adults. Another reason why small individuals should be preferred.
No, they do not form close "mated" pairs like anemonefish, butterflies, angels, gobies, and the like. They usually only come together to spawn and once done, the female is chased out of the male's cave and not allowed back in until the eggs are hatched.
I suspect they form harem groups in the wild.
What you will get with two (or more) is a lot more visibility of the fish and far more interesting behavior.
I think ill take the chance with one, ill move him to a different tank if he's not happy. Love the look of them but only if they arent stressed out every second of the day.
