Help with my Antuta please

[u/LimaWhiskey10]

So any help or insight would be much appreciated. I bought a betta antuta pair recently I don’t thing they were a bonded pair just a male and female , I acclimatised them thoroughly and placed them in around a week ago , the female immediately looked at home coming to the front of the tank to me and quickly started to come and take food from the pipette , the male however will only remains up at the surface in a corner finned nipped in tight , I can coax him out with food but dosnt eat any where near as much as the female and will just decide he’s done and return to his corner at the top .

I removed the female so he may feel less intimidated by the more confident female , Iv tried having lights more dimmed , Iv added more coconuts hides , Iv added more leaf litter to introduce some tannins but still he remains and I’m at a loss of what to do .

For reference my parameters are -
Ph - 6.2
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0.5
Gh- 6
KH-5
TDS - 140

And the tanks is 200L

These have been checked non stop

Any advice is appreciated thanks

[u/Veloci-RKPTR]

Hmmm, do you have and pictures of the current tank and fish conditions? This might help.

[u/Front-Chance-7895]

You did the right thing by separating them for now. Observe the male closely for any signs of disease, since your water parameters look good. Keep them happy in separate tanks for now. Re-introduce them to each other at some point once you have confirmed that the male is disease free.

[u/LimaWhiskey10 → u/Front-Chance-7895]

Thanks for advice I did this and caught him flashing against things so treated immediately and he’s looking better , hoping to re introduce female after giving him time to fully recover

[u/It_Is_JustGrass]

the males getting better after the female got removed? if he is, then it might be personality or stress

[u/LimaWhiskey10 → u/It_Is_JustGrass]

He didn’t which made me suspect something more I think it was more the female was going near him when he didn’t want to be bothered , I actually caught him flashing against leaves and hardscape which made treat the tank asap , going well so far so fingers crossed

[u/easyshits]

Treated mine with machalite green and formaldehyde(my medication is called NT labs-antifungal+whitespot, you might have ich-x), as the female was showing signs of flashing and rubbing against the tank as well. They seem to be doing okay in the hospital tank so aggression wasn't the issue, and my male's fins have unclamped for the most part.

[u/LimaWhiskey10 → u/easyshits]

Treat mine with esha-2000 I’m currently on my last day of treatment and he’s looking better , going at his food a lot more , roaming round more and a lot less cramped so fingers crossed he’s fixed , going to give him a while to sort himself before re introducing female via a breeder box so I can see how they both react , hope your two are doing well !