CA_BroncoFan
Aquarium Advice Addict
Although that was your experience (and it sounds like a good one ), you really can't guarantee. Of course fish keeping is a hobby with no guarantees, but honestly your situation sounds unusual. Gold Barbs are known fin nippers, and betta fish are on the extreme end of long-finned. I would strongly recommend against it.
Absolutely agree that there really are no guarantee's in aquaria, but I raise you (poker terms ) the fact that I bought 3 from the same tank, no aggression toward the basic tropical community fish (no betta at this time) about a year later bought 2 from another source bringing my count to 5 and later added a crowntail betta, still no aggression. I'm totally not using my experiance as a standard across the board but I've yet to see aggression outta these little guys. They've since moved into a tank with my blood parrot and actually stay away from him but that doesn't mean much. Its just so hard when it comes to things like this because you get people that have kept multiple jack dempseys with tropical fish and they never bother the fish and then you get people who get one and it wrecks the tank. This is exactly why we stress research, research research. Its always nice to know peoples experiance so you can make your own decision.