bettas in community tank?

[LonerVamp]

Kinda been poking around a bit, and didn't see this question overtly asked so I thought I would throw it out there.

I just got my hands on a 30 gal setup for free, so I've made it my excuse to start a new aquarist hobby (always been an animal-loving kind of guy already). I also decided to get my feet wet, so to speak, with a betta at work in a 2.5 gal square tank. He seems to be doing great and looks beautiful with his blue fins and just a hint of teal. He's also very curious when I'm around as the tank sits about a half foot from my mouse hand.

I got my 30 gallon tank started last weekend with breaking it in (letting the water sit, adjusting ph and otherwise getting it all filtered), and now this weekend have added some aquatic plants and 5 hearty zebra danios to start the cycles going. Things are going great and all nitrate/ph/ammonia/temp levels are humming along as expected.

However, one of my roommates, Sandra, is a bit perplexed at why I don't plan on getting large beautiful fish (I'm planning on swapping the danios out for an end goal of 15 neon tetra, a few otocinclus, and a few corys), so I was wondering if a betta would be apt to getting along with the fish listed above, given a decent sized home? I have a small number of plants for the moment and will soon get more, so I assume that should the betta be a little too nip-happy, the other fish do have places to hide and swim behind and such. I'm also hoping to not do a whole lot of cleaning in the tank itself with the cory's and otocinclus doing their shares of cleaning for food (I wanted a pleco, but have learned they would likely just eat my plants up...) plus the nice symbiosis of the plants and fish giving each other needed CO2 and O2, respectively.

Well, since I'm sort of giving a long post, does anyone have any tips on plants? I have an inch of flourite underneath another inch or normal gravel as the substrate, a normal Bio-Wheel filter on top and no air bubble systems in the tank itself so that I can keep as much CO2 as possible, given some gentle surface turbulence. Right now I have some anacharis, and two similar types of amazon sword plants spotting the tank.

Also, any other advice/questions on the setup(s) above are welcome.

Admin- if this post should be in another forum like the starters one, feel free to move it.

 

[LonerVamp]

I think I found some other threads with some better searching that pretty much answer my question. If anyone wants to post anything though, feel free.

Just for reference:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=6703&highlight=betta+community

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=6698&highlight=betta+community

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=6593&highlight=betta+community

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=6348&highlight=betta+community

 

[tkos]

The problem can sometimes be that tetras nip the bettas fins. With lots of plants though I don't think that particular setup will give you problems. Just keep your eyes on the tank and remove the betta if things don't look good. Some bettas are much more peaceful than others. Another choice might be a dwarf gourami or a paradise fish. All are of the same family, look nice and colourful and are quite fun to watch them rule the tank.

What are you going to do with the danios. I really get upset when people use them to cycle tanks and then get rid of them. They are such beautiful fish and people treat them like crap. If you are giving them back to the fish store then that menas some one else will buy damaged fish. If you start a new tank in the future really look into getting some biospira or else do a fishless cycle.

And please do water changes if there are any detectable amounts of ammonia or nitrite. Remember any detectable amounts means the bacteria can't cope with it yet and therefore the fish are having their gills burnt. And also remember that each new fish you add over the bioload of five fish will result in a new mini cycle as there aren't enough bacteria to deal with the change. And finally ottos are a very unhardy fish and need a very established tank to help them survive. Probably stable for a month or more.

 

[Solid Snake]

A good starter plant is Hornwart, which you can lets float at the top of the tank, where it will thrive. Hornwart also provides a good hiding place for livebearer (platies, mollies, guppies) fry to hide. I had it in my tank for about 2 years and it saved countless baby platies.

Ive heared its all right to keep 1 Betta in a large community tank, which is good news since you have a 30 gallon. If you can find a female Betta, well you would have a pretty rare fish if you found one of them .

 

[Solid Snake]

Oops! 8O Its spelled Hornwort, not "Hornwart." .

 

[Solid Snake]

I think.....

 

[LonerVamp]

I would have gotten Bio-Spira, but there are no dealers in the midwest, the closest being 95 miles away.

Ottos will be one of the last things I buy. And I am changing out the water as I go, about 20% every 3-4 days, pending any abnormal test results.

How are danios damaged afterwords? Yes, I'll be returning them to the pet store that I got them from. I would have happily used Bio-Spira, in fact, that was the plan from the start, but locating it proved to be a problem, so I adjusted. I only wanted to use it as it was recommended to me by a former gf, and I don't feel comfortable enough adjusting my plans around other treatments that I'm unsure of.

Be nice to me, I'm new.

 

[tkos]

The danios are building up ammonia in the tank which is starting the cycle by introducing a food source for good bacteria. Unfortunatly in the beginning the ammonia will be greater than the bacteria can eat. The excess ammonia will burn the gills on the danios, which when returned to the store will be sold to some other person who will get sad when there danios die in a short period of time. Gills are the same as lungs so picture if you burnt your lungs. That is how the danios will feel. So it is very important that you get a test kit and check constantly for ammonia and then for nitrites. When these are at detectable levels it is important to do a water change to get them down. Will this slow the cycle? Yes, but there will still be enough ammonia for the bacteria to constantly grow. Any detectable amounts will mean that the current level of bacteria is unable to use it. This will keep your danios as healthy as possible.

High ammonia and nitrite levels can also lead to stress which can cause cause an outbreak of illness like ich.

Sorry to sound upset but I hate to see fish get treated as throw away items. Mostly I am mad at the fish stores that have policies of essentially lending fish for cycling purposes. They never seem to tell new fish keepers what they need know.

 

[blue_neon]

if you really want a betta in your tank i think that it would be a great addition ... and dont worry about the tetras nipping the fins if you get 15 they should be too busy chasing each other ... and if you want more than one in there it could be possible if you get females but if you do make sure that they are already in the same tank at your lfs because if not they could be too mean they are not quite as pretty as males but you can usually have more than one in a tank... and the truth is that they are not rare but people in pet stores dont like selling them for two reasons; one. they dont sell as well because they are not as pretty and two. if you sell females people then can breed them and wont be coming back for more.

 

[LonerVamp]

I do have a test kit. *feels a bit insulted*


Good point on the females blue_neon, but I'll still be happy with just one male. Thanks for the comments!

 

[ShyGecko]

Where in Iowa do you live?? Further than 95 miles away from Omaha, NE? Just curious, b/c I know of at least one store in Omaha that sells Bio-Spira.

 

[LonerVamp]

Des Moines, so maybe about close to that. The store I know of is in Waterloo.

How long does Bio-Spira last? I could always pick some up when I swing near Council Bluffs when I visit home in Sioux City.

 

[Madame_X]

As long as you kept it in a cooler, it would be fine. As you've already started cycling with the danios, though, you probably should just stay the course. Sounds like things are progressing along fine.

When I was starting my tank, I looked high and low for BioSpira as well. One fish store I went to basically told me it was stupid to do it that way and suggested I buy some danios or platies to cycle and then take them back when I was finished. So my thought was, "Great, how many cycles have these poor fish been through?" I left, and found a place that would mail order the BioSpira. I won't buy fish from them because how do I know they haven't been used to cycle a dozen tanks and will die on me in a week?

I think tkos would just like to see you give the danios a good home since they served their purpose for you. Any chance you might consider keeping them? They would get along fine with the other fish you want to keep. You may have to cut down on the numbers of a few others to make room but a 30 gallon should be plenty of space for a nice variety of community fish.

By the way, welcome to the forum! There is a lot of great advice to be had here (as I've found on many occasions since I started). It does sound like you did your research and at least are taking the time to cycle your tank, rather than throwing 20 fish in there right off the start (a disaster waiting to happen).

Good luck!

 

[TankGirl]

Let me just say that it sounds like you have really done your research prior to getting all of your fish, which many do not do, so you are really on the right track. The fish you have selected sound great to me, and it should be a very nice tank, especially when the plants settle in. You have obviously thought about what fish to have and what plants, and have used appropriate substrate for your plans. I too believe you could keep your danios, as they make for a very active tank. You are really going about this in the proper way, so good luck and enjoy!

 

[LonerVamp]

I will certainly look into keeping the danios. I may bring them to work to a 40 gal tank that we currently have an oversized Pirahna in. The poor guy got some bad batches of feeder fish from Petco though, and the tank has gone to hell. We're looking to get rid of him (he's almost too big for the tank anyway) and start the thing over with less up-keep fish, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome Tank and Madame! I really did research and poke around about a month before actually setting things up. It really helped to have an old gf (and current best friend) and a friend from work help me out independently with any questions. I also have to thank some of my 2.5 years of chem/bio/genetics/physics in college too...whew, I understand the cycles! hehe

I'll let you all know how things turn out, as my main goal right now is to not have a majority of things die. I figure I'm a newbie to this, so it's realistic to think I'll miss something and a fish or more may die, so I'm hoping just to be successful in keeping most of them alive for now. So far so good, no casualties at all.

 

[LonerVamp]

Hey, just thought I would give an update here.

My 5 starter Danios have been alive and active ever since I got them. A friend suggested that one was a female, as she's a bit bigger and did some bullying the first day or two, and I think I agree with her. The danios eat well, play around, dart all over including the bottom (which I figured they would avoid if the oxygen was too low).

It has now been 2.5 weeks since I started the tank. The plants are struggling, but that is due to my inadequate lighting right now.

Levels have been as expected I guess, although this is my first tank ever. Ammonia spike early but in just about 2-3 days was pretty much unregistered. Nitrites remained very high for a while, but they just started going down about 6 days ago and have now dropped to about 2-3ppm two days ago (doing test in an hour or so). A week ago I also indulged myself with a Nitrate test just to assuage my curiosity, and low and behold, I registered nitrates (which I find to be a good thing!).

So hopefully by this weekend I can find a new home for my danios and start swapping things in and out of a fully cycled tank.

 

[William]

I tried to put my male betta in my 30gal community tank.


He would flare his gills and attack a Bala shark that was 3 times his size, as well as pick on little guys.

I, however, just got a female baby betta [ most beautiful purple female you could ever see! ], shes only about an inch long, but shes getting along greate with everyone else.


She likes to snuggle deep into a big bunch of hornwort and hide, which is no big deal.. with exception of Veg-o-matic, one of my new female fiddlers who has spent the entire DAY in the hornwart filling her fat gills to the brim on the plant!