Will bettas eat neons?

[cmwalters]

I have a male betta in a ten gallon planted tank and I added a school of 6 green neons. After the first night, we couldn't find one of them. Yesterday we didn't lose any. And today, I can only find four. Is the betta to blame? He's normally very calm; we kept him with guppies and he didn't even bother them. Or are these fish dying and the betta being an opportunistic feeder.

 

[mrvincent]

Betta's behaviour is very from a betta to another. In a 10 gallons with weak fishs, he will probably fight.

Maybe it could work in a 30gal+ tank with a LOT of plants and hiding places...

 

[jmay33]

In my experience, the neons are extremely sensitive. They might just be dying.

 

[mrvincent]

Neons may just die only by seeing the betta. (Little joke, but neons are very cardiacs fishs)

 

[rmiller]

I have kept betta's with neons before with no problems. It's more likely that your neons are hiding. It is possible that they are dying. You need to keep a very close eye on your water parameters for the next few weeks. If you have an ammonia spike, it's likely that you've lost some.

 

[mrvincent]

I know sometime it's hard to do, but the best way to know if there's some dead, before you get the waste spike, count them.

Depends of the hidings places

 

[Khuligirl93]

In my experience neons are way too fast for the beta to bother. Also usually betas only bother other fish with long flowing fins, because they mistake them for another beta.