10 gallon betta mates?

[klour.fish]

Hey, all! I haven't ever tried to keep a betta with any tank mates before, all of my past bettas have been in solo bachelor pad 5 gallons. Now, I have a 10 gallon I got from a friend and am thinking about trying a betta with tank makes. So far, here's the plan:

1 male betta (the only thing guaranteed in this tank)
??? ember tetras
??? bottom feeder of some kind
A few shrimp
Nerite snail

Trying to figure out how to do this in a 10 gal. is making my head spin. I'm worried about bioload but would love to have an interesting and dynamic tank. Is that even possible with a 10 gallon or would I have to go bigger? Any advice?

 

[SaraB]

Skip the shrimp, your betta might kill them all.
5 embers should be ok in that size of a tank, they are small so their bioload isn't big. The only bottom feeder I can reccomend for a 10g would be pygmy corydoras. They only get 1" max. Di you need bottom feeders if you have snails though?
I would keep the 5 gal set up just in case your betta doesn't like friends. Every fish is different.

 

[kbalaz]

I have cherry shrimp in my Betta tank and he leaves them alone. Actually second Betta in the same tank and neither Betta bothers the shrimp. But...big but here. When I first added shrimp, my Betta was there first, he did go after one right away and kill it, and then got along with the others. I also have plenty of hiding places for the shrimp. Second betta (first one sadly died after a year and a bit), went into tank with shrimp already living there and he swims around with them all the time, never looks at them. As SaraB said though, every fish is different.