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HalfMoon B

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
May 27, 2011
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Location
Austin, Texas
Hello everyone!
I am currently upgrading Oscar's (my betta) tank from a 10 gal to a 30 gal and would desperately love to get a little more life in there that what I have currently.

My 30 gal is set up and almost done cycling (Ammo at 0 after 24 hour, nitrites at 0 after 24 hours, and nitrites are hovering between 10 and 15 before PWC).

I have the new tank planted with an anubais anchored in driftwood, also fake rock cover, a long leaf sword, and some floating tears for Oscar.

I have scoured the internet for the better part of the last 3 weeks on acceptable tankmates for Oscar, he is a halfmoontail male, so he he has some pretty big fins to nip at, but he so far has completely ignored his 2 apple snail companions.

anyone know anything about silver dollars and bettas?
any personal experience with a few tankmates that have a bit of color would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I only have a sponge filter set up in the 30 gal, with an air pump fir bigger flow, and an air diffuser to keep current as low as possible. would this be sufficient for any other species besides just a betta?

Thanks in advance!
 
Silver dollars will get too big for a 30 gallon tank. I would imagine that smaller tetras, corys, rasboras would all work.
 
that is a lot of the same information that i have found. Anyone have experience with black phantom tetras?
 
I would go with bottom dwellers, like otos, corys, etc. I would stay away from other bettas, any fish that have flashy fins like bettas, and nipping fish that swim faster than bettas.
 
Obviously I know to stay away from cichlids, guaramis, and barbs. Are there any colorful corys? Most of the ones I see are rather....blah.
 
I have a shoal of Cardinal tetras in with my betta and they get along great. Shrimp is another option to consider (ghost, AEC, RCS & CRS) since Elvis tends to ignore them altogether lol.

If you look into Cards, get farm raised not wild caught. My first batch of wild cards weren't very hardy, but the farm raised are fine.
 
you could try swordtails,my current 2 are very peaceful.i did get one that was really mean,and ate almost all of my rainbow sharks fins,but a betta should keep even an aggressive one in line(at the time my shark and swordtial were both in qt and my shark was very lethargic,doubt he put up much of a fight)
 
I will be getting a canister to attach to the sponge filter shortly (before adding any fish).
I will have to look into swordtails, I don't know much about them.

My tank came with an aqueon HOB filter, anyone have experience with these and Bettas? The filter itself doesn't have any flow control settings. I think I will just use a sponge prefilter on that to cut down flow and current and then obviously for the bio cleaning factor.
 
there really great fish,my female even handfeeds:)
edit:we posted at the same time
 
my ghost shrimp do a prettyt horrible job of cleaning off the algae,and any shrimp(except for big ones...until they moult)could become food.
 
alLexX said:
my ghost shrimp do a prettyt horrible job of cleaning off the algae,and any shrimp(except for big ones...until they moult)could become food.

I have a LFS that has a good deal of mature ghosties that would more than likely be too large to eat, and they will have plenty of hiding room. Even so, they would only be a 33 cent meal. And for algae I do already have the two apple snails to transport to the new tank.
 
Mr. Limpet, do you know anything about emperor tetras?

I don't, the Cards were recommended since they don't have long fins and are not fin nippers. I was warned if a fish has flashy fins, the betta will take it as a challenge from another betta and attack it. Made sense to me, so there were a lot of fish I stayed away from.
 
I have a LFS that has a good deal of mature ghosties that would more than likely be too large to eat, and they will have plenty of hiding room. Even so, they would only be a 33 cent meal. And for algae I do already have the two apple snails to transport to the new tank.
im pretty sure that if it wanted to,a betta could eat a full grown ghostie fairly easily,by big ones i meant amano,bamboo,etc.but you could try the ghosties,theres always a chance your betta might not decide to eat them.
 
my ghost shrimp do a prettyt horrible job of cleaning off the algae,and any shrimp(except for big ones...until they moult)could become food.

Yep, I've had mixed luck with ghosties, but AES are the best for cleaning algae IMO. They have my farm of Java Fern polished up like an expensive sports car lol.
 
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