Betta fish

[Fin35]

I have a heavily planted 10 gallon Betta fish. I’m thinking of adding a school of 6-8 embers tetra fish. I just don’t want the presence of other fish to stress my Betta out. Some say they can live in a community, but will they be unhappy with it? I was thinking of Pygmy Cory but heard they need more than 10

 

[libertybelle]

I have pygmy’s in a 10. They’re very active so I wouldn’t do them in less than a 10. As to the betta it really depends on the fish. I’ve kept bettas with small schooling fish like neons / glolights / otos even ghost shrimp. Some bettas tolerate tank mates some don’t. Properly introduced and with lots of decor/plants I think most bettas are fine with non-nippy schooling fish

 

[Fin35]

Awesome! I’d love to get some pygmys. How many do you have in a 10? ! Can you post a picture of your tank? I have it heavily planted, will they be able to swim if it’s covered with moss balls and plants?I have a piece of driftwood with plants and moss on it, hopefully it’s not to sharp for them.

 

[libertybelle]

Oh they’ll love the plants. Mine are constantly resting in the plants and driftwood. At the moment there’s floating driftwood in there that hasn’t sunk yet and it’s a total mess; I actually just thinned out plants yesterday to move to another tank so normally the plants are even denser than that.

Just gives them more to explore in a relatively small space.

I originally had a dozen in a larger tank but sadly I lost half of them in the first few days. They were in rough shape from the big box store and I haven’t been able to find them locally again. I moved the 6 who made it into the 10. With the betta in there with yours though, 6 is probably a good number to start with.

The betta is already in the tank? If you google adding betta tankmates you’ll get some hints for how to ease the transition. Some people recommend reorganizing decor or taking the betta out for a couple hours to let the smaller fish find all the hiding places in case the betta is a little too curious at first. Some people have put the betta in a breeders net for a while so they can get used to the idea of tankmates. Whenever I add new fish I feed the tank an hour before then dim the lights for at least a few hours so I can still keep an eye on them but the fish will all be calmer. Usually there’s a bit of brief transient chasing but my bettas were pretty mellow and it never went beyond that. But there’s a ton of personality variation with bettas so keep an eye on things for a while, especially in the first few hours.

 

[Fin35]

Is that jingle Val? My jingle val about died but now it’s making a comeback with baby plants, so I hope it grows big soon. There is a local store here that has them, the guy is pretty knowledgeable as he owns the store. He did say the Pygmy are fast and the Betta couldn’t catch them and would give up and wouldn’t hurt them, I’d hate to stress the poor guys out though. I may just keep him as a loan fish with snails for his life, then get the Pygmy with a female Betta. They’re better at community living.

 

[libertybelle]

Like I said I’ve had bettas in my community tanks and for the most part it didn’t stress them out at all. They liked having the room to explore and other fish to watch. But betta personalities vary a lot and some do do better on their own so there is a bit of trial and error on this one. If it were me I’d give it a shot. I love bettas in community tank!

I think it’s Italian val with maybe some corkscrew val mixed in; though honestly I don’t know the physical difference between that and “jungle” val.

Are you using excel? I’ve read that Can cause val die back.

 

[Fin35]

No, I did get some root tabs and I only have about 1.2-2 inches of sand, will that be. A problem with the Pygmys? Most people seem to think Bettas are only aggressive with other Bettas and no other fish, so I’ll probably try

 

[Fin35]

Will they uproot plants?

 

[libertybelle]

Neither the betta or pygmys will uproot plants

 

[Fin35]

I ended up getting 10 ember tetras , they’re so small! I put in some guppy grass and the Betta totally ignores the fish! He was more interested in the snails that I first put in. He would of been totally fine with the Pygmy corycats! I could add 5 but not sure if that would be overstocking, they’re so small I doubt they have much bioload. How do you avoid siphoning up such tiny fish when cleaning? I have San substrate so I need to wave the wand around away from the ground, hopefully they stay away. My water is so foggy now that I added in the store aquarium water. Thanks for your help.

 

[libertybelle]

For the record in the future you don’t want to add the store water; too much risk of adding contaminating illness causing bugs.

I would probably avoid adding much more to that tank. You need to give it a couple weeks to adjust to the bioload anyway. (Adding 10 fish at once is a lot in a 10 gallon, even small fish so make sure you check ammonia and nitrites frequently in the next day or two.) Then see how things go; how much nitrate you are seeing pre water change and how the fish use the space and whether the betta seems at all stressed by the activity around him.

I think the ember tetras stay under an inch and pygmys even smaller so it likely wouldn’t be a problem of bioload (especially if you have good filtration and lots of healthy plants) but of space. Don’t want to stress your betta with too much going on in there and Pygmy cories tend to swim midwater more than other cories, so they’re not only hanging at the bottom like their larger counterparts.

 

[libertybelle]

Re siphoning: fish will mostly avoid the tube if you give them the chance. Do you use a siphon / python or airline tube?

Just keep an eye on where you’re working and if a fish darts up the siphon, just crimp the tube and they’ll swim back out no problem.

 

[Fin35]

I’ll probably do a water change in couple days to keep everything in check. Dang, I hope these guys don’t stress him out! They do stay out of his way and he is resting in the guppy grass. All the research I did says they don’t mind other fish as long as it’s not another Betta?

 

[libertybelle]

Most of the time that is true. It’s just some bettas have different personalities.

Sounds like it’s unlikely to be a problem with this one, as far as we can tell so far, so that’s great. (Some people try to add tankmates and it’s immediate mayhem!)

 

[kbalaz]

I have a 10 gallon planted with a single betta as well. 2 assassin snails and about 10 fire red shrimp, previous betta got along fine with them but he passed. I added a new one and was worried, but thought because they are in their first might be ok. New betta swam up to a few shrimp, stared at them and then carried on. He doesn't even look at them at all. One shrimp about to have babies so be interesting to see how he reacts when they are born.

 

[Fin35]

Wow! My Betta went after my ammono. He died from going inside filter to hire and then my Betta ate the whole shrimp! So I haven’t tried shrimp since. He’s fine with my ember tetras, I love them, they’re adorable. They don’t seem bothered by him either

 

[libertybelle]

Doesn’t surprise me; as I said there’s a ton of variation in betta personality. I’ve seen bettas completely ignore baby shrimp in a half gallon display tank at a store and others that reportedly chase anything you put in the tank with them. Most are somewhere in between; they’ll go after a shrimp if it’s convenient and the betta is a little hungry or something but some of the time they don’t bother.

I had a betta in a community tank for a long time and he left the ghost shrimp completely alone until I left town for a few days. There were always fewer shrimp when I came back from a vacation ...