Male Beta in a community tank- works for me- PICS

You lucky dog, you! I put my betta in my 20g for about 20 minutes before I had to pull him back out.

What a gorgeous little guy!!!!!How big of a tank is he in? What are the other occupants? Sounds like you got pretty lucky!!!

I think to have a betta work in a community tank, you have to have two things:

1. A tank that is 30+ gallons with lots of plants, low/no current spots, and plenty of hiding spaces

2. Relatively compatible tank mates

3. The tank needs to be stocked or understocked with fish close the the same size as the betta. NOT overstocked

Overall, I think for a betta to do well in a community tank, he needs SPACE and it's possible that any aggressive tendancies the betta may have could be accentuated by crowding.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark, our last betta, wasn't looking so hot. The only time he showed any real life at all was when someone came in the kitchen and talked to him. Mark reminds me a LOT of Jakers in personality. He can be a real monster towards other fish.

IMO bettas are very intelligent and I decided he may be very bored. I moved Mark into my 36g bowfront:

6 Millenium rainbowfish (very small, largest is maybe 1½", growing out before they go into the 75g)
1 Adult Platy male
7? Baby platys, largest is about 3/4" (going to the LFS once they get a little bigger)
3 Kuhlii loaches
3 corycats
2 "Ghost Shrimp"
2 Neon Tetras
2 Glolites
5 otos

The bowfront is very heavily planted with a LARGE Amazon sword, clover, riccia, hairgrass, rotala, apogenton, and bolbitis. Large piece of driftwood with lots of holes and two very large rocks, one of which weighs 29#.

The tank has a Penguin 330, kinda strong outflow, but I keep the tank topped because of CO2 and it doesn't give Mark a problem at all.

Mark has been looking good ever since I put him in there. He bothers no one except the "ghost" shrimp (fine by me! I hate those things) and spends all his time exploring. At first I was a little worried about the Milleniums, but they spend all their time in the current and ignore Mark totally. The tank is almost "divided" the way I have it set up. The left side has a medium current and the right side low or no current. He swims around both sides equally.

I think it was a good move putting him in there.

Roan

MoparORnoCAR said:

The only problem I had at first was making sure he got the proper food and the proper amount, the tetras are FAST and he is....uh.... not so fast. so now I feed the tetras first on one side and Trillian waits on the far side for his share Smart boy.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what Mark does

He waits on the calm side while I feed the rainbows and greedy fast fish, and then I give him some. He usually chases any leftovers down to the bottom of the tank and tries to steal them from the kuhliis.

Roan

what a pretty boy .. we just actually picked up a female crowntail at Walmart of all places.. wasnt planning on it as they sell there females for the same price as the males... but then we seen this one and snagged her up .. she is a pretty lil girl .. red and blues.. we also have a beautifull male that we are gonna try and mate with he is a good nest builder .. hope we get some babies ..

Marn

Beautiful fish. Male Bettas can certainly go in some community set ups (well, some bettas can). I have a male in a 10g by himself with six ghost shrimp but I'm considering getting some friends for him. Oh, actually, the ghost shrimp attacked him the first day that they were put together but everyone gets along nicely now.

What a handsome boy!!! And how lucky you are. I tried a male betta in my 55 gallon, and just didn't care for the vibes between him and the pearl gouramis so I pulled him out.