betta vs tetras

T

the_dougie

Why call it tunaFISH??
Oct 17, 2004
236
0
0
Toronto area, Canada
I'm just wondering. I have 5 small glass tetras in a 10gal tank. theres a few hiding spots and it's moderately planted. All I'm wondering is if a betta would be attacked by these little fin nippy tetras, or if he would attack them. (I know this mainly depends more or less on the personality of the fish but i want just a rough guess)
So, the biggest tetra is roughly an inch or so long, and seems to be the more dominant one. Bettas are rather slow moving while tetras can be fast. I'm wondering if it's safe to mix the two...
 
Just so you know, I am not by any stretch an expert, but I had a "teenage" ( not quite full grown yet not really juvenile ) Betta in my tank with 6 mature Black Skirt Tetras. There was about 2-3 days of them kinda "squaring off" with the Black Skirts doing some slight harassment and then they settled down and basically, now, ignore each other... I have had them in the same moderately planted 29 gal for over 6 months..... Hope that helps....
 
I have had a betta in my 55g community for several months now. He shares the tank with several tetras. All the tetra nip at each other and the betta. From time to time I catch the betta chasing and nipping at the tetra. Its comical! No harm noted.

Scott
 
k well ive put mr betta in a freezer bag with his water and hes now floating in the tank. none of the tetras seem to be eager to get close to him, and their all grouping. he seems to be somewhat curious of them though. he'll look at them from time to time and seems to try to follow them with his eyes if they make sudden movement. I think this'll work :)

UPDATE: the tetras seem to be acting very strangely. mr bettas still in his bag and my tetras are now on the opposite side of where he is, trying to hide for cover in 2 java ferns and bumping against the glass occasionally (not darting, but trying to push against it)
 
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OkAY! well hes now in his bigger tank...and i can easily say the tetras wont give him any problems. All of them are grouping together and swimming away from him, when he does an occasional lunge...now i feel bad for some of the smaller tetras :(

he is getting caught a few times in the filter intake. He's broken free of the suction once, and I unplugged the filter for a few seconds the other times. Now I'm just worried he'll kill one of the tetras, or hell get caught in the filter and rip his fins off...what should I do...?
 
You could cover the filter intake with some filter sponge. That should take care of the betta getting sucked in.

As for the tertras, they are probably a bit nervous because they've never saw a betta and won't know if it's friend or foe. The same thing happened when I introduced my powder blue with my black skirts. Now they mainly just ignore each other. Sometimes the gourami will go for a tetra if they start to zip around it's face when I feed them, but the tetras are too swift and agile for it.
 
hmm...hes lost some scales....and theres a big mound of pooh that's hanging out of him. not stringy, blobby...he seems to be pooinh a lot more than before...before he was kinda bloated.
Ahhh I'm worried about him.
 
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go easy on the lights for a few hours and he should recover. Its probably just stress from the move.
 
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