Male Siamese Fighter/betta, Cory & What?

[joshuaedgington]

Hi,
Ummm... yes i posted a thread recently asking about what to stock in my tank.
the tank:
100 litre planted kept around 26C temp(could be changed if needed) 7.2 general PH sand substrate.

i decided on guppys(fell in love with guppys purely because i was told fighters/bettas are harder to keep in communities, but actually im starting to think this sint the case)
i have such bad luck with guppys, cause they're all such bad quality in lfs arent they.

anyway, i have decided i will go with my original want and put a fighter/betta in my community. i currently have 5 peppered cory in there.

so what else could i keep with them and the male fighter/what are my options?

sorry for the long post, and i hope it makes sense.
please reply!!! thank you

 

[electropunk06]

hi, keeping a betta in a community is not quite that simple, i depends on the individual bettas temperament. i had my betta in my community but had to move him after he started fighting with the corys. if you get a very placid betta then you can pretty keep them with anything but be careful.
also avoid fin nippers like most tetra, and avoid anything to brightly coloured or long fins.
im no expert but this seems to be the general consensus on here.
hope this helps
Lloyd

 

[joshuaedgington]

yeah erm i know different fighters have different attitudes etc, so my plan was to get the most "peaceul2 looking one. my lfs keeps them in with other community freshwater fish.
but you say you could keep them with anything if they're peaceful enough, well i certainly wouldnt risk ANYTHING no matter how peaceful they are, such as gourami or male guppy, no.
so what would you suggest are the best/safest/most likely to be positive bets with a male fighter?

 

[electropunk06]

when my betta was in wit my other fish he seemed to ignore the danios but to big a shoal can stress them out but 6-8 should be fine.
shrimp could always work but could end up being eaten mine didn't.
khuli loaches would also be suitable.
plecos (bristlenose or pitbull) would be fine as well and so would botiids but some can grow quite large.
Lloyd

 

[joshuaedgington]

at my lfs the other day i saw some danio that were pale pink/white with long floaty fins. i cant remeber what they were called.
ah but thanks, keep shoals small. would rummynose tetra work with a male fighter or not?
loaches and plec, i have corys and plan on getting shrimp and netrite snails so wouldnt want anything else on the bottom

 

[electropunk06]

were they White Cloud Mountain Minnows they?
not to sure about rummynose but i think tetra shoud be avoided (but not sure ) also only have one shoal in there to avoid stress.
try and get quite large shrimp so they don't become betta dinner.
Lloyd

 

[sde09001]

i've only ever kept females in community tanks, never a male, but i have seen the LFS near me do it many time with success. most of the time they were in with livebearers and just avoided them but were still active healthy. they also kept them in with various algae eaters. HTH

 

[KittyKat]

Depends on the individual fish.

In that size tank I have kept male Betta splendens with cardinals, harlequin rasboras, Corys, plecos, Endlers.. where all schooling fish were in groups of 10+.

 

[joshuaedgington]

thanks for your replies, seems like im just gonna have to have a go at it with other fish. i have a spare 14 litre that i could pop him into once i get him if anything goes wrong with him inthe community then think again. just nono to gourami and livebearers to start with. thanks!

 

[Azaeil]

Good luck setting up the tank! And yes definitely no gouramis, they may be 'community fish' but they are notorious nippers of any fish in the tank, and get larger than the betta. We tried a couple gouramis with goldfish in the past, and we had to find them new homes because the gouramis kept tearing up the goldfish.

I agree with everyone else, I've got an albino cory and two khulis in with my sorority tank of 4 girls, and they're all doing fine, the only fin nippage was from the girls setting a pecking order, but that's it.

In my divided male tank I've got again two Khulis, and get this, a small peacock eel whom I'll eventually scoot to his own tank when he gets bigger and hand-tamed. So far with those guys the eel is content to lurk under his rock or sit mostly buried in the gravel with his head poking out. No nippage has occurred from him against any of my three males. The dividers I use are plastic canvas from a hobby store with some petstore border plastic clips because the dividers they sold me did not work because they came rolled up and are a pain to put together, and leave large gaps for the bettas to get at each other. The nice thing with the plastic canvas is you can custom fit to the tank. Just a little something if you decide to have a split tank for a couple males, plus they can't see each other through the netting ;3

 

[BethK]

Bettas in a community is rather easy actually; just stock your tank around the betta. So if you're one betta male, he will be fine with the corys, you could have;

8 harlequin rasboras
5 corys
1 male betta


the above stocking will be fine in a 100ltr. Just ensure that you have the tank planted well, for hiding places etc.