My New Betta And A Few Questions About Keeping Them.

[XPANDA]

i have a new betta called martin in my new 20 gallon tank, ive had him around 30 days now. Hes really cool and chases his reflection around and hangs around everywhere in the tank. He gets on well with my 5 cardinal tetras and comes to the surface to feed and it seems like hes looking at me when im near the tank! Anyway, im wondering what are good tank mates with a betta? And would he be better with some kind of leaf on the surface to hide under, i dont really want any floating plants so maybe a fake, im sure he needs a home before i get any new fish! im also feeding him with flakes and a frozen mixture of worms and shrimp etc, will this be ok for him? any advice is well appreciated. thanks

 

[zoekin8yg]

Cardinals are not the best tank mates as they can be nippy and damage a bettas fins, in general bettas are best kept alone, you can try a shoal of cories or ottos, bettas like lots of plants to swim through and lie on, avoid plastic plants as they can damage a bettas fins, silk ones are fine

 

[monica]

White clouds or zebra danios are good.

 

[juiced1300]

I like zebra danio's since they're really peaceful fish, they should be fine together, but like anything else dont over populate and with betta's keep the water flow (filtration flow) very low since a strong current will batter your betta and stress him out and wear him out.
I have silk plants in my tank (i know, i'm a sellout lol) and they're fairly safe for your betta and other fish. I have this silk grass that floats if it isnt in the gravel, so i attached a piece to the corner of the tank for my betta to hang out under and found that he'd wiggle himself into it so that he can literally just chill out and sit in there. It freaked me out at first until i saw that he wasnt tangled in and could easily get out.
One of my other betta tanks just had silk plants on the bottom and that betta just found ways to lay in the leaves so really just play with it and see what he goes for since they all have personalities like us