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i have a 15g tank that i plan to put in a male betta, i would like to acompany him with a school of smaller fish and possibly some sort of shrimp, any suggestions what would go well. the more colourful the better.
thanks

Any non-nippy tetra species would work just fine, something like flame, lemon, cardinal, or black neon tetras. These fish can all be kept with bettas, along with quite a few other tetra species. I myself have kept lemons with a betta, and they got along pretty well.

As for shrimp, be careful. Bettas have been known to eat shrimp, and ghost shrimp in particular. If you want to keep any kind of shrimp besides the ghosts, try them with ghost shrimp to see how things go. They are cheap, and can help you to determine whether or not your bettas will get along with (i.e., not eat) other species of shrimp.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

shrimp we saw were "marble fan shrimp" and i would have said it was far to big for a betta to eat, but not sure if it had the potential to become a threat to the smaller fish, i wouldnt have thought so because they are scavengers and not hunters

well all bettas are different like people. some or more aggressive and some are less. depending on ur betta u can base ur fish opition on that. with a peaceful male betta, that won't get picked on. u can go with guppies, small barbs, ottos, cory, with a more aggressive betta then, larger barbs or tetra or maybe nothing at all. as for the shrimps most bettas will eat them. u can try divding the tank into 2 parts and add a male to each side if u were looking for ur betta to flare.

sorry, im confused. how can a betta eat a shrimp thats almost its own size?

maybe not the type u wrote. i didn't read the type of shrimp b4 i posted, but ghost shrimps can get eatten by bettas. sry for the mix up

I always used to have trouble keeping a Betta for any length of time even in a quiet Community tank.
Recently, I put 1 in a 35gal, with 4 dwarf gouramis and 12 black phantom tetras & the results are amazing. everyone is happy healthy and unstressed.You might need to adjust the numbers down a little for the smaller tank but the mix really works & looks great in my setup.
P.S. I use to small filters, an Aquaclear 200 and a very small powerhead as the Betta really like quiet water.

the internal filter i have is quite powerful but i am going to adapt the water return flow so that it creates minimum current.

[font color="#000080"] I hade a lovely male betta in a 10 gallon with 6 or so black neon tetras and a placostamous. Evryone got along just fine. I threw in a plant and a little mirror near the front on the side of the tank and the betta would go flare by it alot. He also loved the airstone I put in. But I have also kept a betta with golden barbs that were slightly smaller and everything went pretty smoothely. Every now and then the barbs would get a little nippy, but nothing major. They were in a 10 gallon tank too... i think i had 3 barbs in with the one male betta. [/font]

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Last edited by alexandre at 16-Apr-2005 12:57