Zed in my community tank

[janoue]

I put Zed in my community tank this morning. He seems to like it in there. When i first put him in there I realized that some of the other fish (I got this black molly with some serious additude) were being a little territorial. So I rearanged thier plants and thier cave's etc to try to force everyone to make new territories. All I have in there are peiceful fish. I have two platy's, a molly, a irridecent shark which is going back to the pet store, more on that later) and a few small commets that we bought to help get the cycle going and we figured they would die, but they didn't. Grew really big though. And I have two red tetras(some of the most calm peaceful beautiful fish i've ever seen) and I have some glo lite tetra's and some tuxeto tetras.
What else can I do to make Zed my Red feel more at home?

[Drea]

I've never had luck with doing what you have done. It sounds very risky, and I would be spending alot of time watching what is going on. Sometimes even peaceful fish can get nippy when the see those betta fins, it must be some kind of attraction. All of the betta parents here will hopefully lend alot more info.

[COBettaCouple]

Plenty of hiding spots might and watching for any signs of fin damage would be good. They aren't aggressive but our platys were so curious when we had them with our 1st Betta that they got him nervous with investigating him and got fins chomped off.

[janoue]

So far so good. I watched the tank for a couple hours last night and had my husband watching it this morning. They don't seem to pay too much attention to him and he doesn't care too much about them just as long as they stay out of his side of the tank. I gave him lots of plants and a cave. He's doing very well.

[janoue]

ps,
I picked Zed to go in the community tank because he is the most easy going out of the three.

[Barbrella]

I"ve considered putting one of my male bettas in my 20 gal community. He's very docile and in the 3 months I've had him, he's never once flared, not even at a mirror.

Other than the possibility of my other fish nipping his fins, I worry most about feeding. There's no way a veiltail betta can ever get to the food fast enough to compete with the others.

How are you planning on feeding him?

[Drea]

oooh, that's a great question Barbarella!

[janoue]

I use tweezers, and put it in the tank for him. Yesterday with the bloodworms and today with the brine shrimp. Beleive me he's getting lots to eat. I will to the same tomorrow with his pea's. So I take the food to him with tweazers, i don't just drop it in and hope and pray he gets it. And I feed the other fish well first.

[COBettaCouple]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...t=forceps&Np=1 - If your tweezers don't have rounded tips, you might want to get something like the rounded angled-end forceps at that link. The Bettas (and our Angel) will often bite onto the tweezers in their enthusiasm.

[janoue]

Good Idea. Thanks for the advice. He's just in there until I get my bigger tank for my B-Day. Then he will be in half of a ten gallon.