hooxeii

Hey all, as you probably know if you lurk around here much, I've got a female betta in with a cory, an oto, 7 neons, and a ghost shrimp. The oto, cory, and betta have been together awhile and get along lovely. The tetras are new-ish and as many of you likely know I had a bad experience involving glowlight tetras and a female betta. While the neons have shown no aggression so far, I'm watching the betta carefully for any injuries, stress signs, etc.

I've been told here multiple times by people that bettas don't like community tanks. I'm freaking out because my betta girl seems happy, and so do all the other fish. I worry that I am being unfair to my betta girl, by having her in there, but at the same time I worry about if she'd like being by herself after being in the community tank for a few weeks. I don't want to stress her with sudden changes or anything; granted, none of the changes would be that sudden except in case of aggression.

I've been asking for feedback on this both at my LFS and here, as well as browsing the internet and such. The answers to my question are conflicted, with one end being the "don't do it, they don't like it" end of the spectrum, whereas the others are "supervise carefully, mostly ok, depends" and "they do well together."

Obviously I take what my LFS says with a grain of salt because they want to make money and while they are generally good, knowledgeable people, they are trying to sell stuff and might make things up to make a few dollars. I looked at nippyfish, which I consider to be an excellent betta site, and it says they do ok in most cases. However, the majority vote on here seems to think that the neons will nip without fail, and you guys all seem to know what you're doing...

What would you guys do? I'm willing to accept that there IS no definitive answer, that it depends on the situation and fish involved...

scatty

I think you've just summed it up yourself. I agonised over the same issue myself for a while, my male betta shared a tank with a few corys and interacted with them well, but I kept hearing that they're happier on their own. I had one naughty cory who decided it was fun to do some fin-nibbling, so eventually I separated them. Even though my betta boy seemed happy enough with his little catfish friends, I actually think he's happier now on his own. He immediately went to work on a bubble nest, which he hadn't done for a while, and he's gone all territorial again, flaring at us and anything that moves.

It may be different for a betta girl, I don't know, but I think only you know your fish, and you can tell yourself if you think she's stressed.

hooxeii

Indeed. It's tough because a lot of the resources sort of assume your betta is male...

But yeah, definitely a good answer there. I will continue with my current plan of action to purchase a seperate tank and kinda have it ready in case of emergency.

aquarist48

Good back up plan Hooxeii
Ken

Shawnie

the thing with bettas in community tanks, is that most of the time, we dont see the issues until its too late....you cant watch them 24/7 to see whats going on ....and after time, ive seen betta communitys goes belly up...this is 3-4 months after being together...do a search right here on fishlore ...you will find allot of that type of information....some of us have even had sibling girls in a community that went crazy wrong after time(mine included)...its just too big of risk for my liking but I do wish yours well

scatty

I'd be inclined to listen to Shawnie