Welcome to Fishlore, we are here to help answer all your questions.
It is uncertain whether your Betta would work out perfectly with shrimp. Each Betta has a different personality. Some will care less about the shrimp and some will hunt for every last living shrimp. In most cases though Shrimp and Bettas can work out just fine but you have to follow a few tricks to increase chances of success with cohabitation.
1. Have Dense plant cover. Shrimp love densely
planted tanks. Not only does it create sight barriers, but it can encourage shrimp to forage out in the open more knowing they have places to go after molting when they are extremely vulnerable to attacks.
2. Get a large enough group of shrimp from the start. This will decrease the chances of a single shrimp getting singled out, which can be detrimental to their health. Shrimp have very small bioloads. You can put many more shrimp in a tank than fish and still have great
water parameters.
3. Have another tank on hand. This will ensure that in case anything goes south, you will have a backup plan so that your shrimp are not killed by the
Ember Tetras.
4. You can also try feeder shrimp (
Ghost Shrimp) first to see how the Betta will interact with them before going to the more expensive ornamental shrimp such as
Amanos or Cherries.
5. Get the Shrimp in the tank first before the Betta. This will ensure that the Shrimp have adequate time to get comfortable in their surroundings and also prevent the Betta from establishing his territory before the shrimp do.
As for a cycled tank, this means that the
beneficial bacteria colony living in your aquarium has grown enough to be able to process all
ammonia and
nitrite into less harmful
nitrates. Having Ammonia and Nitrite in your tank is extremely dangerous to all livestock. I suggest you read up on the Nitrogen Cycle if you do not understand what that process is.
