15g ember tetras darios betta?

Hi All,

I have a 15g tank that has 4 dario dario (I believe 2 male 2 female based on their behavior and coloration), 8 ember tetras a mystery snail and some RCS. Its been cycled and established for months now and so far everything is good. Its heavily planted with driftwood, floating plants, lots of stemmed plants etc.

I have a 3.5g with a male betta in it. I was looking to reduce the number of tanks I have in my room and was wondering if I could get away with adding the betta to the tank with them. Water parameters in the 2 tanks are nearly identical so I'm not worried about that. I understand each betta has their own temperament and mine appears to be a bit of a clumsy fish (literally misses the food sitting at the surface when he tries to eat) but relatively harmless (had a nerite snail in there with him for a short period of time and he never bother it). Just wanted to know if anyone has had issues mixing these fish (especially dario dario and bettas).

are the "dario " you're talking about danio?, like the zebra fish people do tests on? the betta might slaughter the cherry shrimp... he will be pretty happy though if the ph is low enough but it might be higher because danios need middle ph. other than that i hope they get along! some bettas grow out a 3.5 gallon i think

Dario dario are scarlet badis


These fish are shy and easily intimidated by larger fish. I would not keep a fish the size or behaviour of a betta with them.
And my last betta hunted and killed the cherry shrimps in his tank.

I’d love to have scarlet badis more than any other fish on the planet but I’ve been advised by many on here that they should only be kept with very small fish.

You might be able to get away with it, but I don't think it's ideal. The betta will get stressed out at best. Feeding is tricky too. In my experience bettas really do best alone.

If you want to keep your shrimp, don't add the betta.

Slaphppy7 said:

If you want to keep your shrimp, don't add the betta.

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Depends on the Betta and how the tank is setup. I have a 10g Betta/shrimp tank now. Never had an incident with him eating them. Surprisingly, the shrimp are faster than the Betta. They are dart across the tank in a blink of an eye. The Betta may try to bite at one (which happens to mine sometimes) but the shrimp will dart away*, and the Betta will give up

*When mine dart away, they go into hiding. A densely planted tank is necessary here. If you have a super open tank, I don’t recommend adding the two together. Here is what my tank looks like now:

(Plants have taken over, I know, I need to trim. )

The Java moss makes a great hideout. They also like Anacharis.

Again, this is just my opinion/experience.

PheonixKingZ said:

Depends on the Betta and how the tank is setup. I have a 10g Betta/shrimp tank now. Never had an incident with him eating them. Surprisingly, the shrimp are faster than the Betta. They are dart across the tank in a blink of an eye. The Betta may try to bite at one (which happens to mine sometimes) but the shrimp will dart away*, and the Betta will give up

*When mine dart away, they go into hiding. A densely planted tank is necessary here. If you have a super open tank, I don’t recommend adding the two together. Here is what my tank looks like now:
View attachment 129586
(Plants have taken over, I know, I need to trim. )

The Java moss makes a great hideout. They also like Anacharis.

Again, this is just my opinion/experience.

Click to expand...

True, it depends on the tank, but it also depends on the betta...I had a well planted tank similar to yours, and my betta weaved in and out of the plants/moss and hunted down every last shrimp...he was relentless, lol

Slaphppy7 said:

True, it depends on the tank, but it also depends on the betta...I had a well planted tank similar to yours, and my betta weaved in and out of the plants/moss and hunted down every last shrimp...he was relentless, lol

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Oh yes, forgot to mention that. On a scale from 1-10 (as far as aggressiveness goes) I would say my current Betta is 5. (Previous was a 7, and the one before that was a 8)

If your Betta is above ‘6’ I wouldn’t add shrimp, regardless of the tank setup.

PheonixKingZ said:

Depends on the Betta and how the tank is setup. I have a 10g Betta/shrimp tank now. Never had an incident with him eating them. Surprisingly, the shrimp are faster than the Betta. They are dart across the tank in a blink of an eye. The Betta may try to bite at one (which happens to mine sometimes) but the shrimp will dart away*, and the Betta will give up

*When mine dart away, they go into hiding. A densely planted tank is necessary here. If you have a super open tank, I don’t recommend adding the two together. Here is what my tank looks like now:
View attachment 129586
(Plants have taken over, I know, I need to trim. )

The Java moss makes a great hideout. They also like Anacharis.

Again, this is just my opinion/experience.

Click to expand...

hehe my wild anacharis has also taken over almost.

Agreed. I have tried four different Bettas with shrimp in heavily planted tanks. Two of the betta murdered all the shrimp almost immediately. The other two left them alone and it worked really well.

I have also tried bettas with other fish such as Harlequin Rasbora and CPDs. It worked out ok both times, but it was much better for all of the fish when I kept the bettas alone. The bettas were bolder and healthier, feeding was easier to navigate (some bettas will pig out in community tanks, and other times aggressive smaller fish will eat food before a betta can get to it). Managing and treating things like fin rot or other sicknesses or algaes is easier when they are separate too. The other fish also were bolder and happier once the betta was gone, especially the CPDs. They just hid when the betta was there, but now come out since they have the tank to themselves. Bettas also do better I think in shallower tanks, rather than deep community tanks. Just my two cents.

ClownLurch said:

I’d love to have scarlet badis more than any other fish on the planet but I’ve been advised by many on here that they should only be kept with very small fish.

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Okay yeah they seem to do really well with the ember tetras since theyre similar size and when I had guppies in there for a short period they were pretty shy about coming out to eat.

PheonixKingZ said:

Depends on the Betta and how the tank is setup. I have a 10g Betta/shrimp tank now. Never had an incident with him eating them. Surprisingly, the shrimp are faster than the Betta. They are dart across the tank in a blink of an eye. The Betta may try to bite at one (which happens to mine sometimes) but the shrimp will dart away*, and the Betta will give up

*When mine dart away, they go into hiding. A densely planted tank is necessary here. If you have a super open tank, I don’t recommend adding the two together. Here is what my tank looks like now:
View attachment 129586
(Plants have taken over, I know, I need to trim. )

The Java moss makes a great hideout. They also like Anacharis.

Again, this is just my opinion/experience.

Click to expand...

now THIS is a planted tank hahah my Anacharis in my tank has kind of struggled to grow which is surprising because ive been told they actually grow out of control

PheonixKingZ said:

Oh yes, forgot to mention that. On a scale from 1-10 (as far as aggressiveness goes) I would say my current Betta is 5. (Previous was a 7, and the one before that was a 8)

If your Betta is above ‘6’ I wouldn’t add shrimp, regardless of the tank setup.

Click to expand...

I would say my betta is somewhere around a 5-6 but sounds like its not worth the risk.

So that being said, seems like the decision is to overwhelmingly stay away from adding my betta to that tank. May just add a few more ember tetras and call it a day on this tank and just look into planning the next tank. Definitely caught the itch.

rookiefishguy said:

now THIS is a planted tank hahah my Anacharis in my tank has kind of struggled to grow which is surprising because ive been told they actually grow out of control

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It all depends on the water conditions and lighting. I have great luck (or skill) growing Anacharis for some strange reason. Some other members have difficulty growing it.