Finally Albis

[sde09001]

So I finally am getting my hands on a confirmed pair of albis (coming from a breeder in my state). Now my problem is what to do in rearranging my tanks. See the problem is the tank I originally had for the albis has a male smaragdina and a female croaking gourami in it at the moment. now my problem is I can't set up any new tanks until I get my own place (should be later spring) so I could rehome the smaragdina and the croaker for a few months if i need to but would prefer not too. Now other than rehoming them for a little while I have three other option. I could put them in my 20 gallon (going to be upgraded to a 55 in a few weeks once the basement is finished) which wouldn't be an issue other than I currently have a wild female splendens in there, and I read smaragdina are very aggressive to other bettas and I'd hate to see them kill each other. Another option is putting them in my planted 10 with a figure eight puffer. I'm a little leary in doing this becuase I know puffers can be nippy. Now I should tell you in the two years I have had this puffer its never attacked anything, and has lived peacefully with many different kinda of fish, I'm just worried the flashy colors of the smaragdina would trip my puffer into attacking. The final option is leave those two in the tank they are in now and just add the albis. I don't want to do this becuase again i heard that smaragdina are very aggressive, but would they be aggressive to a mouth brooding betta (the albis) or are they just aggressive to other bubble nesting bettas? If I must rehome them I will but I'd prefer not to, so are any of those other options possible at all?

 

[moochy13]

im a bit confused with the tanksetups you have, as its still early and im tired. but is there anywhere you can use a divider as an option ?

 

[sde09001]

I never thought of that, but yes a divider could work. Thank you for the idea, I'll have to see if I can find one that will fit in one of my tanks while I'm out later today.

 

[sde09001]

Ok, so now I'm just curious. I'm going to go with the divider to keep the smaragdina and the albis separate, but if I wanted to eventually put them in together could it work? Everything I'm finding about smaragdina aggression was about them being aggressive to other members of the splendens complex. Would they also be aggressive to bettas from other groups, or just others from the splendens complex (imbellis, mahachai, splendens, ect.) Again this is just for my future knowledge to see if a mixed betta tank would ever be possible.

 

[OldMan47]

If your research tells you splendens group only, it is probably the best advice you will find on the subject. Aside from splendens, little real reliable research has been done on the entire Betta genus.