Just to warn you, you may have a few people tell you that you shouldn't keep a male betta in a commuinty tank. How does he get on with the gourami and female bettas?
I also have amano shrimp, which is what prompted me to reply I have one female and 2 males and as it happens my female is carrying eggs for her second time. I've done my research and the gist of it is the female will carry eggs and then if you're lucky they will get fertilised by the males. If they dont get fertilised she will eventually drop them anyway. My femaled carried unfertilised eggs for about a month, and its been another month of no eggs until last weekend. Anyway, even if shes lucky enough to get the fertlised the baby shrimp will die because from what I've read they need to be raised in Brackish water.
Other than that amano shrimp are great fun to watch.
We've always kept our male betta's in community tanks and never had any problems. The one we have at the moment gets on well with all the fish in the tank and with having three females he doesn't constantly harass them. Since introducing the females the male became more active and now proudly swims around the tank as if showing off his little harem. One female seems to have taken a fancy to him, she likes to display and flirts quite a bit with him. Possibly try and mate her with him at some point.
This is our second male as we lost our first after he had his tail ripped off, we think it was either the red tailed shark or possibly the silver dollars (probably the shark as they are known to be aggressive, although we've never had this problem in the past). Took them back to the lfs and exchanged them for our loaches and the gourami.
How do you sex your shrimp? We bought them for something different to watch in the tank so I am not sure if they are all females or if any are male. But you're right they are great to watch!!
I will second the thoughts on not having bettas in a community tank. The male (and the females) may be fine for a while but eventually (just as the last one you had) they will get torn to shreds. Our son and daughter-in-law had one in a tank with some danios, rasboras and kuhlis for almost a full year with no problems at all. Then came home one day to a betta with almost no fins or tail. They removed and quarantined him and unbelievably, he lived. It's just a ticking time bomb. With the fish you have, I would keep a real close eye on the barbs and the bettas.
As I said, we've kept fish on and off over the past 20 or so years and never, ever had a problem with bettas in a community fish tank, he gets on with all my other fish and they dont bother him at all
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