Newbie To Betta Fins.

[lozronz]

Horribly newbie question I'm afraid but I have never kept Betta.
would a Male Siamese Fighter be ok with 6 neon and 2 robin gourami and 2 little clown loach (to be moved at the apropriate time)? I'm not sure if these are fin nippers they are normally the most passive of the fish I would keep and its for a tank I set up for work.

Cheers

 

[zoekin8yg]

I would say no, neons are nippy, gouramis are related to bettas and will cause problems with agression, the loach, im not sure they might be ok. However agression in male bettas is very dependant on the actual fish, some are more agressive than others. The males in general are much better when kept alone. The females can be kept in groups 5/6 works well. Although some females are also very agressive.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

I would say no, neons are nippy, gouramis are related to bettas and will cause problems with agression, the loach, im not sure they might be ok. However agression in male bettas is very dependant on the actual fish, some are more agressive than others. The males in general are much better when kept alone. The females can be kept in groups 5/6 works well. Although some females are also very agressive.

agreed, the gouramis will case nothing but trouble. As for the neons I had a shoal of them with my betta and nothing nippy happend.

 

[zoekin8yg]

some people seem to have good experiences with the neons, others don't I guess its a try it and see, but never leave them in a bad situation

 

[dogfood]

How big is your tank?

 

[lozronz]

Its small- 20g and probably almost at full stock but it has a really good filter from a previous tank, all the fish are tiny at the moment and I have 4 other bigger tanks for when the Clown Loach outgrows it.

This is the situation- I set the tank up for a home (that I work) for people with learning disabilities, I didn't think that they would pay much attention to it but several of them love it and its pretty hard to get them to engage with anything so this was a bit of a break through.

They love the colourful fish, the Neons, Dwarf Robin Gourami's and Clown Loach (or Nemo's as they have been Christened) were a big hit, I have two little cories in there at the moment but no one really notices them and I would like to keep them in one of my tanks in a bigger group where they would be happier.

A friend (rather irresposibly) bought me a stunning Male Siamese Fighter which although, is beautiful was a bit of a pain in the ass because I had to swap everything around to try to make a tank with no fin nippers.

The fighter now lives in my emergency tank with 3 Phantom Tetra, a very old Lepard Danio, 3 ADF's and 6 Glass Catfish with no problems at all.

I wanted to move the Fighter to the work tank because he is so colourful I think he would be appreciated and more selfishly because he limits what I can have in his present tank. If it is a question of whether he would bully the Robins then I think its cool because he leaves everything well alone (even the Glass Catfish and in my experience everything bullies them!) but I don't know how the Robins would be with him, they seem very passive at the moment, just occasionally squabbling with each other but also leaving everything else alone.

What do you recon?

 

[zoekin8yg]

Personally I wouldnt but him in there def not with the gouramis. You could get a small 2.5 or 5g tank really cheaply and set that up for them, they could interact with him then and you wouldnt be worried about the fish fighting