Betta compatible

What fish are compatible with a betta in a 10 gallon? Are neon tetras? And how do you sex bettas, other that bright colours or not?

 

bettas are pretty easy to sex.......the male will have bigger fins that seem to flow.....meanwhile thie female will have tiny short fins....and plus, i only think the males can flare

 

Okay thanks. So most of the Bettas seen in stores are males? and are males more agressive towards tankmates, or is the same agression level with femals?

 

Avoid fish that are brightly colored or have long fins because the betta might mistake them for another betta. Also avoid fin nippers like tetras and barbs. And keeping gouramis with bettas is a toss up; sometimes they get along, sometimes they don't.

There are some strains/species of bettas where the males also have short fins, but most of the time the ones you see at the LFS will fit the rule of males having long fins and females having short fins. A sure way to tell females from males is mature females will have a white spot on their belly (ovipositor).

Here's a female (you can sort of see the ovipositor just in front of her anal fin)


Good tankmates would include cory cats, oto cats, african dwarf frogs, snails, non-fancy guppies, and I believe danios and rasboras will work as well.

-Chelle

 

T_Chelle said aviod colorful fish! I second that! mine killed like 2 neons and 2 guppys in 2 days! fancy guppy at that :x

 

yes, msot commonly seen bettas are males......up until about a year ago, that is all i saw....now im starting to see alot of females showing up at places like petsmart.

 

this isnt advice that i would want anyone to like follow by but my male beta is very strange. he is in a tank with gouramis and angels and he is friendly towars other fish in the tank.. normally bettas will try to attack long finned fish as quoted by chelle earlier.. gouramis/angels etc.. anyone have any idea about my friendly beta.. -tl

 

You just got a friendly one I guess.

 

Actually, I used to have a male betta like that too. I kept him with fancy guppies and he never bothered anyone. He never even flared at his reflection. I always thought that if I could find another male betta with the same personality, they'd get along fine.

But my betta and yours are both pretty rare exceptions.

-Chelle

 

i guess so kinda of a cool thing to see him with the kind of fish he is with.
-tl

 

my fin nipping fish never touched my betta, but i bred some really fancy guppies, and the neons are shreading their tales, its took them about 3weeks to guess they could eat the guppies fins tho