Tag Archives: male betta

I asked this question last night and I got quite a few mixed answers, Im going to ask again with more info on my tank and fish and such.

I want to know if a male betta would be okay in my tank. The fish I have are

4 guppies (None are fancy but they are kinda bright in color)
6 Zebra danios (3 are long finned)
1 full grown dwarf gourami
1 3-4 inch blue 3 spotted gourami
1 4-5 inch pleco
2 oto. catfish
and a zillion baby guppies (like 20-ish)
2 mystery snails

Stats of my tank

55 gallon
65 pounds black gravel
10 flake plants of different sizes and types
large 2 piece castle in the middle
fluval filstar xp2 filter
stock lights

Now most people said “Watch out for that big blue three spotted gourami! He might hurt the betta!”…but he is scared of his own shadow, he hides all day in a castle and comes out when I am not in the room, and when he does so he searches for food and then hides again, he is not aggressive at all. The other dwarf gourami is not aggressive, he does “own” one secton of the tank but other than that he isn’t territorial, and he doesn’t even chase any one away, he just likes it there most and enoys the plants and hunting baby guppies….of which he never catches.

All of the guppies are very calm, I first thought the only male guppy was a girl because of how calm he is, if it wasn’t for the fin that only males have I would have said he was a really pretty girl, he barely even dances for the girls…so he would not bother the betta. The danios are crazy, but they are danios, they have never hurt any other fish and usually only bicker with themselves, they chase a guppy once and a while, but there has been no fin damage.

so what I’m afraid of is the betta hurting my calm fish, I dont want my guppies to die, I like them way too much for that. The betta will be fine, but will my other fish be fine?

And as for food I feed them Omega One flake food with Omega One blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. (Not all at once, I don’t over feed I promise, I feed once every other day)
So the protien content is pretty good for the betta, but would I still need a betta food?

Thank you for your help!
Ahhh I didn’t know there was such a thing as too big of a tank for bettas. Thanks so much for the link!
Oh I had a betta with goldfish before and they were all happy, so I know they wont kill just any fish, but he did go for any fish smaller than him, which my guppies will be. But I guess I can try out a betta, see if it works, if it doesn’t the betta will have to find a new home.

Thanks for all of your help!
That condo is interesting, but I still would feel bad that he is cooped up in such a small space watcing all the other fish swimming freely. I guess im strange like that.