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Betta and RCS In Large Planted Tank


JSak

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Hi all! Does anyone have any experience successfully keeping RCS and bettas together if they're in a large, heavily planted aquarium? The tank is a 55 gal long that's fairly heavily planted imo and been running over 10+ years. There were no fish in there until recently when my father put a halfmoon betta in there (the tank is actually his). There was a "buy 2 get 1 free" deal at a LFS and he had nowhere else to put the betta. He had seemingly fallen out of the hobby and thought about taking down this tank, which is why I thought of putting shrimp in so he can keep the tank with very little maintenance to hopefully spark his interest. I don't want to take the betta out because we picked it up while fish shopping together after not doing so in years, and he seemed genuinely excited about the bettas he got. I have a fairly large colony of RCS that're quickly outgrowing my 7 gallon tank, so I can introduce a large group at one time. Do you guys think that the shrimp can survive in the tank with the betta if I introduce a large enough group or do you think that the betta will slowly pick off individuals until the colony is depleted? I mentioned that the betta is a halfmoon because I figured they wouldn't be as fast as a plakat, so maybe the shrimp can have a better chance of escape. Any advice is much appreciated! 

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I had an experiment tank (6 gal) that had neo culls and a betta. Young bettas seem to eat their buddies but once they mature, about a year or so later, I've actually ended up with a breeding colony (oops) that got dense enough to be giving away shrimp. I do have Christmas moss in the tank, but a lazy batta is the easiest companion.

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Wy, that's interesting about the young bettas. I guess if the betta is well fed they may be more likely to leave the shrimp alone as well. Floating food is an easier target than shrimp that dart around. Thanks for sharing your experience! Sounds like it's at least worth a try.

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10 hours ago, chappy6107 said:

it all depends on the betta.  some kill everything, some dont.

rule of thumb:  if it fits in the fishes mouth, it is in danger of being eaten.

Very true. I've generally had success with keeping bettas in community tanks with other fish, but would normally not risk putting them with shrimp if I'm planning to breed them. I know Rob from Flip Aquatics suggests putting in ghost shrimp as a "test". I like that idea, but don't want the ghost shrimp in the tank if the betta leaves them alone, so I think I'll take the culls from my RCS colony and put them in first to see how the betta reacts and does with them in the tank and go from there. Thanks for the response! I guess with bettas you never really know until you try as each has their own individual personality.

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