# moving a betta to a community tank



## Chaz385 (Nov 16, 2010)

good evening ladies and gents, 
i was thinking of adding my betta to my 15 gal community tank, and is there any way to test how my betta will react to the other fish? hes pretty laid back and disinterested with the ghost shrimp and the snail in his current tank. in fact, ive only seen him flare his gills once at a ghost shrimp when i first put one in. in the community tank i have a golddust molly, a lyretail molly, two male guppies and a red platy, if that helps.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

he should be fine, normally bettas only get mean when they have another betta or some member of the gourami family with them, for example: betta + non aggressive community fish = success, betta + dwarf gourami = fights. Fish identify each other based on two simple things, sight and color, if another fish looks like them or has the same colors it might be a rival to your betta, I would check the parameters of both tanks before putting the betta in. Hope that helps.


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## Xox-Zip-xoX (Aug 14, 2010)

I wouldn't do it. Most community fish (guppies in particular) can get really nippy with other fish, expecially fish like bettas with colorful, flowing tails, and while they might not fight, I can guarentee that your betta will end up with torn fins, and more likley to contract some sort of bacterial infection.

I have a 35gal community that I breed and raise guppies, mollies, and platys in and I made the mistake of putting my CT Betta, Xavier in with them. Things appeared to be going well, but I left for the weekend on vaccation and came back to find my poor Xavier with his fins torn to shreds. I tried healing him with some betta fix but he had contracted an infection and died shortly after. I'm not saying that this will happen every time with every betta/community pair, but I wouldn't risk it. I love my fish and IMO freeing up an extra tank, just isn't worth it.


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