Bettas and Gouramis in one tank?
- Thread starter spud
- Start date
Oooh no don't do it!
Before I breed my bettas I had the male in a community tank with guppies, danios, corydoras & a bristlenose pleco. They all got on happily together with no problems. I added 1 male dwarf blue gourami and they were always fighting & bashing each other around the tank. Was not pretty... I ended up getting rid of the dwarf gourami & my betta is now in his own tank. He is far too aggressive to keep in a community tank now since breeding.
Another good tank mate with bettas is neon tetras. They are really placid fish so mix well with the bettas. Good luck!
Before I breed my bettas I had the male in a community tank with guppies, danios, corydoras & a bristlenose pleco. They all got on happily together with no problems. I added 1 male dwarf blue gourami and they were always fighting & bashing each other around the tank. Was not pretty... I ended up getting rid of the dwarf gourami & my betta is now in his own tank. He is far too aggressive to keep in a community tank now since breeding.
Another good tank mate with bettas is neon tetras. They are really placid fish so mix well with the bettas. Good luck!
That's a bit of an overstatement. I've been keeping gouramis and bettas together in tanks for many years and have yet to experience any incidence like that.
But allow me to clarify - First, I'm an experienced aquarist. And second, the only bettas I would ever keep in a community tank are female. And the gouramis they have lived with...female.
This does not mean it can always be done. It is more a matter of careful acclimation than anything. So I am not recommending that you do this! Only reiterating that it's not a certainty that they will fight to the death...if they even fight at all.
In my twenty gallon, which was a ten gallon when they were introduced to each other, I have a three spot gourami and a female betta. For the first week that Ms. Betta was in that tank, the gourami harrassed the living hell out of her. Not to kill her but just chasing her whenever she came into her sights. The betta ended up hiding almost all the time...but eventually started coming out more and more.
Well, within a few weeks not only was the gourami happily tolerating the betta, but so much so that the only fish in that whole tank which my gourami does not chase is that betta! This is how it has been for over a year now.
And you want to know the real kicker?
Whenever one of the danios or the cherry barb bothers the betta, the gourami jumps in and chases them away.
So yes...hardly what I would call a fight do the death. Quite the contrary.
But one more time: Highly experienced aquarist - do not try this at home!
hehe
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Well for one thing, there is not one sentence in my post that indicates this as a "rare occurance."
For two, I'm not addressing this as advice to the novice - I'm addressing a statement that is not factual. By saying "they will almost certainly fight to the death," it is indicative of something that is almost certain, which is absolutely not almost certain. A fight to the death may occur...but only under certain conditions. ie, both are male, the tank is small/overcrowded, etc. They might really beat up on each other, but death isn't as likely as it seems.
And for three, my post includes a large font, and a red font sentence that together, pretty much say, "DO NOT TRY THIS UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED AQUARIST AND YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!"
So again, I am not saying that someone should go and try it - I am saying that it's not something which is more than likely going to end up in a bloody tank with two dead fish floating around in it.
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No offense, but I really don't think reiterating how you tortured your female betta for a week of hell with some gouramis is the best thing to tell a newbie. You may be able to handle the situation (even if I don't agree with it), but someone that thinks they may be experienced enough may try the same thing with sad results.
Tortured? Some gouramis? It's one gourami, and she was no more harrassed than any other new fish that has ever entered that tank. All of the fish who have been introduced to that tank in the past three years that I have had the gourami have gone through the same thing for the first week or so. Three Spot Gouramis are just like that in my experience - they harrass new fish quite a bit at first. If my betta was so stressed that I would have considered it "torture" I would have quickly removed her. This is where the idea of being an experienced aquarist comes in - you learn to spot the differences between normal aggression and deadly aggression. And there is a difference. A big one.
Gouramis are semi-aggressive by nature, and I have never had a tank with a three spot or paradise gourami where newly introduced fish didn't go through some hazing. We're not talking about two males. These are two females, both of a different species.
So I should lie to the newbie, and say that gouramis and bettas will never live together? That would be dishonest and not based upon acquired facts or my personal experience. That would be based only upon collective rudimentary assumed knowledge. I'm not going to withhold the truth just because someone might be stupid enough to go and misuse that knowledge. Lots of things in life are dangerous...even cooking can be deadly...but that doesn't mean people should be told that it will most certainly lead to such consequences. It only means that they should be aware that some people are better equipped to handle such situations and they should not be considering such a thing unless they know they can handle it. (You know, like those little things on the bottom of the screen on car commercials and stuff that say, "Professional driver on a closed track, do not attempt.")
You're the one who said "Betta and gouramis will almost certainly fight to the death." That means that the burden of proof lies with you, not me. Once again, I am addressing your claim, not handing out advice to anyone to go and try sticking bettas and gouramis together without knowing what they are doing - what signs to look for to be able to tell serious aggression from normal fish behavior. The betta wasn't treated any differently than any other new fish. Yet now she is treated differently - the only fish that my gourami never chases, ever. And gourami, as I said before, even defends her from the cherry barb and the danios. So much so that if the gourami dies before she does, I have already planned to move her out of the tank.
So you can go ahead and disagree all you want. Some things in life are not a matter of opinion. They're a matter of experience. And in my experience at this hobby, which is just under thirty years, I feel compelled to challenge certain things that people say if my data contradicts such statements. I'm not trying to flame, or offend you...I'm just being a little indignant. It happens to the best of us.
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We must be lucky then...we are fish newbies and our male gourami and male betta get along very well! They swim right over each other with nary an incident. They actually seem to like each other and sometimes check each other out (without nipping). Our two black mollies, on the other hand...they are spazzes! One of them is a nipper- usually at feeding time- and they both just dart around the tank like crazy!
See, you got lucky here. Again..I wouldn't tell anyone it's okay to try something like that.
But - surely it lends more support to my position, which I am holding indignantly.
One thing I have been finding over the course of my time in this hobby, and with being a regular on this board, is that there are certain accepted or conventional wisdoms which don't stand up to the scrutiny of a questioning mind. I wish I were an actual scientist, so I can be one of those cool maverick kinda guys who propose radical new theories which get beaten down by the establishment until years later, when they are re-examined and found to be true. Wow...talk about hubris.
But - surely it lends more support to my position, which I am holding indignantly.
One thing I have been finding over the course of my time in this hobby, and with being a regular on this board, is that there are certain accepted or conventional wisdoms which don't stand up to the scrutiny of a questioning mind. I wish I were an actual scientist, so I can be one of those cool maverick kinda guys who propose radical new theories which get beaten down by the establishment until years later, when they are re-examined and found to be true. Wow...talk about hubris.
My male Betta gets along with my Gouramis. However, my Betta was raised in a community tank with Gouramis from birth so he is used to it. I have a local breeder that has been raising them in tanks with other fish for over 20 years and I would not have done this with just any Betta. I didn't want to take the chance of an ugly fight. But my Betta is like yours Missfishy, he has really taken to one of my Gouramis (was a tank mate from birth) and they rub against each other and always stay close to each other. Good luck!
Steven
Steven
Good God Echo. Give it a rest, I was really trying to ignore this thread giving how indignantly rude you were getting, but seriously! Back to Spud's original question, NO, I would not recommend attempting to put a betta and gourami together in a tank, UNLESS of course, if you had bought that betta from a special breeder that apparently for some reason raises bettas and gouramis together in the same tank. Good luck finding that one...but if you do, knock yourself out.
Fishy, I'm not being rude. Indignant, yes. Rude, no.
But not indignant about the topic, indignant about the way you somewhat misquoted me at first response, then at second response you say that I "tortured" my female betta. That is what made me indignant. I get indignant when someone doesn't read and fully comprehend what I take the time to write. It's disrespectful. I share my experiences, and because those experiences seem to yield data that is against the assumed knowledge, you make it out like I'm telling newbies to go ahead and try something even though my posts are full of disclaimers insisting that they don't go and try it without experience? Then you paint me out to be something that I am not - a torturer of fish. There is a difference between presenting a conflicting opinion of something, and misrepresenting what someone has stated and/or criticizing them as a person.
You used both misrepresentation, and harsh criticism on me for practicing something that I know to be largely safe from much experience. On top of that you make it out like I'm giving a newbie some sort of bad advice just because I'm telling them my experienced opinion about something. As if I'm supposed to be keeping information from them and treating them like a child when adults are talking about "adult" things. That sort of behavior is dishonest and I feel strongly that this is a place for honest, open information sharing.
And none of my posts until this one are off topic, so I don't feel I need to give anything "a rest." We are talking about whether gouramis and bettas can get on together. Everyone else is continuing to post on this topic, and I'm merely encouraging more people to come out with their betta/gourami stories, and sharing what I know about the subject. I'm sorry if you said something earlier in the thread that I know to be largely untrue and I posted my conflicting position. That is the purpose of forums, debates and dialogue. It furthers the knowledge base for everyone if they have access to all of the information. Sorry I want to encourage that dialogue to support my position in the hopes that what I know to be true will eventually be viewed as true. That's how science works. You made a blanket statement that I know isn't true, and I called it as I saw it. It's not rude. And it sprouted further dialogue. Therefore if you ask me, it's serving its purpose to help us all out. I'll "give it a rest" when it's no longer yielding further information from people on the board. Which it still is.
But not indignant about the topic, indignant about the way you somewhat misquoted me at first response, then at second response you say that I "tortured" my female betta. That is what made me indignant. I get indignant when someone doesn't read and fully comprehend what I take the time to write. It's disrespectful. I share my experiences, and because those experiences seem to yield data that is against the assumed knowledge, you make it out like I'm telling newbies to go ahead and try something even though my posts are full of disclaimers insisting that they don't go and try it without experience? Then you paint me out to be something that I am not - a torturer of fish. There is a difference between presenting a conflicting opinion of something, and misrepresenting what someone has stated and/or criticizing them as a person.
You used both misrepresentation, and harsh criticism on me for practicing something that I know to be largely safe from much experience. On top of that you make it out like I'm giving a newbie some sort of bad advice just because I'm telling them my experienced opinion about something. As if I'm supposed to be keeping information from them and treating them like a child when adults are talking about "adult" things. That sort of behavior is dishonest and I feel strongly that this is a place for honest, open information sharing.
And none of my posts until this one are off topic, so I don't feel I need to give anything "a rest." We are talking about whether gouramis and bettas can get on together. Everyone else is continuing to post on this topic, and I'm merely encouraging more people to come out with their betta/gourami stories, and sharing what I know about the subject. I'm sorry if you said something earlier in the thread that I know to be largely untrue and I posted my conflicting position. That is the purpose of forums, debates and dialogue. It furthers the knowledge base for everyone if they have access to all of the information. Sorry I want to encourage that dialogue to support my position in the hopes that what I know to be true will eventually be viewed as true. That's how science works. You made a blanket statement that I know isn't true, and I called it as I saw it. It's not rude. And it sprouted further dialogue. Therefore if you ask me, it's serving its purpose to help us all out. I'll "give it a rest" when it's no longer yielding further information from people on the board. Which it still is.
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I just wanted to say that when I first got my fish and didn't know the extensive amount that I know now (ha ha) I put my beta in my 75 gal. with my 3 gouramis and they did great. The beta flared at the gouramis like twice that I saw when they swam past his cave he was occupying and when they first met. Other than that they pretty much ignored each other and stayed on opposite ends of the tank.
However, my tank is 48" long, so there was lots of open space between the beta and the gouramis. Also, they were almost the same size, since they were dwarf gouramis. And the fact that I put the beta and the gouramis in the tank within the same week may have also had something to do with a lack of animosity.
I guess what I'm saying is, if it's done correctly (getting them at the same time and have a rather large tank to split up the fish) then it probably isn't such a big deal to put the two together. However it would probably be a bad idea to have a pearl gourami as king of his community 20 gal. for a year or so and then try and toss in a beta and expect them to get along. You might have a turf war on your hands.
However, my tank is 48" long, so there was lots of open space between the beta and the gouramis. Also, they were almost the same size, since they were dwarf gouramis. And the fact that I put the beta and the gouramis in the tank within the same week may have also had something to do with a lack of animosity.
I guess what I'm saying is, if it's done correctly (getting them at the same time and have a rather large tank to split up the fish) then it probably isn't such a big deal to put the two together. However it would probably be a bad idea to have a pearl gourami as king of his community 20 gal. for a year or so and then try and toss in a beta and expect them to get along. You might have a turf war on your hands.
Thanks for your input usacutie81 and you are correct. The fact you have a 75 gal tank is the main reason you didn't have much fighting. There was plenty of space for each fish to have his/her own territory. I bet that's a really nice tank you have. If you get a chance, we'd love to see pictures. My brother has a 55 gal and it is really nice.
FishWhisperer said:
I bet that's a really nice tank you have. If you get a chance, we'd love to see pictures. My brother has a 55 gal and it is really nice.
BTW, I have since moved Simon the beta to his own 10 gal where I can keep the temp. a little warmer and he is King of the World. He seems much happier than he was in the giant 75 gal. Just a thought to those of you wanting to put betas in community tanks. Just cuz they need bigger than a bowl, doesn't mean they'll like being in big open spaces.