# Friend for a Betta in an 8.5 gallon tank?



## Dragonalex (Apr 21, 2017)

Hey all, this forum seems to be exactly what I needed!

For a while I was dirt poor and living paycheck to paycheck, but I wanted a pet. Betta are cheap but absolutely beautiful animals, so I figured, why the heck not. My dad gave me an old fish tank of his, and I was away to the races. I figured I'd mess up, and probably kill the poor thing before winter came.

Well that was about six months ago and not only is Craig the Betta doing well, he's quite happy and seems healthy and colorful! I've also grown extremely attached to him, so when I found a beautiful fishtank for stupidly cheap, roughly twice the size of his old one, I bought it on the spot.

So now I have an 8.5 gallon tank (roughly, I measured it out as I filled it) for him to swim around in, and he seems to absolutely love it. Now I kind of want to give him a friend or something, some company in that big open space for him.

What are some good suggestions? I see lists pop up here and there but I wanted direct opinions. I want something interesting, and I've heard Pleco's can be a decent idea but my tank may be too small, and i sure wouldn't want to make any fish suffer.










There's my new tank, with a shot of Craig near the surface, chillin'. Advice is welcome?


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## bluebutterfly123 (Feb 23, 2017)

Beautiful tank.. 👍
Careful with bettas having "friends"..its hard finding them some.. The few animals that they don't want to kill or chase off, as a majority.. Some might still want kill.. For example ghost shrimp.. My one betta chase the one ghost shrimp I put in his tank.. And wouldn't stop until I removed the shrimp.. My other bettas in the 10 gallon divided had ghost shrimps and they weren't bothered..
Snails are good so far in both my tanks.. But they are eating my plants instead of the algae😳.. 

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk


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## allied123 (Dec 11, 2014)

You might want to measure that tank again, it looks like a 5.5 gallon. 

Definitely no plecos in there but maybe shrimp if the tank has been running and cycled for that 6 months. Snails are great, low maintenance. I feel like people suggest african dwarf frogs all the time but I don't really think they should be on gravel, I feel like it would be too easy for them to get a foot stuck or something. I've personally found them difficult to feed only because every betta I've had will eat their food before they get to it, not the brightest animals.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Do you have a heater in the tank? If not skip a tank mate and get him a heater, he'll thank you for it!

Be careful if you get another fish, some will go after the Betta's fins, and some the betta will go after. Fish seem to be hit and miss. Snails are good, although some betta's do try to bother them, but most are content to ignore them. The drawback of snails is the do multiply, nerite's won't but they do lay eggs which can look bad and only eat algae and if your tank doesn't have any they will slowly starve. I've no experience with shrimp, but have heard that betta's can do good with them.


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## Dragonalex (Apr 21, 2017)

Replying in order of the messages received so far:

bluebutterfly123: Yeah that's sorta the problem. I guess I could go with snails but I've had bad experiences with them so far. I hear a zebra snail might be the sort of thing I'm looking for. I'm not sure I want to bother with shrimp, although I wouldn't be too upset if he ate some shrimp, he'd probably enjoy it.

allied123: I'm pretty sure it's 8.5, I was counting out each of the portions I filled it with. His old tank was closer to 4 and this is twice the size, so that estimate feels pretty right to me.
As for the suggestions, yeah I saw frogs suggested elsewhere but oh wow do they sound like a bit of a nightmare waiting to happen. Good point on the gravel too.

Rainbo: I bought a heater in his smaller tank mid-way through winter, and he loved it. The new bigger tank has a heater but it was too hot the first day. I'm checking things out and i'm gonna fiddle with it's settings. (it's the black bar visible behind the stone structure, super nice heater actually)

So I mentioned just before that I've had bad experience with snails. My last snail escaped the tank, then died months later due to ??? (I never figured it out). I later found out it laid eggs and they swarmed the friggen tank, you can see some of them in the picture I posted, in the old half-drained tank on the right. I transferred everything over from the old tank but scrubbed the **** out of it first. No snails yet. That's why I heard Zebra snails are good, they apparently aren't as known for just suddenly multiplying.


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## moodynarwhal (Mar 24, 2016)

There's a math formula you can use to calculate the volume of a tank (it's easy, I promise!) I'm pretty sure it's length X height X depth. You can look it up if you want.


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## Dragonalex (Apr 21, 2017)

moodynarwhal: ...Oh yeah. Duh. That's like, really basic math. I feel really dumb now. I'll figure it out 100% when I get home.


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

What about mystery snail? Nerite snails are picky eaters. They need natural algae to eat. Mystery snail eats veggies and algae wafers which is easy to provide.


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## Dragonalex (Apr 21, 2017)

So I just got home and measured the tank. 12 inches high, 20 across, 10 deep. I got me a 10 gallon tank, with light, gravel, plant, filter, and heater for 19.99 apparently. Damn I lucked out! So a 10 gallon is much more liberal.

Mystery Snail is the one I had before that bred like a <<snip>>.


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## JessieS16 (Apr 13, 2017)

Each of my bettas have 2 African Dwarf Frogs. They are also super fun to watch!


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## AmazingBettas (Feb 28, 2017)

I had a ghost shrimp in my tank for a while and my betta didn't bother him. That is, until he climbed up on her leaf hammock... Then she got mad because she LOVES her leaf so she bit the shrimp's leg off and I quickly rescued the poor shrimp and now he is happily living in my neighbors aquarium. So, I would say shrimp could be a good idea but just a warning that your betta may turn on them...
Also, SHRIMP JUMP!!!!! I learned that the hard way.... No one ever told me they jumped until suddenly, while doing a water change, my shrimp leapt out! He was fine though. Hopefully this helps^


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## dennythebetta (Mar 8, 2017)

moodynarwhal said:


> There's a math formula you can use to calculate the volume of a tank (it's easy, I promise!) I'm pretty sure it's length X height X depth. You can look it up if you want.


It's actually length x width x hight... I don't blame you for not knowing... I'm a math geek.


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## moodynarwhal (Mar 24, 2016)

dennythebetta said:


> It's actually length x width x hight... I don't blame you for not knowing... I'm a math geek.


 Isn't it the same thing? How far back it goes from front to back?


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

^ Pretty much, except most people are taught lxwxh and not lxhxd


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## BettaStarter24 (Mar 24, 2014)

Snails are good, I've heard dwarf frogs (not clawed frogs) are good but need to be in groups of 3 at least, I think you can do a small shoal of neon tetras (6) but they get nippy if they're not kept in big enough shoals so I'd probably steer away from them in a 10g. No plecos the tank is too small for any of the species, shrimp, just make sure your tank has been cycled for 6 months or more as they are very sensitive to parameters. 

Biggest thing I can think of for a betta community tank is to always have a back up. In case something goes wrong or doesn't work out, have a back up plan to separate if need be, like a spare tank for the betta if the tank mate can't move tanks, etc. 

None of my bettas have tankmates but I do have a community tank with neon tetras, an albino bristlenose pleco, a kissing Gourami and a flame dwarf gourami, but I have a plan if something goes wrong with the two different subspecies of gourami. Love the community tank but at the same time its pretty stressful trying to make sure all the inhabitants are ok and doing fine with each other. 

I found snails are usually pretty compatible in 10g tanks with bettas, they won't nip the betta's fins and they can protect themselves from the betta as well. 

Good luck and if you decide on a "friend" for your boy don't hesitate to share!


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

The correct formula is length x height x depth/width divided by 231.

Without dividing by 231 a 10"x10"x10" tank would be 1,000 gallons. Divide by 231 and it is a more manageable 4.3 gallons.

Technically, moodynarwhal is correct since most people are taught the longest measure is the length. However, dennythebetta is correct as well if one considers the side measurement the length and the measurement across the front the width. Splitting hairs, isn't it? ;-)


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

As far as tank mates: You would need much heavier planting to make your tank as hospitable for other critters as it is for your Betta. Don't know if you cycled a mature, cycled tank is also a must with constant readings of 0ppm Ammonia and Nitrites and under 20 Nitrates. Other fish and, especially shrimp, are not as hardy as Betta and cannot handle parameter fluctuations as can Betta. I have provided a link at the end of this post.

Using the forumla in Post #16 determine the aquarium's actual size.

http://www.bettafish.com/30-betta-fish-care/507585-cycling-two-sentence-tutorial.html


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## Dragonalex (Apr 21, 2017)

RussellTheShihTzu said:


> The correct formula is length x height x depth/width divided by 231.
> 
> Without dividing by 231 a 10"x10"x10" tank would be 1,000 gallons. Divide by 231 and it is a more manageable 4.3 gallons.
> 
> Technically, moodynarwhal is correct since most people are taught the longest measure the length. However, dennythebetta is correct as well if one considers the side measurement the length and the measurement across the front the width. Splitting hairs, isn't it? ;-)


Yeah the LHD formula just gets your cubic inches, which is interesting but still not helpful. I didn't know that '231' was the magic number, but google helped me out and gave me a converter. She's definetly 10 gallon.

So what I am hearing is a lot of people saying that i have options, but honestly I may be better off going without. I think a snail is probably going to be the final answer, snails are interesting enough to be note worthy, wont require a ton of extra care, and wont stress poor Craig out. As much as my old snail-swarmed tank bothered me I am sure there are ways to avoid that happening again. I will have to see what sort of snails my local pet store has, as that is also a limiting factor. I'm not especially interested in importing them from some foreign market!

The other choices are the frogs, some shrimp, or schools of littler fish. The schools could be interesting but honestly all of them sound more stressful than I have any interest in dealing with.

You mentioned planting. Okay, so assume I'm totally new at this (because I am) what's planting? Putting actual plants into the tank? Thank you all for the help.


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