Fish ideas.?

Question

Tomorrow, I will be going up to the city for christmas shopping, I am also planning on picking up some new fish for my 16 gallon tank. The tank is cycled, everything is in right order, I have a betta in the tank as well. I am looking for a small schooling fish, any ideas, looking for tetras or something. any ideas?

Answer 1

I agree with the answers you've been given about Betta's. I have a community tank with a Betta & he does just fine. The problem comes in when you try to add an additional male. It just doesn't work!
The choices I made were Mollies, Swordtails, Male Fancy Tail Guppies, Platties, frogs, algae eaters & don't forget live plants - your fish will love you for it because they love to eat the leaves.
You may already know this but you should add just a little aquarium salt to your water. The directions are on the container as to amount - per gallon.
Hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine!

Answer 2

Please, please PLEASE, don't get any type of barb or tetra. I've seen some people here suggest them, and they really aren't a good idea.

Barbs and Tetras are fast, which makes it seem like they would be safe from the big bad betta, which is true, the barbs and tetras would be just fine. However, your poor betta would have a buzz cut in no time. I see this all the time in pet store tanks, where a betta has been placed in every tank, both as decoration, and so the bettas can be separate from eachother without having to mess with a bunch of cups.

The bettas in the barb and tetra tanks never have any fins left after the first few days. Bettas are slow swimmers, so they can't get away, and the barbs and tetras just think, "ooh, pretty" and they reach out to bite the long fins of the bettas, and pull little pieces off. It really is a death sentance for the poor betta, especially since he can't fight back, because the little devil-fish are too fast for him.

Please don't do it. :(

Try a peaceful livebearing type fish. Mollies, platies, and swordtails are the best. You may be able to get away with guppies if you pick fairly plain looking ones.

As for schooling fish, there are always Cory Catfish. They are cute little bottom feeders that will follow eachother around. They even blink, which is really kinda creepy, but still cool.

Answer 3

Albino Rainbow Shark Guppies Mollies Sword tails Platies Plecos Angelfish Catfish Gouramis Edit: daybreak Guppy Yellow Guppy Neon Guppy Golddust Molly Dalmation Sailfin Molly Orange Sailfin Molly Black Molly purple Swordtail purple Wag Swordtail Painted Swordtail Mickey Mouse Platy Blue Gourami Dwarf Gourami Kissing Gourami

Answer 4

Tetras is nice but not really easy to rear. Would rather you got a pair of holland rams or maybe angel fish. Guppies are good too but always remember that guppies and angel fishes are natural enemies so dun put them together. Top it up with a few bottom feeder. Just remember that a 16 gallon tank is on the small side so do not overcrowd.

Answer 5

As to the question of the bettas- They will get along just fine with a lot of other fish but you don't want to get anything too brightly colored because that will make them more aggressive. I have a few invisible catfish in the tank with my betta- he doesn't mind them and they're very cool fish! I also have a big old dalmation molly- he's super cool he follows your finger which I've heard is very common among mollys!

Answer 6

Don't listen to user Tarlarlo, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Bettas get along with plenty of fish just fine, its just other male bettas and too little space that will create a problem. If you want a small schooling fish, look to see if you can find rasboras. I just bought a small school of golden scissortails, and they look great. If your tank isn't too busy and doesn't have any aggressive fish in it, try some of the dwarf gouramis, particularly the golden gourami or colisa lalia. If you have plants in the tank also pick up a pair of siamese algae eaters, they will scour the tank all the time for algae and they will also eat some forms of beard algae, which other fish won't touch.
p.s. Stay away from common plecostomus if you have small fish in the tank, because they grow large and will hassle the other fish.

Answer 7

so good ideas would be cherry barbs, mollies, some of the SLOW tetras, platies. plain guppies are okay, but not fancy ones, they are close to bettas and bettas will attack them. anything that don't nip fins. stay away from fast fish because they tend to eat all hte food before fish like bettas can get to them. most danios are speedy little things, so are tetras. so as long as you look for "mild mannered" tropical fish that don't have long flowy fins they'll be okay.

jest remember most tropical fish that are smaller and okay with bettas are schooling fish, so you can probably only get one kind of fish because of the tank size.

Answer 8

The only problem with Tetras is that they can be fin nippers, especially Black skirt tetras, and try to remember to stay within the 1 inch of fish for every gallon so that you can avoid a fatal buildup of Nitrogenous waste, that is very difficult to filter out. Neon tetras are pretty cool and aren't very aggressive, but the Betta could end up beating up on them so be careful.

Answer 9

Dont worry about the beta. He's fine in there, although he is attracted to fish with large fins. Attracted as in, he would like to attack if because it reminds him of other male betas, but because you want schooling fish, you dont have to worry about a thing....Some of the small schooling fish in my 110 gallon tank include:

Harlequin Rhasboras (Soo pretty)
Cardinal Tetras (very luminescent)
Neon Tetras (extremely similar to the cardinals, but slightly smaller)
Black neon Tetras ( same as above but black, very cute)
Black Skirt Tetras ( and they wont mess with the beta or vise versa)

Thats all I can think of right now....but there's more!

Hope that helps!!

P.S. Rhasboras are so beautiful!

Answer 10

bettas do fine in a community tank... Just don't get anything that'll nip the betta's tail.

cherry barbs, rasboras, rosy nose tetras, zebra fish