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Betta problems

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Does anyone here ever keep anything else with their betta? I had a friend that suggested I put an ottocat and two ghost shrimp in my 10 gallon tank with my female betta. He has kept these 3 in the same tank togather for years and never had a problem. Mine did just lovely the first month but last week my betta ate the ottocat and one of the shrimp. I'm dissapointed because the ottocat was doing a wonderful job of keeping the algae down in the tank.  
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 Should I bother buying a new one? Or maybe a bigger algae eater that isn't such easy prey?
 
In my experience, betta will basically attack anything if they feel stressed, whether it be from the water, or just not enough to eat. My girlfriend accidently (she bought what the guy said was female betta, turned out to be thai fighters) put 3 males together with 1 female and they lived together with a little fin nipping for quite some time before one tried to mate and everyone realised that they weren't female.
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I tried to put some snails in with a betta, they sucked them out quick. Basically it's trial and error. It really helps if the fish are raised together to start...with the betta at least.
 
Weeeeellll, most bettas are naturally agressive, but most females aren't very agressive at all. Then again, when I got my female betta to put in my guppy tank a looooooong time ago, she would go out of her way to attack the guppies, so I had to put her in her own little two gallon, where she lives to this day. So, as you have discovered the hard way, some female bettas are more agressive than others, and I think that the best thing for you to do is to get her out of the tank she is in now and buy her a tank of her own. It should be at least two gallons. If you want, you can buy a second female betta and put her in the tank with the shrimp and possibly a new otto and see if she gets along with them, since some bettas are agressive, yet some aren't. A few things to look for when looking for a non-agressive female betta would be: no other bettas, especially males, near her that act agressive toward her(i.e. flaring, etc.), since she may pick up the habit and become agressive herself if she is around other aggressors, and not flaring at YOU when you get close to her. If there are no aggressive bettas around her and she isn't aggressive toward you, than she shouldn't be extremely aggressive toward your fish.

Good luck and I hope this helps!
 
Ghost shrimp arealmost natural prey for the betta, they just love 'em!
 
Interesting, I have never considered a ghost shrimp to be a tank companion, but a feeder.

I have never owned a particulary agressive Beta, infact, all of my betas have lived long peaceful lives, or been stressed by a more dominant fish to the point of removal fromt the tank, or death.

I stopped keeping Betas when I found a truly gorgeous specimen. I puth im in my 55, and the african clawed frog I thought had escaped the tank and run off to die somewhere suddently showed up again with an odd beta shaped belly.
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Obviously, male bettas can't be kept together. the female bettas are shipped with 100 in a bag and were thrown into a 20-gallon tank - with lots of plants(hiding places). They're not exactly pleasant to one another and often end up at a retail shop a bit fin-nipped. I've not known the to be belligerant to other fish, though. But then again, at the wholesale level, fish aren't mixed. They are easy to breed.
 
I think in hindsight this was probably a stressed fish. The proper steps should have been to do some water maintenance, change the decor around with the introduction of a new fish (to remove territorial feelings, it's 'new' to everyone.) and perhaps the purchase of a siamese algae eater, which will eat circles around an ottocinclus (which still seems to big to get eaten, even for his tiny size!) and is big enough not to become lunch. As for putting ghost shrimp in... well... they are food... I don't see a way around that betta not wanting to eat it.
 
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