Goldfish and siamese fighting fish?

[Hardhat]

do they make a good match in an aquarium?

[Kellbot]

no, betta fish are agressive, and are best kept by themselves.
Goldfish will also nip and try to eat anything smaller than they are.
When I was a kid we went through three betta fish before we realized
the goldies were tearing them to shreds.

[Tom Randy]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:19:06 -0800, Hardhat wrote:

> do they make a good match in an aquarium?


No. Bettas are real aggressive.

[bettasngoldfish]

Your best off to keep goldfish with same type goldfish. Bettas are
only aggressive to other bettas or another fish that they may percieve
as being a betta, for example a male guppie. If you try to keep a
betta with goldfish the betta may become a snack for your goldfish : 0
Maria

[Osiris]

"bettasngoldfish" > wrote in
oups.com:

> Your best off to keep goldfish with same type goldfish. Bettas are
> only aggressive to other bettas or another fish that they may percieve
> as being a betta, for example a male guppie. If you try to keep a
> betta with goldfish the betta may become a snack for your goldfish : 0
> Maria
>
>

Here's what happened to me. I had an old betta in a 1 gallon tank and it
was winter so it was colder water, and I didn't have a heater. The betta
is a tropical fish and when it gets cold it sorta goes into hibernation
mode. So for those reasons he didn't move around much, and I didn't
figure he would be agressive to the baby goldfish I had just gotten, so I
put the goldfish in with the betta. As expected, the betta wasn't happy,
but he didn't go after the goldfish. I saw him flare a couple of times,
but then things got comfortable. Now, the betta being old (over 2 years)
he started having sight problems, and he would swim up to his betta
pellets, overswim and pass them, and then eventually they would sink to
the bottom. Well, when the goldfish was first put in there some of those
betta pellets were still in the gravel, and the goldfish ate them, being
the pig that it is. When feeding time came along, i put in flakes for
the goldfish, and betta pelllets for the betta. The betta being old and
slow didn't gobble up his food like the goldfish and the goldfish must
have liked what he tasted at the bottom earlier cause it ate a fresh
pellet. I went away and came back an hour later and found the goldfish
sitting straight up but on the bottom not breathing. I think it could
eat the old pellets on the bottom because they had been in the water for
a while and were soft. The new pellets were hard and I think the
goldfish choked on it and killed itself. So while the betta might not
attack and kill the goldfish, and maybe the goldfish won't nip at the
betta, you'll still have to devise a better feeding method.

That goldfish was the first and prettiest one I had. I've gotten 5 more
since, but they just don't compare. I was really sad when he/she died,
partly cause it was sort my fault, but how was I to know? At least you
do now.

Osiris

[John D. Goulden]

> do they make a good match in an aquarium?

Some posters have mentioned that bettas are too aggressive for goldies (the
males can be aggressive, but only with fish that look like other male
bettas), but that isn't the reason that bettas and goldies are NOT good
tank-mates. Bettas are solitary fish that do well in relatively small tanks
and prefer calm, warmer water (78F or so). Goldfish enjoy the company of
their own kind, need lots of space, and are cool-water fish (70F or so) that
prefer a moderate current. These differing requirements are such that I
don't think that bettas and goldies would do all that well together. About
the only thing my goldfish and betta tanks have in common is that they both
get a bit of aquarium salt in the water.

My advice: set up a nice little heated tank (but no smaller than five
gallons, please) for your betta, and figure on about one inch of fish per
ten gallons in your goldfish tank.

--
John Goulden
mostly goldies, guppies, swordtails and bettas

[Kellbot]

Hm, we've all agreed that bettas + goldfish are a bad idea, but I saw a
LFS with bettas and GF in the same tank, but sectioned off from each
other by a plate of glass. The Betta was in a large plexiglass cube
that hung from the back of the tank, and the cube had vents so that the
water could flow through it.

Seemed like a much nicer way to display bettas for sale than putting
them in those tiny little cups..

[[email protected]]

I couldn't agree more John. They are apples and oranges. Putting
aggression issues aside, the real problem is housing cool water fish
with tropicals. A BAD combo.

[John D. Goulden]

> Seemed like a much nicer way to display bettas for sale than putting
> them in those tiny little cups..

I wonder how many of those poor bettas actually live. One day at the LFS
there will be a couple of dozen bettas; next day, none. I think they just
throw them out once a week when new ones come in.

--
John Goulden
mostly goldies, guppies, bettas, and swordtails