My 20 gal tropical community tank recently went through a bad bout of disease (from new fish, grrrr) and I'm in the process of heavily medicating it. Once that is done and I'm sure that it's stabalized, I was thinking of adding my betta...but I'm nervous!!! I tried this before with my old betta but he was too agressive with my gourami. I was thinking it would work this time around because all I have left are neon and black skirt tetras, and cories. My previous betta never bothered any of those.

The tank is heavily planted and well established (well...disrupted at the moment but hopefully that will be fixed in the next few weeks). What do you guys think? Does anyone else have their betta in a community tank? I really don't want to see anyone get hurt, but I'd for my betta to have such a great home, and he'd look so great under the big lights!

Chrissy

Gouarmis and Betta's will most often not get along too well at all.
Black Skirts,kind of make me wonder.I've had some where they were calm,and okay in a community tank,and I've had others that became the Bullies of the tank.The thing is that you really don't ever know because each fish/situation is different.
I have a Betta in a 20 long Cory tank that does fine. I at one time did have a Betta that shared a community tank,in fact -even with a huge female Gouramis,and they got along well.I think it had alot to do with the fact that this Betta actually came from a spawn I had,and was raised from the beginning in this tank.
Every other Betta I ewver had,(And I've had a few),did not like sharing their tank. Go figure.
All you can do is try it,and just keep real close track of the going ons.

Yep, if I do it I'll be one nervous mom for sure. When I did it before I sat in front of the tank for hours The move is a long way off anyway, I'm going to give it more thought. I was thinking that maybe I could put the betta in a baggie and lay him in there just to see his reaction to the other fish..

Chrissy