Marine betta in reef tank

Beautiful non shy fish

Can fit with yellow watchman, bangii Cardinals at 1.5 inches,
Yellow tang, damsel in 120 softie tank?


Great eye catching fish at 6 inches
 
Beautiful non shy fish

Can fit with yellow watchman, bangii Cardinals at 1.5 inches,
Yellow tang, damsel in 120 softie tank?


Great eye catching fish at 6 inches

I have a 6" Marine Betta in my FOWLR tank but I have quite a few beginner corals in there too. He has never touched any of the corals, not shy at all, swimming along with the other fishes.
I introduced him in the tank first and then the rest of the fishes. I have an Emperor Angel, yellow tang, 5 fairy wrasses, flame angel, coral beauty, Goldflake angel and a small Hippo tang in the tank.
 
I have one in my reef with plenty of bite size fish that he never bothers. Great addition doesn't bother inverts, corals or fish and is out with the tank mates
 
I had one in with softies a few years back, lovely fish but very timid/shy. I would avoid putting one in with aggressive fish as they can become even more subdued.
 
I would love to add one to my tank, but I thought they were just as hard to train to eat non live food as a lion. true or false?
 
Very easy in qt to train them to eat non live. At least for mine. It wasn't an aquarium bred so I made sure to qt him so he wouldn't go hunting.
 
I got them at the same time. one was twice the size of the other. They fought the first night and do not go near each other at all.

Getting them to eat has been no trouble whatsoever, though they are extremely timid when first added, so their eating is easy to go unnoticed.
 
I have one and its by far the biggest fish in the tank. Every inhabitant has a healthy respect for it but I've only noticed it mildly chase a dotty into the rocks apart from the occasional lunge at a cleaner shrimp (and I think this is only because they annoy it rather than any thoughts of a nice lunch).

It was easy to train onto frozen foods and by doing this in QT it actually made it very tame and bold. I don't know if this was a side effect of the training or if it was outgoing to begin with. I have read however that if it is shy in the shop, it likely remains shy in the tank.
 
I'm sure it will help the op.

Mine is the largest in the tank and the slowest eater so I feed him shrimp via throngs. He looks at it then eats half a large peeled deveined shrimp in one gulp every few days.
 
I feed mine mostly Mysis. I enrich it a couple of times a week with amino acids and vitamins and feed every couple of days. I prefer to feed PE Mysis as its bigger and packed full of goodness and he'll take about a cube's worth. It also gets smaller Mysis, the occasional cockle, prawn or other meat and krill on rotation. Just be careful if you feed to much krill as it can be hard to get them to eat anything else.
I trained it to a pipette and it eats from the waters surface but its the boss of the tank and nothing tries to steal its food.
 
Juveniles

Juveniles

I've only seen a Marine Betta a few times in LFSs. Twice as adults and once as a small 1"-2" juvenile. Are there advantages to getting a juvenile if one had the option? I think I remember seeing 3 sizes S-M-L available at Live Aquaria D-D at times.

-Are the small ones hardy, easy to feed?
-Do they grow quickly, like a Royal Gramma or clown? How long to max size?
-If it goes in a community tank young & small & are well fed are your chances better that they won't eventually gulp down 2"-3" fish like assessors & Grammas, or is that an irresponsible thing to do?

-Any tales of a Betta eating fish in your tank?
-I read they are night time prowlers? Will yours come up front at feeding time?
-Do you think a Betta would work in a 55g with a Flame Hawk & Orchid Dotty-back? part of a larger system so filtration not a factor.

Lots of questions, I know. But any comments or experiences welcome and appreciated. Thanks.
 
I would suggest smaller individuals acclimate better but 1" is tiny (unless captive raised in which case yay). I'd look at 2-3" as they are large enough to take bigger foods and have enough bulk that their metabolism isn't super high.
I've never had an issue getting predators to eat frozen, although my experience is limited to lions, scorpionfish and bettas (worked in a lfs). My trick was to just use live food to begin with, brine for small bettas but river shrimp is good for larger ones. Then when they are responding to food I try dead ones of the same food type and move it with flow. You'd be surprised but it normally works fairly quickly and they begin to take everything shortly after. You can use feeding sticks to wiggle the food in the same way.

Mine hasn't grown super fast but it is partly dictated by the amount of food you feed. If you feed more it will grow quicker but I'm cautious as I believe overfeeding leads to other problems like you see in lionfish. I tend to feed every other day or at least twice a week. I follow the food item total being six times the size of the eye per feeding. Its a rough rule for lionfish but they are fairly similar in my experience and would gorge themselves if they could as well so better to control their intake.

I haven't had an issue with it and tankmates yet. It is maybe 4" at the moment and leaves everything alone. I have it with a indigo dotty, which is similar to your fridmani (well is a hybrid of one) and there is no problems. It also leaves a small orangespot goby alone and even the shrimps (cleaners) don't tempt it. I have hermits and snails and they haven't been predated. In fact the only thing I have seen it eat in worms, both bristle and spionid.
I would say that again feeding is important in controlling their predatory habits. I don't see them as a problem with anything but the tiniest shrimp and fish (like gobies and evoita) tbh. I'm not saying that wouldn't change if it wasn't hungry but I had a tiny 1cm clown jump in the tank from my breeding setup next door and it was hiding under the betta from its parents, who were intent on killing it.

I think you will only find a few reports of them being "naughty" and I would wonder what the actually situation was in such cases, ie did it actually eat something or was it just there when something went missing.

They are nocturnal but tbh I don't really see that too much. Mine is always active in the background and when I approach the tank it is always aware of me and comes out to greet me. I put this down to not having any large fish like tangs to bother it and of course it associates me with food. It also knows that as soon as the pumps go off its feeding time.

I would recommend them to anyone and think a 55 should work. they don't need a huge amount of swimming space but you need to provide plenty of overhangs and caves and because they are predatory and have a protein rich diet, your filtration needs to be good. My tank is the same size but I'm just keeping an eye on it at the moment and have plenty of space elsewhere for it if it does begin to look cramped.
 
Of the 2 I have one was about 5", the other 3" when I got them. Training them to eat was never an issue, as I started with frozen. I would say both were easy and hardy.

I keep them in a community where there are a few small fish. Neither shows the slightest interest in eating tankmates.

They started off shy, but gradually have gotten more bold. They stay in their caves during the day, but come out for feedings, and then cruise around when the actinics come on.
 
mine eats pellets, great reef fish!!

i have open rock work so viewing is good, however years ago i had more rock and viewing was not so good; only saw fish when feeding. imo, broadcast feeding is better than spot feeding, brings fish out more: another mistake i did with first betta!!!
 
I have a pretty similar experience to the above. I purchased mine at about an inch - captive bred from Sustainable Aquatics. Is finally getting some girth on it at about 3-4 inches. Beautiful. I've also seen it eat bristle worms but would not consider it a danger to all but the smallest goby.
 
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