Siamese Fighter Tankmates?

Hi All.

I haven't been on this site for a while.

About a month ago I bought a male Siamese Fighter. He is on his own in a 64 litre tank at the moment, although I have recently bought a 40cm x 40cm x 20cm (approx 25 litre) tank for him.

I always thought that you couldn't keep other fish with them, but I was looking at the fish profiles on this site and it it says that Cherry Barbs make good tankmates for them. Is this correct and are there any other fish that I could put in with him?

Thanks in advance.
Ian.   

I forgot to say, you need to avoid any fish that have flowing or flashy tails and fins as that could cause your boy to square up to them....even fancy guppies could do that, although like I said before, Rafe was fine with my guppies. I guess it all depends on how stroppy their characters are.

It depends on the betta. Some live quite happily with other fish, as Resa's Rafe. Others are so aggressive they even attack snails. And because yours has been in the tank on his own, he may object to 'invaders' in his territory. It is safer to add the betta last so he sees the other fish as part of the scenery rather than invaders.

The types of fish that usually do OK with bettas are:
bottom dwellers
fish with short fins and tails
fish in monochrome or subdued colours
fish that do not ever nip fins. Those that sometimes do can't help themselves when the see a betta's fins.
fish that are big enough not be regarded as a snack

Cories tick all those boxes  With your 64 litre, you would need to look at dwarf cories - pygmy, salt & pepper (habrosus, not peppered cories) and hastatus, or possibly the slightly bigger pandas.
Harlequin rasboras, or one of their smaller look-alikes. Those are Trigonostigma hengeli (copper rasbora, and a few other common names) and T. espei (lambchop rasbora, slender rasbora). These fall into the non-nippy and subdued colour categories.
Endlers, male and female. Although they are brightly coloured, male endlers have short fins and tails and can swim faster than a betta. And any nippiness of the endlers is kept exclusively among themselves. Mine don't notice the other fish in the tank! And the betta would keep any population explosion under control.



But to be honest, if it was me, I'd put the betta in the 25 litre then you woudn't be restricted in the 64 litre. My bettas have always been in 25-ish litre tanks with just a small nerite snail for company (bee nerites, horned nerites). I did have one in a 50 litre tank with pygmy cories and female endlers until he developed a growth that I was worried might be infectious, so I moved him out. He was fine with those fish.

You could always use the 64 litre for some nano-fish, fish that would get lost in your bigger tanks. Dwarf cories, Boraras (there are a few species) Microdevario, Microrasboras, Sundadanios etc, (depending on your pH and hardness)

I like small fish, you can fit more of them in a tank 

I would not advise any fish to cycle the tank, fishless is much easier! If this is a new tank, do you have another tank still running? You can use some filter media from an established tank to kick start a cycle - it would work with a fish-in cycle too.
A betta should always be added last so they regard the other fish as part of the scenery; if other fish are added after a betta it will probably regard them as invaders to its territory, and an aggressive betta would attack them.
Recently I've been reading things about cherry barbs being aggressive towards other fish. I don't think I'd risk them with a betta. The barbs will quite likely not be ale to resist a betta's long flowing fins.