help me stock

[rywill]

ok so i have a 55gallon tank, cycled and ready to go and i was thinkin of stocking around a betta. i want to give him as much room as i can so he is goin in the 55 instead of cramming him in a tiny tank. What possibilities could i keep with him and still keep him happy and healthy? thanks in advance

[Zoe]

You may hear that a betta will be uncomfortable with that much room (I put mine in a 10gallon and he just sort of hung out in the corner), but I'm sure that many have had experiences with happy bettas in big tanks. Anyway, if you're stocking around a betta, start with a young betta, lots of plants, and keep in mind that your options for tankmates will be limited to relatively small fish, with very little finnage.
Like small tetras (neons, glowlights), large tetras (penguins, lemon tetras, bleeding heart), harlequin rasboras... maybe some dwarf rasboras. You might be able to get away with a pair of kribensis. Anyway, bettas do not seem to like a lot of water movement so you shouldn't put too many fish in there with him. Maybe the betta, lots of plants, a school of dwarf rainbows, a school of lemon tetras, a school of neon tetras?

[darkfalz]

The biggest problem with a betta and a tank that size is that you need a decent strengh filter, and betta won't like that. I put him in my 40L tank and he just started getting blown around by the current. So I put him back in his 20L spone filter tank

[Osiris]

With a proper diffuser it would be fine.

Betta may feel the lack of hiding places in tank that size. We have planned to setup a 75g for a trio of betta's, with the output area of water being ran directly into a pile of rocks makes for a good difuser instead of creating a flow stream pattern...

[rywill]

k thanks...yea i was wondering about the water flow affecting the betta. It will still be a little while b4 i plan on doing this, since i had cichlids in it b4, im going to re-do the substrate and re-decorate to make the betta feel as comfortable as possible