# List of recommended dither fish for wild type bettas?



## Jenniferinfl

I'm still learning more about my Betta imbellis. I recently separated out the smallest assumed male as he wasn't colored up at all, always covered in stress bars and so on, but at least he was active and eating. 

Anyhow, put him in his own 5 gallon tank and he immediately took to just sitting on the bottom of the tank and not eating. Alright, that didn't work so well. 

I thought, well, how about some kind of dither fish? I know that Betta imbellis isn't particularly picky about water pH, but it's still in a softwater tank anyhow as I'm trying to stay in practice for when I have one that does require it. 

My local Petco didn't have a single neon or cardinal tetra, but they did have some banded pencilfish which I believe are Nannostomus beckfordi. I bought the 7 they had and now the group of them is in a 10 gallon tank instead. Petco had these ones for 2 weeks and they all look great, so I figured that it was probably safe to go ahead and add the one betta right in with them. Wouldn't you know, he perked up almost immediately. Back swimming around and occasionally chasing them when they get too close to 'his' sponge filter. 

Anyhow, I have no idea if these will be good dither fish in the longterm, but so far so good. I'm thinking now of adding dithers to my other betta tanks but maybe different species. 

Anyone here successfully keep dithers with their wildtype bettas and have some suggestions?


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## majerah1

Does a single black neon tetra count? He is the leftover attempt at my dither fish issue. Anyhow I have kept harlequin rasboras and scissortailed rasboras with B. Ocellata and not had an issue.


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## Avraptorhal

At the risk of seeming stupid what's a dither fish?


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## dalfed

Avraptorhal said:


> At the risk of seeming stupid what's a dither fish?


A fish or school of fish, preferably top swimmers, that will give other fish in the tank a sense of safety by being active and out in the open, thus drawing out the other fish.


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## Jenniferinfl

As an update, the Beckford Pencilfish are still working nicely. Very happy with them really, still have all 7 I started with, they are active and chase each other around. Plenty sturdy to handle the occasional half-hearted lunge from the betta when they encroach on his sponge filter. They all feed together around the worm feeder when it's a blackworm feeding day. 

The betta hangs right with them instead of always around the bottom of the tank. No more horizontal stress bars, so far so good.


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## dirtydutch4x

I will be using bluefin killi's(Lucania goodei)


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## Jenniferinfl

To update, noticed the pencilfish spawning today and the betta is still fine as well, so I would guess they're all pretty comfortable with the situation.


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