Marine betta experience???

Cassian · Mar 18, 2019

any one have experience with keeping Marine Bettas? I've always loved these fish, but I was told they are very cryptic and you rarely see them so I've never gotten one. I am considering this as my centerpiece fish for my 65 gallon aquarium.

LostInTheDark · Mar 18, 2019

I have one in a 220 mixed reef. They are cryptic but you see him enough to make it worth it. Thy are beautiful. The only downside is you have to be careful adding any smaller fish. They are a grouper so they will eat anything they can fit in there mouths. Luckily mine hasn't gotten a taste for anything but pellets and krill.

408Dartfish · Mar 18, 2019

I haven’t had one personally, but have read they do like to have caves, and our pretty much disease resistant.

Cassian · Mar 18, 2019

thanks every one!

Jase4224 · Mar 19, 2019

I think they are beautiful but I’ve heard they can be difficult to get to eat pellets.. however this was a long time ago and pellets have come a LONG way. If they readily eat pellets I would love one of these..

eatbreakfast · Mar 19, 2019

One of my favorites. They are cryptic, but eventually come out for feedings. They are more shy in brighter lighting.

They are hardy and long lived. They don't eat that much relative to their size.

They are more specialized shrimp hunters. I have kept them with large cleaner and blood shrimp, but they decimate peppermint shrimp.

I have found them well-behaved with small fish. I have kept them with barnacle, pike, and stigmatura blennies, as well as with neon gobies, firefish, and small dartfish.

homer1475 · Mar 19, 2019

I have always wanted one, but have always been afraid to add one for the fear of munching my smaller fish. Recently I've been travelling to different LFS's(all over NY except the city, VT, and Mass), and have seen a lot of comets around recently.

The posts in this thread have made me rethink maybe getting one for my 80.

mort · Mar 19, 2019

Excellent advise above but I'll just add my experience. In terms of them being cryptic I think a lot is down to how you keep them. Mine will feed from my hand as will someone else I know but we keep them in a tank with plenty of overhangs and feed them when the lights start to go down. I also think it's important, if you want to see the most of them, to keep them in quiet tanks and by that I mean without masses of large pacing fish. They will do fine with other large fish but you won't see as much of them as they like to skulk about slowly in peace.

You certainly see bolder ones and those that are more secretive so if it's stuck in a cave with its bum pointing at you all the while your at the lfs, chances are it will copy that behaviour at home for quite a while. It's less common to see one out and about but if you do definitely go for that one. In time they become bolder and in my tank mine now comes out in the brightest lighting.
A good way to encourage them out is to feed them with tongs. As TJ says above they don't need that much food for their size but I feed them good chunk 2-3 times a week and they pick up the other food in between should they want to. By training it you can get them to be quite tame but you need to put the effort in.