Can bettas explode?

[Dane]

One of my good friend's had a betta.. he had him.. for a few months... the fish showed no signs of illness... but.. apparently.. he exploded.. Paul's (my friend) concern is that he may have over fed him.. which then made the betta explode... basically.. he said that the fish was in pieces and there was a streak of blood in the water.. or something like it....

What could have this been?

 

[Synirr]

A fish version of spontaneous combustion, perhaps? *lol*

 

[rollntider]

was he bloated or anything? I guess anything is possible but , um....

 

[turbotiber]

oh dear, that's a disturbing mental picture

 

[Vip]

I had the same thing happen to me, my g/f found him stuck in a pot so she went to go move the pot but she touched him with her new finger nails and he had some sort of reaction to it witch made him blow up in a couple of days
Her nails had all differnt crap on them from the shop.

 

[Logitech]

The image of a betta exploding in its tank is disturbing.
I wonder what caused it to explode.

 

[f250fisherman]

Fry can do that often, if overfed. I've never heard of an adult gorging till it ripped it's stomach, but it sounds like that was what happened.

 

[endparenthesis]

There's a difference between bursting and ending up in multiple pieces. I guess I'll ask the dumb question that should be obvious, but you never know... was there anything else in there to attack it?

 

[GuppyDude]

i dont think its over feeding, my bettas will eat eat and eat till they look egg bound but they have their limits. when they r full they turn away. their not like guppys. my guess is its a disease because u 2 arnt the only ones iv heard this from. it doesn't only effect bettas either, iv heard of exploadeing gouramis, bettas, plattys, angelfish, tiger sharks, and one isident with a fresh water flounder no one is really sure. perhaps someone should do a study.

and about the fingernail polish makeing the fish explode thing, i dont think fingernail polish would do it, perhaps it was a corinsidence

 

[Netherways]

Guys,

I once had an incident like this. Only one in the tank etc, At the time I had a friend round who is a marine vet, we noticed there was a nibble off one of the plants and an ornament I had in there.

The vet said It could well have possibly been a reaction between the fish's stomach acids (or something along those lines) and whatever it ate causing an excess build up of gas throughout the internal organs eventually leading to what would be a "fishy explosion"!

Were there any nibble marks on anything in the tank?

Of course anything that is sold for use in an aquarium should be tested for things like this but it would be near impossible to test for situations like this. The plastic may not have been toxic to the fish but that does not mean in the wrong conditions it wont react!

Food for thought eh?

Alex

 

[Dane]

Well. I can ask him. Apparently there was some blood in the tank.. and he had no other tank mates.. just that one betta.