A Divided Tank Nightmare...

[Channti]

Still a little shaken up over this one....
Fed my two bettas as normal. They get 4 pellets a night, with me giving one pellet to each fish at a time (one for chomp, one for alpha, one for chomp, one for alpha, etc.) so that Alpha is always the last one fed... Tonight I fed them in reverse order. Chomp received the last pellet.

I saw a dustbunny floating on top of Chomps side of the tank. Turned around for 30 seconds to grab a cup to pull it out, thought I heard a faint splash.... and when I turned back around, Alphas side of the tank was empty, and he was chilling in Chomps side. Thankfully, I noticed before they noticed each other, and my mad fish-catching skillz allowed me to net alpha and drop him in a guppy breeder box on his side of the tank in seconds while i examined the divider for holes.

Looks like he jumped in the 1" section between the rim of the tank and the curved feeder-hole thinger, as there are no holes in my divider whatsoever.

I've dropped a couple pieces of mesh in that area to prevent him from jumping, but dang did it scare me!

I should have known better. Alpha's a jumper. But..... *sigh*... at least now I'll never do it again!

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

That'll teach you to ruin their little routine lol.

 

[krista522]

I had a female jump OUT of the tank onto my bed (right next to my bureau housing my two tanks) while doing a water change. Poor crazy betta's, feel lucky that yours only jumped into the other side of the tank

 

[Assaye]

had a girl jump from a bucket onto the carpet behind the coffee table during a tank move around . . . only noticed 10 minutes later after a headcount! She's fine though.

Glad you got the divider sorted. Loki jumped in with Howl (RIP) a couple of weeks ago and since I moved Howl to a hospital tank that night, Loki is still on Howl's side. Silly feeesh.

 

[Channti]

I'm not taking any more risks. After using a piece of cardboard to do this for the past week, I went to walmart, bought more mesh, and built this:

No more amazing jumping bettas now. I drop their food in through the holes in the mesh. So Alpha can't even jump to get his pellets anymore (he learned to do that on his own... I didn't encourage him). Lesson Learned.

Edit***The mesh over the outflow of my filter isn't to prevent fish getting into the filter... it's for diffusing the water so it makes less noise. The Bio-Wheels are so noisy!.

 

[Assaye]

Sensible measure! Nice work =)