Bettas and their funny ways

[FishyLoveBug]

Does your betta have just a cute funny habit? Just a little fishy something that makes you smile? Lets hear some stories of your bettas and their ways.


Faboo can be on the other side of his tank, but if I raise and wave my hand he swims to the side closest to me and does his snake dance. "Hi mommy!"

Horizen and Vega bubble nest when they hear our microwave beep even though its in another room because they think its "Pea Day".

Leo builds huge bubble nests when I place a certain bright colored notebook near his tank and flares at me when I take it away.

Ares flares at everyone and everything, but will gently nibble a bit of pea from my finger during feeding.


Please share the stories that make you a Bettaholic.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Pulpul gets all giddy and adorable around his cave. He'll start swimming around it and in and out of it rapidly, curving all over the place. Eventually he settles in and just rests inside, but he always goes through his little happy-go-lucky cave dance first.

Dickey Barett will not flare at me, but will flare at any other human being, animal, or inanimate object that passes by his tank.

Lug will swim along the glass flaring and trying to look tough (looks STUPID with those deformed gills and scrawny body), but the second Shyboy comes over to the glass to answer the challenge, he darts away and hides.

Shyboy, who isn't at ALL shy any more, will put on a display when it comes time for food. He'll extend all of his fins to their fullest extent and kindof shake them around like he's shiverring, then he darts over to the food door and starts leaping and flaring until the pellets come.

Jeff Klee tries to fight with the picture of the betta on the bottle of betta bites whenever I leave the container next to his tank.

Tiny Tim gets very excited whenever I come over and swims up and down with his face to the glass making what could only be described as a "goldfish fish" (ie. wide open mouth flapping open and shut and sortof suctioning on the glass).

 

[Kiarra]

Narcissus is obsessed with his reflection in my flashlight...but ONLY in my flashlight. He doesn't care about other Bettas. He doesn't care about his reflection in mirrors. Just that flashlight. He'll swim by it, and then he'll stop, hunker down deep in his gravel, and then just stare.... No flaring, no puffing out anything. After twenty or so seconds, he gets up and swims off. He also likes to dig in his gravel with his nose.

Killian jumps two inches straight out of the water for food. And he bites. Hard. Doesn't let go very often, either.

Tristan likes to hide in the little hole I dug in his gravel to sit his Java Fern comfortably. Can never see his body when he does that. Just see fishie nose on one end, and fishie butt on the other.

I think Magi is gay. No, really. Since I got him, he has consistently ignored females, but he blows bubblenests for males in tanks next to his, and tries to get them to follow him over there. I breed, so I know what this dance looks like. He has done it the entire time I have gotten him, with males and never females. Until he met Pixie. Pixie is this little green female who has bred very quickly in the past, and always seems to get along quite well with the males, if you know what I mean. Now I think Magi is bi (he still builds nests for neighboring boys...).

I cannot separate Duncan and Merlin. No, they aren't in the same tank. They're in neighboring tanks. But I can't separate them. They sit and flare at each other all day long, stopping only to eat and sleep and flirt with any girl I may place next to them. I tried separating them because I didn't think that all this flaring would be good for them, and then Duncan completely paled on me, went down to the bottom, laid on his side, and SULKED. I held out on him for a little while. He wouldn't eat, he barely came up to breathe. So I set him back next to Merlin. They're quite happy, even though they act like they really want to kill each other. I can't decide if Duncan really LIKES Merlin, and that's his reason for living and breathing, or if he HATES Merlin, and that's his reason for living and breathing. Either way, if it keeps him healthy and not sulking and playing dead on me, he can live next to Merlin all he wants.

 

[Styx]

Ekaitz sort of folds himself in half when he swims back and forth in his tank doing the "feed me dance" while snapping.

When I stick my hand in the girly tank with the siphon I have, all the females I got from Wuv come and nibble at me.

Miltiades and Livius blow bubbles at each other and do the mating flare and wiggle one day, then the battle wiggle the next day. Then the day after that, it's back to, "Come look at my nest you sexy thing you."

Whenever I walk by, everyone swims to the tops of their tanks and watches the surface of the water closely. When nothing happens, they look at me, the top of the tank, me, the top, then snap their mouths open and closed.

Callistus flares at anything shiney, be it a pot, pepper shaker, or the metal prongs to an electical plug. When you touch his mouth, he opens it wide as if to bite you, then just closes it. Sometimes he flares and smacks your finger with his tail as if he thinks it's another male.

 

[Allix]

Mine is just weird, he chases the platies ... then the platies will stop, and he stops (almost like he is stalking them) ... then they swim and chase eash other but they never touch

 

[50000_tears]

flame-will stare at me likea sad puppy.is a very polite eater he doesnt shark out at food and chomp it or spit it out and eat it again he takes a pellets nibbles it and swallows.

ani-he used to do the weridist dance alive (before he got dropsy )

AmyII:she lookes like a little girl. she eats like a shark!

Lightningi almost made a thread about him) well, he likes to stare at things he cant have (doorknob,toaster, COFEE MAKER lol),he flares at air(ie. Nothing) and he is scared of the dark.

past fish-

the one week wonder-would smile i swear!!

Aaron-like to eat rude(unlike flame)

AmyI-wanted to eat my fingers

Gus-he was a moochie he always gave me a cute face for food,ge did dances alot ,he liked everyone (ani and lightning practicly are my mom's i take care of AmyI and flame)

 

[sgstvoy]

I don't name my bettas, so I'll just use male and female, :\

Anyway, I put my female betta into a community tank with neons, tetras, a plec, swordtails and an orange fish (can't recognize species).

She has this habit of rubbing her nose on the front tall of my tank, up and down she goes, then rubbing her little nose (not that she has one, but for the sake of completeness, lol) left and right. That's so funny..

As for my male (blue VT) betta, he has no weird habits, but I have a white male VT that when I disturb him (as in put something infront of his jar) he'll go crazy and dart here and there. I've stopped disturbing him, fearing stress.

 

[GTP2002]

Jeff Klee tries to fight with the picture of the betta on the bottle of betta bites whenever I leave the container next to his tank.

That is so funny to picture.

 

[sgstvoy]

That'll be fun to watch! Can you snap some pictures of him doing it?

 

[Haiku]

Orion just now decided to flare his Hikari pellet for a few moments before eating it , it looked so cute I guess he wanted to have the satisfaction of biting/eating his "opponent!"

Draco watches everything I do, for most of the day. Every time I look up, his little face is plastered to the side of the tank watching every move I make. When I reach my hand out to pick up my water bottle for a drink, he swims along and "follows" my hand down, and then back up

 

[sgstvoy]

Forgot to add this:

When I was eating lasanage a few days back, I went to my male betta tank to watch him and the fry. He kept looking at me! Like he wanted a bite of my lasanage! Heh.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Sorry, my digital camera only takes horribly blurry, out of focus pictures, and has no batteries right now.

Oooh, got something for Matamoras (I hope he makes it..), my new boy. He, for whatever reason, really really hates my black jacket. If I wear it into the room, he freaks out flaring like mad, then hides if I come closer. If I take it off, he's perfectly friendly and just asks for food.

 

[Raechal]

Angus my oldest VT male is a PIG. He will eat anything I drop into his tank. But he always has to "attack" his food. He like swims up to it really quick, opens his jaws really wide, snaps it in his mouth and then rapidly shakes his head back and forth like a shark. I am always scared to let him eat from my finger as my other boys sometimes do, so I just drop them in his tank. He also has two rows of fake grass in his 5 gallon bowl and he likes to hide in them, but when I come up to his tank he'll dart out of the grass and come to the front of the bowl to see me.

Deiter is a champion bubble-nester. He won't eat pellets either. It is either flake, freeze dried bloodworms or frozen foods. He has a female in a 2 gallon bowl sitting next to his tank and he goes crazy for her. Everytime I try to cover her bowl up so he can "relax" he frantically swims about the tank looking for her. He only stops when I show her to him once again.

Cotton Candy LOVES attention. I will be laying in bed and he will be staring at me with his adorable little puppy-dog eyes like he is saying "Come over here and play with me." So when I come to the tank he always shows off and shows me how pretty his finnage is. He's the largest boy I have and he is like a pretty boy. I also think he has a crush on my newest male, my white VT. They got in the same tank together after finding a hole in the divider to squeeze through and all they did was do the "wiggle" dance next to each other. No flaring or biting at all. I still separated them though. I thought it was funny because when Deiter got into Cotton candy's side, Cotton Candy ripped a good chunk from deiter's tail and deiter returned the favor. This time, Cotton Candy just swam alongside the new boy.

New boy- white VT male from walmart. He doesn't have a name yet but he has quite the personality. He "wiggles" a lot instead of regularly swimming and he also takes rather large breathes of air. He will stick half of his head in the air just to get a breath. He finally make his bubble nest the other night, it is pretty small but I was so proud of him! He likes frozen foods the best (don't they all?) and really won't touch pellets either. He was being fed on some kind of orange flake at walmart, I believe it was goldfish food because that was the only can sitting next to the bettas. He also flares at me and anything that comes to the tank, although if it comes too close, he will retreat to his cave.

Pea Princess my baby female- She used to be so tiny and now she is full of energy and eating everything! I think she is constantly trying to fatten up and grow for her lover, Deiter. She gets so excited when she sees him and almost looks like she is wagging her tail. Recently she has started making a bubble nest of her own. I think she saw how huge Deiter's was and she got inspired hehe. One time I moved Deiter's tank away from hers and put Angus's there instead and even though they look similar in coloring, she sulked the whole time Deiter was away from her. So put them back together and she perked right up again. She gets her name because when I first got her, peas were all she would eat.

 

[FishyLoveBug]

As I was feeding Horizen and Vega the other night I noticed Horizen has fin rot again. Since they share a divided tank I took out Horizen and put him in his own 1 gallon for the round of medicines.
Its so terrible now all they both do is lay around the tanks LOL. Occasionally the will swim over to the side of the tank and look for each other then flutter back to the resting spot. Vega is saddest of all he just lays in front of the divider some days, just looking. Its funny how male bettas are, a couple of weeks ago Horizen bit off some of Vegas tail through the divider. Now here they are like lost little puppies.

 

[Elise]

Ula is a silly boy. He never flares at females or my other male. Even when my male is having a cow, flaring and wiggling all over the place, Ula just watches him. Then when I put my calendar between the two tanks, Ula goes wild! He flares, dances, charges. And when I remove the calendar, he just goes and sulks. But I've notices that in the month of March, he didn't flare at the picture at all! (it was a bobcat). But this month it's a bright flamingo and Ula goes nuts over it! He is such a beautiful boy.

Kai is pretty fiesty, he loves to flare at EVERYTHING. But when I put my finger up to the tank, he calms down and follows my finger. When he was sick and flaring took a lot out of him, I would trail my finger along the tank and he would become entranced with it and calm down. Lol, he is such a character!

My two girls, Alsace-Lorraine and Orlena attack bloodworms and then spend the rest of the day and sometimes two days scouring the bottom for any sign of wiggling worms. Also, they flirt with their tank mate: my guppy, Playboy. (Aptly named mind you). He flirts with them right back. And truth be told, he has tried endless times to mate with the both of them.