Strange Feeding habits...

[Dart]

Okay so my cute green butterfly Charlie has been acting really weird when he's eating. I put the pellets in his tank and they float on the water. He comes up to eat them like a normal betta but...

he ALWAYS misses...it's like he thinks his mouth is on his black spot on his head , because he always goes too far before he jumps to eat the pellet. Or he'll swim on his side to try to attack it on a diagonal. it's great fun to watch but i'm worried he's not actually getting any food.

He seems to see just fine... but has anyone else had this problem ?

oh this is charlie

also has anyone had a betta with a tail like his? witht eh little dots of colour?

 

[Mina]

Oh, He's a pretty boy! Never seen one with spots, but now I want one

As for the eating problem, he may have poor eyesight. Do you see him rooting around at the bottom of the tank sometimes? If so, he may be eating then. He looks like he's perfectly healthy to me, lovely fella.

He could also be playing with them, Phred does this with plant pieces. He'll rip them off and chase them about the tank for quite a bit. Goofball.

 

[Synirr]

I had a fish who had trouble accurately locating his pellets when he got older... presumably his eyesight was failing him
Maybe he's trying to eat the pellet's reflection on the tank wall rather than the actual pellet?

 

[Allie]

I had a betta that had trouble finding his food , but he was very old.

My new betta sometimes misses finding his food on 1'st or 2nd attempt.
I take my finger and try to point him in the right direction.

 

[SPLiSH]

Jerry sometimes gets over-enthusiastic when it's feeding time... he circles the pellet and then attacks it. He usually misses.... then he realises that the pellet isn't going to escape and he uses better manners.

 

[Dart]

Mmmm i never actually thought of it as an old age thing because i just got him in march oh course he was a rescue from the pet store so who knows how old he is.

The spots on his tail are so weird. silly boy though i wonder if it's a water quality thing because i just noticed my delta has it on his dorsal fin, strange

 

[GaryH]

My female has very bad accuracy too, but I think it's just because she gets over excited. She jumps out and eats from my finger but usually just misses and picks the food out of the water when it falls off my finger. My boys miss their food a lot too, just watch him when he's eating until he's done.

 

[Synirr]

The spots on his tail are so weird. silly boy though i wonder if it's a water quality thing because i just noticed my delta has it on his dorsal fin, strange

The spots are a pattern found in wild-types, though I've never seen it on the tail of a veiltail before... it looks very nice
I see veils at Walmart all the time who have that wildtype pattern on their dorsal