Tail Ripped, Spitting Food

[OneOnion]

Hello, my male betta, a super delta who lives in a 5 gallon, has some problems. First, his caudal fin is ripped. I had this problem since after I got him, but recently it's gotten worse. In fact, it got even worse the day after I did a water change, and now a cm section of his caudal fin is shreds . He has some black on it, but I assumed it was his natural coloring. Is it fin rot? Strangely, the black isn't even where the big rips are. Second, sometimes he spits out some food. Right after I feed him a pellet, he gets a bubble and when he spits it out, some food comes out. Is he just washing out his mouth or is he spitting out the pellet? I've been feeding him less now because of that. He does have a small curve on his belly, is that normal for bettas?

p.s. Maybe he's just sick of the pellets? Should I try something else?

 

[loraxchick]

the black may be natural coloration (esp since it is not in the tear) many bettas have darker edging on their fins. are you sure he hasnt been snagging his tail on something in the tank? torn in the filter intake? is he biting his tail? might be why you dont see new growth. is it very rapidly eroding away?

as far as the pellets go, try to soak them for a few minutes prior to feeding. they may just be hard and he doesnt like the hardness or it may be difficult for him to swallow the hard pellets. just an idea.

bettas should have rounded tummies. its when they look like theyve swallowed a marble that there are potential problems (ie constipation/parasities.etc.)
cheers

*edit to add

 

[Tortea]

There is no issue with it spitting out food, and then eating it again, most fish do that, if betta are bored they swim around and bite their tail, attach a mirror to the tank and see what happens!

 

[OneOnion]

I've never seen him biting his tail, but it seemed to get worse overnight, so he could've bit his tail at night. I put up the mirror anyway, and it's been there for 5 minutes or so. Should I leave it permanently?

He's been near the filter many times, and even when his fins touched it he didn't snag, so that's not it.

The only rough thing in the tank is a rock, but he never touched it, and when he did touch it, and rubbed against it nothing happened. There used to be a thermometer in there, it was metal and kind of sharp, but I took it out. But he still got worse, so that wasn't the problem.

Right now I think he's biting himself. But, there's a small rip on his anal fin and one on his dorsal fin, too...

Thanks for the info on the pellets. Ill soak them.

 

[OneOnion]

Oh god... He's much worse now! He got another big rip in his caudal fin, and some more small ones! The mirror looked like it made things worse. What do I do

 

[Honeythorn]

Just because you haven't seen him catch his fins on the rock or filter, doesn't mean he isn't. Same for tail biting He could well be doing it in the night when you can't see.

Remove the rock if it's rough, and ziptie some fine mesh or a thin stocking/piece of pantyhose/popsock (wash it in warm plain water first ) around the filter intake as a precaution.

Do you have a picture of the tank? Perhaps something about the layout is stressing him out and causing tail biting or some other form of damage to his fins.

Also, how long has this tank been setup? Is the filter cycled? How long has he been in there?

 

[OneOnion]

Here ya go. I don't think there's anything wrong, except that there aren't that many plants, some plants are being shipped to me and will arrive in 2 or 3 days. I'll remove the rock, then. Also, the filter is for up to ten gallons, but I put it on its lowest setting and did that trick with the half soda bottle, and now there's barely any movement with the filter.

I also noticed he likes going into weird places. Like, he always dives into that place between the micro sword and the glass, and gets stuck for a while, then struggles and goes out again. He also goes in between the terra cotta pot and the glass. Is that normal behavior?

 

[Honeythorn]

Wedging themselves into plants is perfectly normal. They like to rest on and in plants.

Your tank is great but extremely bare. It does indeed need a great deal of plants and it could be the open space that's making him feel stressed and want to hide between the plants and glass.

I'd say ideally you should plant up around 70-80% of your tank, and leave one smallish area open for free swimming ( this is usually done at the front centre but it's up to you really) . Plant all round the back and edges, coming in towards the middle.

How many plants have you ordered? You will need more than 2 or 3! A pack of live plants is a better choice if you've bought from Ebay for example .

Bunches of stem plants are really good for filling spaces. Cabomba, Elodia and Hygrophillia are all easy to grow, moss balls are great floorspace fillers and bettas love resting on them. Aponogentons are good tall plants with many leaves for hiding in, and for some floor cover, you could try some Crypts, those are nice and simple.

I would say though that to grow plants better you will need a deeper layer of sand in there. 1.5 - 2 inches depth is good.

 

[OneOnion]

Okay, thanks. Hopefully he'll feel better when I add plants. I got 10 Vallisneria Corkscrew, 2 bunches of Water Sprite, 3 bunches of Elodea, 2 Java fern, 1 Anubias, 1 HC. I will probably have leftover of the Vallis, Water Sprite, and defo leftover of elodea(I needed much less than 3 bunches, but 3 was the min), but the Java ferns, anubias, and most of the HC will be for my ten gallon. I know they love floating HC, so I'll put a little of the HC in the 5 gal. so he'll have some.

EDIT: yeah, I definitely need more sand. The 2 fern-shaped plants in the back are always uprooting for some reason. It's so annoying.

 

[OneOnion]

UPDATE. Well, my plants for the ten gallon arrived a few days after Christmas. They were all in great condition except for one Java Fern. Anyway, as instructed on another thread I put them in a tub of water with a light. But they ended up not doing so well a few days later, with the once awesome-looking anubias and vallis crumbling and turning brown. Since and the cycle showed no signs of getting closer to finishing, so I decided to temporarily plant all of them in the five gallon with the betta and shrimp.

So, I took the betta into the cup he came in, and took the ornaments and plants out(except for the micro sword), took out some water, added more gravel(Didn't need to take shrimp out, they were all in the micro sword so I didn't want/need to), and put in the plants randomly. It ended up looking awesome! In fact, it was perfect, I think. Not too much, not too little. I think I'm actually going to leave the plants in there and buy new ones for the ten gallon(it'll probably be finishing closer to my birthday than Christmas, anyway, so I'll get more plants then). I'll put pictures later! Oh yeah, and his tail is healing! Still got a few more mm to go, but it's much more better now. Also, when I added the plants the shrimp also feel more secure. They're swimming all around like they used to before the bettas arrived, and the betta barely notices them, so that's good too.

 

[Honeythorn]

That's great! Plants really do make all the difference to a betta tank and the fishes and other inhabitants behaviour. They're so much more secure and relaxed because the plants provide a similar sort of visual environment that they would have in the wild.