my bettas are psycho...

[eja0913]

so today i wake up, and head over to my tanks to feed my frantically dancing bettas. rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, i blink and blink again and see that my doubletail has somehow managed to shred up his upper tail. i glance over at my veiltail and notice that he has ALSO shredded his tail!!! what the heck?? BOTH of them in the same night! i don't understand why this happened at all, especially since neither of them has done it before. my doubletail has a plastic plant in his tank, a little pot for him to hide in, and smooth stones. the plastic plant doesn't have jaggy edges, it's quite smooth. my veiltail has a silk plant and smooth stones in his tank too. it doesn't look as though their tails have been ripped, but shredded. any ideas on why they do this? oh yes, and it's not as though they can see each other and want to fight. their tanks are far enough apart that they don't know the other exists...

yes i know that no matter how smooth the plastic is, it can still cut them, and also the silk can cut their tails too, but not to this crazy extent.

i also find it weird they both did it in the same night. i'm currently treating them with BettaFix. i know some of you don't like this product, but it worked well for me when i got my doubletail from the petstore and his tail was a little chewed up..

any ideas/comments/suggestions are welcome.

 

[wuvmybetta]

I would think blown fin But that's not shredded really Does it look like maybe they overflared themselves?

 

[eja0913]

okay. i took a couple pics. they aren't the best in the world but you can see their tails at least.

this is my doubletail, his top tail is the chewed up part. see how it's all those little rips along the edge?

this is my veiltail. he has one long rip in the middle, which is what the picture shows, and all along the edge of the tail is the same ripped up pattern that my dt shows.

i don't really know how they would over-flare themselves, especially my dt Omega as he is the most mellow fish ever. and my veiltail just likes to flare up his little face while all his fins and tail just hang in the water. the only time i've ever seen them both really flare up was when i pushed their tanks side by side and they saw ANOTHER MALE!

any ideas?

 

[BirdofPray]

I hope someone out there can help, because I have no idea why they would start doing this all of a sudden.

 

[wuvmybetta]

That really is strange, but it doesn't look like it's anything to worry about. Just keep on top of your water changes and they should be righty-o in no time

 

[eja0913]

thanks wuv their regularly scheduled water change is tomorrow, so maybe i'll do one every couple days for awhile, instead of once a week.