stressed bettas :(

[cutecotton]

hi everyone

i currently have a problme with my 10G tank that holds 4 male bettas (obvoiusly divided). i'll try to provide as much information as i can, as well as the symptoms.

about 2 weeks ago, i found the fins of one of my bettas completely SHREDDED...i have no clue what could have done this becuase there was nothing in his "section" besides a ghost shrimp and the filter. In any case, i treated it immediately with salt and melafix, and continued to do so fo ra few days. Then, about a week ago, i found that another one of my males have really curly fins i have no clue why, but the other two bettas were completely unaffected (no signs of finrot, curly tails or anything like that).

they all eat very well (even the one with teh shredded tail), and that brings us to now. I have been doing water changes (about 20%) every weekend, i feed them aabout 2 or 3 times a day, sometimes with freeze dried bloodworms. Teh tempreature is always constant, from about 75-80F.

But my bettas use to build bubblensts like crazy. I mean...i would have a LOT of bubblenests, but since i discovered that male with teh shredded fins, i have not seen a single bubble come out of either 4 of them. Which gets me worrying.

So, bottom line question: What do curly fins in bettas mean? Why won't my bettas build me anymore bubblensts when they use to build way too many of them and i had to scoop some out. How could i get the curly fins to go away (oh and btw the one wtih the shredded tail is starting to heal), and start getting them to build some nests for me?

eh i know i'm terrible at writingp osts, if you dont' get anything just ask and i'll try to straighten it out

 

[cutecotton]

crap...i thought i was in the betta forums... so sorry coudl someone move this for me please )

 

[AmberC]

I dont know about the curly tail or what could be wrong with the rest of them, but I do know that I had a ghost shrimp in with a betta one time before and the shrimp shredded up the bettas tail overnight. I took out the shrimp and it never happened again.

 

[thellama]

the curly fins usually mean bad water conditions...

crowntails ''crowns'' will curl sometimes if the water isnt great... a good ol water change could solve this problem?... and as for the shredded betta.. maybe hes biting his own tail? or maybe fin rot ?

 

[cutecotton]

i'm not even going to try and figure out waht shredded my betta's tail i'm just gonna leave it becuase he's healing quite nromally.

Can't figure out why the others are having a bad case of curly tails though i also want to figure out what's stopping them from buidling nests.. they use to build so manY

 

[rykitten]

Cotton, my Cletus has CTS (Curly Tail Syndrome) too. I'll link you to the post where BKK educated me.

Okay here ya go.

 

[cutecotton]

hmmm that is very strange i wonder why only 2 of my 4 bettas have this. Oddddd, i do regular water changes about once a week, maybe i could try doing a 100% water change? or woudlt hat stress out the fishies too much?

rykitten, did your betta ever get his CTS straightened out?

 

[rykitten]

Nope, still curly.

Just to test I've been doing 2 water changes a week instead of one and letting my water age for about 3 days.

Hasn't made a difference.

I do have some some Bettamax I was saving for an emergency but I'll try it out and see if it makes a difference. I'll let you know.

 

[cutecotton]

hmmm strange, my betta's curly tail has been curly since my other betta got his tail shredded (which is about 2 weeks ago), i've been doing everythign i can and it never seems to go back striaght. I wonder if it's even possible for it to go back straight...

still wondering what could possibly be discouraging my bettas from buidling a bubblenest. I want to breed one of them but now im' not sure becuase they won't bleu any bubbles at all i need to figure out the problem and treat it asap.

melafix doesnt' seem to be working or doing anythign for my bettas at all i will try doing a big water change next week (after exams), and see if it perks them up a little.

 

[DogFish]

I wonder if it is just a phase they go through. Mine were all building huge bubblenests all the time, but lately no nests-a couple of weeks. Yesterday my daughter started yelling that the boys had bubblenests again. I havn't done anything different for the last couple of weeks.
One thing I do notice that mine like is to have their 'furniture' changed. From time to time I move their silk plants around, or change them from tank to tank. I think it amuses them to have something new to check out. And when they are happy, ...bubblenests!

 

[cutecotton]

hmm interesting thanks for sharing, i hope my bettas are just in a phase too and i'm just being wya too paranoid about it maybe i should try to rearrange the tank a bit and throw in some silk plants things must be getting a little dull down there

could i go ahead and condition them even though they're not building bubblensts on a regular basis? or should i wait until they are building nests and then start conditioning?

 

[DogFish]

Ok I don't know much about breeding. If conditioning is putting the male and female together with the female safely separated, then I would think it would be ok. It might be just the thing to get him livened up again and to build a bubblenest.
If that isn't conditioning then I can't help

 

[rykitten]

Hi Cotton,

Wanted to let you know that I finished the last dosing of Bettamax last night. Didn't see any improvement, Cletus's tail is still curly on the edges.

How's your guy doing?

 

[cutecotton]

mine are too, i treated with melafix, warm temp, water changes + syphoning....still curly no clue why. on the bright side i've beenf eeding the little guy lots and he built a huge bubblenst today (depstie the curly tails, the betats seem to be on a high note lately )

i read somewhere that the tail thing coudl be premanent, also read somewhere that it was actually a trait not sure about how true that is though.

 

[White Whale]

Curling is usually a sign of aging.