Asked on the Fish Forum by Ziggy1129 on 3/6/03, 2:01 pm
Q: Beta fish
I have been having my beta fish for about a year now. He is very active and loves to eat. He has never turned down a meal. I feed him 5-6 beta bites every day and change his water whenever it starts looking a little cloudy (about every 4-5 weeks). I also take his plant out periodically and rinse the roots off to keep any fungus from forming. I keep him in a standard size fish bowl (a little less than a gallon) with a peace lily. Yesterday he took one bite of food and spit it out. He has not eaten since yesterday which is very unsual and he has not been swimming around as much. He is hanging out mostly near the top of the bowl. His color still looks very vibrant. I also noticed that he goes to the bottom and hides in his plant and fans his fins out to make himself look bigger. I have no idea what he is trying to do. I am worried about him because he is not acting like he normally does. Can you please give me some indication of what is happening. I hope he is not dying or getting sick. Thank you.
Answered by NatakuTseng on 3/6/03, 2:10 pm
A: Beta fish
From the sounds of it, he is seeing something, either on the outside of the tank or his own reflection which is making him flare up. Male bettas naturally do this to show off for female fish and try to get them to come up and check out their bubblenests during breeding, or in what sounds like is your case to scare off other male bettas/predators. This is completely natural for the fish to do, he may be going and hiding at the bottom of the tank because he can not frighten off his "competitor" and so he backs down. Though I am a bit concerned about how often you change the water in the tank, in my opinion 4-5 weeks is a much too long period of time to let the water in that tank sit, you should be changing 20-30%% of the water in the tank every week, and also cleaning the tank every week. This will make it a much healthier environment for your wonderul fish. To try to stop him from showing off for his phantom competitor, try moving the tank a little bit, in my opinon he is probably so focused on what he thinks is another male betta that trying to scare it off, away from his territory, than eating is. So just try moving the tank a little bit, keep us posted about how he does and if he starts eating again.
Best Regaurds
Answered by muddygrl on 3/6/03, 3:45 pm
A: Beta fish
the previous reply is correct. I also wanted to add that when i had a betta he did what yours is doing, flaring out his gills. I kept him next to my computer moniter at the time and when i was online scrolling through different pages, he would see the movement on the screen and flare his gills and literally jump to the top of his tank. He would assume a vertical position , hold very still then leap to the top. Once i moved him where he could see the screen he quit this behaviour. It would also happen if i put a shiny object on the top of the tank. So you may look around for any bright, shiny OR moving object that is distracting him.
Answered by SiameseCentralBreedersAustralia on 3/6/03, 5:48 pm
A: Beta fish
well when a fish is in a round bowl he can see alsorts of things thru it . and he maybe seeing a mirror image of himself . one thing he shouldnt be in a BOWL less then one gallon the least gallons of water he can live in is about 3 to 5 gallons so if you want him to stop this i suggest you purchase a proper fish TANK the sqaure glass ones in that case he cant see his image . and he can swimm as well . of if the peace lilly gets to cover the surface of the water chuck it out it can sufficate the betta.
