tail eating again

[FisheyLisa]

Please tell me someone else ahs experienced this. My betta eats it's tail. Once while in a 2.5 (or 5, can't remember if hte divider was in with the other betta), once while in a glass jar in preparation for putting it in a hosipital tank from a 15g in an effort to relieve constipation, and finally last night...Each time it is eaten off just as it is getting back to it's normal length!!!!! Last night I over ended up overfeeding fish in an effort to make sure my frogs had food. The betta ate more bloodworms than he should have and spent the night resting on the ground, this moring was fine swimming wise, but had taken off most of it's tail. I'd blame other fish or a filter, but he has done it in the jar alone...

SO I am correct in thinking this is a symptom of stress perhaps, or random?? Anyone else get this on a repeated basis?

 

[twoluvcats]

YES!!! My betta elmo is a tail biter. There can be any number of triggers...tho it does sound like yours is stress. Mine does it out of boredom...if there's not something else for him to focus on, he beats the crap out of his tail.

Thankfully it doesn't ever seem to get finrot...and he's nearly 2 years old...he just has a short ragged tail.

Does yours have a bi-color tail?...I've often wondered about that...Elmo's tail is blue by his body and then red at the ends...the ONLY part he bites off is the red...he stops when its mostly blue...so i'm thinking he focuses on the red part.

He's also a feisty guy...flares at everything!!

 

[FisheyLisa]

Yes!! Mine is blue and red and only chews off the red!!! In fact, there is a blue strip that goes down the bottom length of his tail, and he leaves that alone. the thing that I don't get is that he ate ALOT and I can't see how he could have ingested anything more. ALso his was so inactive I thought I might have a dead fish on my hands...I don't get where he got the energy, flexibility, or desire to have anything in his mouth.

My cat growing up with diagnosed with being psychotic, she'd like the fur off her belly or only turn in one direction all the time, like only to the left to get anywhere...put her on med and she was fine...but I think I have a psychotic fish now!!

 

[twoluvcats]

My cat growing up with diagnosed with being psychotic, she'd like the fur off her belly or only turn in one direction all the time, like only to the left to get anywhere...put her on med and she was fine...but I think I have a psychotic fish now!!

AHAHAHAHA I understand...We've taken to calling our brood "Ema's House of Special Pets"

Tail biting is hard to stop...it just takes a moment and thier tail is gone. Sometimes I melafix it, just to make sure it doesn't develop tail-rot...but most of the time it grows back fine on its own.

Elmo does a little better with a snail in the tank to distract him...but even then sometimes the snail isn't active enough and he gets bored again. He used to be my work betta...but it was just TOO boring in the office (especially on weekends) that he was ALWAYS beating up his tail, he would never even let it grow back at all...he's a little better now that he is in a tank that's in a higher traffic area in the house...more to watch. I wish i could get him a bit more active tankmate, but he kills everything else but snails

 

[FisheyLisa]

i have mine in a community tank, he is very active all the time. When my dalmation molly died (his non-bottomfeeder-buddy) he was very depressed, sat in wisteria plants all day. Now he is enjoying the currents of the 30g, a new home of 2 weeks.

Speaking of special pets, I have now a bulemic cat. though I have been giving HIM high protein food, which may have cleared that. OYE!

 

[phOOey]

are sure its not just fin rot? have you actually seem him do this to his own tail?

 

[twoluvcats]

you can tell its not fin rot...it dissapears overnight, and its drastic...nite-time: tail is there; wake up the next morning: tail is mostly gone in ragged chunks....sometimes I can even find chunks of tail on the floor of the tank.

I have a loose theory that the atrocious conditions that petstore bettas are put thru are causing an 'outbreak' of bettas that tend to bite thier own tails...its the 'strongest survive' theory...these 'tail-biters' are bullheaded, feisty and strong...so they survive, and get bread again to make more bettas with a tendancy for tailbiting.

I know that tailbiting used to not be so common, but in petsore/bigbox bought veil tails...I see it really becoming common. At the betta board I mod, we see a new memeber with it about once a month.

 

[FisheyLisa]

yeh I had him in the jar for 5-10 minutes tops and it was gone-no pieces anywhere! The other two occasions it was overnight. I jsut don't know if it is stress or coincedence, I can't figure the stress in the first occasion- unless I had changed something, but that was in last october. He certainly isn't bored.