Can anyone weigh in on what might be causing what seems to be pretty excessive tail biting?
I got a new half moon betta about a month ago. He came from a chain pet store - my previous betta had died, and my nephew missed him, so he & his mom picked up this new betta for me. He seemed to be in pretty good health when I got him; I kept his tank temperature at about 85F for the first 2 weeks that I had him as I'd heard that was a good thing to do for new fish that might be sick. He's in a 6 gallon marineland eclipse tank; lots of silk plants in the tank for him to swim around. I've been feeding him 3-4 pellets a day of Aquon betta food once a day and changing 3/4 the water in the tank every week. After the 2 weeks of warmer tank temps I've set his temp to about 82F.
In the last 3 days, he's starting chew his tail and his gorgeous full fins are almost gone! :-( My previous betta would chew on his fins a bit as well, but never to this extent. argh! I'm worried that this is something I might have inadvertantly caused- lowering the water temperature 2 weeks ago? Am I not feeding him enough? Or should I just figure the fish is a dope and not stress over it?
Here he is before he started up his fins:
I got a new half moon betta about a month ago. He came from a chain pet store - my previous betta had died, and my nephew missed him, so he & his mom picked up this new betta for me. He seemed to be in pretty good health when I got him; I kept his tank temperature at about 85F for the first 2 weeks that I had him as I'd heard that was a good thing to do for new fish that might be sick. He's in a 6 gallon marineland eclipse tank; lots of silk plants in the tank for him to swim around. I've been feeding him 3-4 pellets a day of Aquon betta food once a day and changing 3/4 the water in the tank every week. After the 2 weeks of warmer tank temps I've set his temp to about 82F.
In the last 3 days, he's starting chew his tail and his gorgeous full fins are almost gone! :-( My previous betta would chew on his fins a bit as well, but never to this extent. argh! I'm worried that this is something I might have inadvertantly caused- lowering the water temperature 2 weeks ago? Am I not feeding him enough? Or should I just figure the fish is a dope and not stress over it?
Here he is before he started up his fins: