Sherlock LOVES his food....Any adivce on how to slow him down?
Sherlock LOVES his food, yet often he seems to get so excited that he eats a lot of air too. When I drop a pellet into the tank he'll lunge at it and, not always but often, his gills puff/get stuck outwards and he darts around the top of the tank sticking his mouth out of the water, then sort of relaxes and sinks, like he's waiting until his gills go back into place or he burbs or something.
First time I saw this was yesterday and I freaked out pretty badly and went right to the 'net researching. He has no signs of sickness, and if he did then I'm fairly certain the other two boys he shares his divided ten gallon with would be showing illness too. It kinda looks like an inflamed gill, but when I read that I checked the levels of ammonia in the tank and it was at 0. Then when I looked back at their tank he was swimming along just fine, gills at their proper place.
So what I'm asking is: Does anyone have any advice on how to slow the little bugger down when it comes to eating food? I'm sure that's not good for him to do that. And does the whole being much to eager to eat sound like everything that's going on?
Oh! Food is New Life Spectrum Betta Formula, in case that's needed for any info. x]
Last edited by HazelrahLayna7; 12-20-2012 at 08:52 AM.
You might try soaking the pellets so they sink when you drop them in & he'll have to work to get them or scavenge them from the bottom. I've never had a Betta do what you're describing but my females get crazy excited & I know one of these days someone's going to jump out of the tank during feeding, a couple of them jump over each other to get to the food.
My male does that, but he's an air gulper anyway. I think this is why he has a chronic swim bladder issue that is SLOWLY getting better. But he does go crazy at feeding and not only gulp the food but the air too, and then air bubbles come out his gills while he's chewing.
Put him on a diet. Don't spoil him with so much food. He sounds like he's just use to eating all the time. I had a betta that once lunged at food like that and was fat as a female. After I starved him for awhile he no longer was so ferocious about snapping at his food.
Put him on a diet. Don't spoil him with so much food. He sounds like he's just use to eating all the time. I had a betta that once lunged at food like that and was fat as a female. After I starved him for awhile he no longer was so ferocious about snapping at his food.
It might work for the OP, but it didn't work for me, I tried it with both my female and my male and nope, they still lunge. In fact depriving them of food made them both much worse, especially my female. If I skipped a day or even a feeding, she tried to jump out of her tank the second I lifted the lid! I tried to cut down on her feedings by only feeding her once a day, and then not as much food at a feeding, but she became much more aggressive during feeding and even started flaring and came away with massive amounts of lost scales due to jumping and bumping her head on the lid.
Update for ya'll! But its not so good news. He's still doing it. '-'
I've watched him a bit more and I believe his gills can't/won't open properly. If he tries to get food from the surface of the water 9 times out of 10 he'll end up stuffed to the gills with water-pun intended for attempt of cheering myself up- and a sunken piece of food. If he tries to get it while its sinking, he ends up pretty much stuffed to the gills with water. It seems to me that with the first one it fixes itself by the method previously mentioned in this topic, though he's taken to laying on the bottom and gasping. Second one, he'll 'yawn' over and over again.
So I'm pretty sure you can see my dilemma. If I soak the food, it sinks and he has problems. If I don't he still has problems. He does finally eat, but by then we're both stressed out. Right now my fish getting 2 pellets a day though I'm working on remembering to do a second feeding later in the day. But I'm hesitant to feed him more because of his gill issues...
Would a slowly sinking food work better? Is the problem his gills not working correctly? Can I help him? It's really troubling me, and the fact that it's still going...
I'll start charging my camera battery and post a picture of what it looks like when his gills are stopped up.
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Sherlock LOVES his food....Any adivce on how to slow him down?
