Too much flaring?

[LeahK]

Is there such a thing as too much flaring for a betta?

For a variety of reasons I had to rehome all my other fish, and now my red betta is the only fish in my 55 gallon. Unlike his old tank, this one has a black background, which apparently shows his reflection very well. Because he is always stalking around the upper corners and upper rim of the tank, flaring at himself. It seems like every time I look in the tank, he is either sleeping or compulsively flaring at his reflection--in the 55, I was hoping for a little more "exploring" and "swimming around"

Is this good for him? The tank looks sorta bad IMO without the background, but I'd take it down if it would give the betta a chance to chill.

[Chell]

I think It's not unhealthy at all.
Or else there wouldn't be any divided tanks.
(This is not a solid argument, but you get the idea)

I've heard it's quite healthy to let the betta flare, at least for a little while every day.

Mine flares a lot at his reflection but he loses interest in about 10min or so.

[LeahK]

Yeah, he's been in there about 2 weeks, and I kept thinking that he'd eventually lose interest....
Anyway, I just decided to do a Folger's taste test and take the background off, to see if he gets more active in utilizing all the space in the tank.
Of course, after I did this, he went right to sleep. He must figure that he deserves a break after finally chasing off the bad guy :)

[chrisb1221]

Mine did the same in his 5gal. The black filter hanging on the back of the tank showed his reflection very well, I ended up having to put a white piece of paper in front of the filter so he can't see his reflection. Hector would flare at himself for hours.

[BakaMandy]

Flaring for excessive amounts of time is actually kinda stressful for bettas. It is healthy as they an stretch and exercise their fins, but to know that they're having to constantly defend their territory... yeah stress isn't good for bettas.

[BettaxFishxCrazy]

I would take it down because too much flaring isn't good for them. They could blow out their fins and that can become fin rot. Especially if he's constantly stressed out.

[gahooie]

Before he died, Hewitt would always flare for long periods of time. I'm not sure why...

It's not like the glass showed his reflection that well. Eventually I started to worry but I think they just get like that sometimes. (B