armadillo

Am reading really cool things about betta and how human they can be.

Fancy giving us all a treat with your cool betta stories? Any particularly smart tricks they do, or funny habits. These fish sound so endearing, I love to hear of their antics.

COBettaCouple

well.. angel will sulk when i clean her tank. I cleaned it wed. and she refused to look at me the rest of the day, but forgave me the next day.. she'll also play 'sick fishie' if she isn't happy with the amount of attention that she's getting. Little Kairi enjoys watching the computer monitor when i'm working on it.

chickadee

Alexander needs to have a lullaby sung to him before he heads off to his corner to sleep. It has to be sung just right and he knows if I do not sing the right words or vary the tune. I have to sing about 5 minutes and then he will go to his favorite place between the heater and filter intake pipe and turn his back to me and that is the sign that I can turn the light out and it is time to sleep now.

Marty Jr. does not want his light out until the TV show that is on at bedtime is over as he is a TV addict! He even watches the commercials and gets mad if I get in the way when I feed him.

Damon is the baby who is afraid of everything. Now he has moved into his permanent tank, in my bedroom, he is afraid of the dark again. I sleep with the TV on a lot of the time so it is okay with him as it gives him some light so he is not in the dark. I shut it off the other night and there was a racket in the tank and it was him jumping in the water and making noise because it was dark and he was afraid. As soon as the TV came back on he was fine. (JT doesn't like the TV on at night as he likes it dark .... oh well)

Rose

COBettaCouple

LOL.. Kairi (the princess) sounds like JT.. when i am on the computer late, she'll come out of her castle from time to time and look at me for a minute - as if to say "turn them off, i'm trying to sleep in here" - then she'll go back into her castle.

Phloxface

Lava loves to watch TV too. Always has since the day I got him. When I talk to him he swims up to the glass and opens and closes his mouth like he is trying to talk back to me. When he is in a bratty mood he shakes his head from side to side like he's saying NO!

Karma and Daphne like to sleep later than the rest of them. I come home at 7am and I cannot turn on the room lights or TV until Karma and Daphne are up. They get very cranky and stressed if I turn the light on while they are sleeping.
Karma LOVES to play with her airstone. She swims around it like she's on a Ferris Wheel or roller coaster and lets the bubbles throw her gently upwards. She does this for HOURS on end.

armadillo

Aaaaw. That is so cool.

armadillo

For the lullaby, could it be that he really enjoys your company, so comes over when you arrive to sing, then he tries to grin and bear the singing for a while and in the end, gives up and hides to cringe? I do that when my mom tries to sing!

You're kidding about the scared of the dark thing, right? That is truely amazing.

armadillo

Playing with the airstone: that is soooo cool. I love it when a fish clearly enjoys itself. I try to find ways of entertaining my fish (mollies) but they're not as easy to read. Bubbles are a success with them too, but nothing like that.

I love the sound of them coming up to the glass for a chat. I think that is so sweet.

COBettaCouple

LOL.. i love that! Angel got in the mood to do that for a few days last month but hasn't since.. i'm not sure what came over her then, but she'd do just like Karma. I wish she still did.. that's really cute - especially when their back end goes up first. LOL

armadillo

You guys should definitely film that sort of moments. It's soooo cute. Be nice if youtube contained a higher ratio of nice, rather than cruel betta videos.

COBettaCouple

lol.. they like to do these things when the camera is off, but when it's on them - they often stubbornly refuse to 'play'.. little stinkers! it would be nice to see youtube have better vids and NO cruel ones.. it'd be nice if they didn't lower the quality of vids we upload too.

poefox

Bettas certainly do have personality. Chickadee's certainly are 'mothered' that's for sure. I'm not sure that Ribbon acts 'human' but certainly more petlike than fish are given credit for by the uninformed. For instance he'll let me pet him and seems to like being talked to. If he is moping (which all bettas seem to do from time to time) I can cheer him up by approaching the tank and talking to him for a bit. I think he gets bored sometimes. He likes water changes and will sometimes dash deliberately into them. At the very least he watches what I'm doing. he's a very civilized betta too, unlike say Rusty or Darth my previous ones he is very tolerant of his tankmates and has 'granted' them the lower half of the tank for their normal routines. Interestingly he used to chase them but he never does now that they respect that the upper half of the tank is 'his'. They tend to stay there now except when eating. I usually give them their food in another part of the tank because Ribbon will charge at them if they get too close to him while he's feeding. If I feed them then I give a little flake food to Ribbon who otherwise will get angry and attack the bloodfins thinking they are getting something good to eat. (he has good reason to be wary, they've tried to steal his pellets before and one actually did)

armadillo

Yeah, am sure fish do get bored. Constantly frazzling my brains to think of what will entertain them next. Definitely a little change of landscape routine doesn't go amiss. Also, changes of food (which, as I understand, is a little bit of an issue for picky bettas). Whole unskinned peas were definitely verrrry entertaining with my mollies.

Tom

Whenever I turned on the tv, Mercury would zoom over to the side of the tank and sit on the gravel facing the tv and 'watch' tv with me.
Tom

armadillo

It's so cool that they love watching TV. Food for thought as to where to place my betta tank!

Jendayi

Romeo does this same thing. I told my b/f that I think he looks like Beaker from the muppet show going meeemeeemeee! Then I tell him that I don't like his tone and he needs to watch his attitude. LOL

poefox

I'm not sure if what I'm describing is the same thing but when bettas are doing that sort of wriggling thing where they move their head and upper body back and forth rapidly it is actually excitement that is being displayed. They will do that when they want to be fed or want to play a game or something.

COBettaCouple

Our bettas visibly perk up when we go over to the tank to talk to them.. some will just hover there and soak it in for as long as we sit there and some swim around the front while we talk to them. I think it's the changing patterns and colors that attract the bettas to tv or computer monitors, and i've heard of bettas that flare at images of bettas on a computer screen.