Betta Has Rips In Tail

My betta is fin nipping I think!! He has two little rips in his tail!! I changed the water immediately and tested and I'm at 6.8 PH, 0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite and 10 nirate. WHAT IS GOING ON???

 

How big is the tank?
Does he have any tankmates?
Is there anything that could rip his fins?

 

5 gallon, a snail, and I don't belive so, just plants

He has a filte, heater, and I treat new water with prime

 

Only thing I could think of is if the plants are sharp.

 

He has had them for over a week.... I'll send some pictures.






Excuse my finger, it's the only way he will stay still

 

He looks fine. Give him 3 days and I'm sure they'll be healed

 

Why is it happening though? I'm really confused

It happened within a two hour period

 

When I had a betta a couple years ago this happened to him. He was fine! Could have been him aging but I'm not sure. So I don't think it is anything to worry about)

 

Flowingfins reports some bettas bite their tails...

 

I've hear of Betta fish biting their own tails when they get stressed, maybe that was all?

 

He has had them for over a week.... I'll send some pictures.






Excuse my finger, it's the only way he will stay still

Are those real plants? If fake, are they silk? It's hard to tell from the pictures, but to me, they don't look very bendable or soft, so they really could be from the plants. He might just be exploring more (if this is a new tank) and caught the edge of the plant?

 

Some real and then some betta plants, I did a feather test on the plants, there was no rips in those. I'll look into new plants. Gotta get paid first x.x

 

There's a chance he could be fin nipping, they look more like rips to me though.

 

Do you have your filter baffled? Or are you using a sponge filter? Sometimes their fins can get trapped in the filter. Even if it hadn't happened before. He may have been snoozing and drifted towards it.

It could still be the plants. I would take out the plastic ones if you can. I just swapped out some plastic for silk in mine. eBay has some good deals on silk plants, cheaper than the pet store that is for sure.

Glad to see your tank is cycled! My 10 gallon is finally cycled, and my 5 gallon is close. I was so excited when I tested this morning and I was at 0, 0, 10 lol

 

MY Bettas fins had a small rip when I left for a wedding. He was cared for by my aunt and when I came back HIS tail was okay, I layed down because I am really ill and when I looked at him again his tail was shredded. I took out ALL fake plants and I am going to drag myself to the store to fix everything up.


Is aquarium salt needed at this point? If so where do I put my snail while I treat.

Do I need to dull out the filter?? If so how??






His fins were like this

 

No, just a really clean tank and food will be necessary. (Unless he has some pretty bad fin rot or any infection I would then suggest methylene blue baths. If you go that route tell us first before you do anything so we can give you some tips and advice on how to proceed.)
Any ideas of what caused the shredded fins?

 

I have no clue. I wanna assume fake plants or filter so I need to know how to slow the filter. I'm going to pet store soon to change out the bottom of the tank and add real plants. I have a water bottle but I never learned how to use it to slow the flow and I don't know what a sponge cover
Looks like. Are you sure it doesn't look like his fins are rotting? Sorry worried
Mom here. This isn't how I wanted to spend my 18th birthday. Sick and scared for my baby. But I'm dropping all my birthday money to fix everything

 

Salt could help for fin rot. It's what most people recommend treating with, although just regular clean water will also help.

If you decide to treat with salt, your snail will be fine in a jar with a moss ball on a window cill.

 

Okay

 

I don't have experience with my fish getting fin rot, thankfully, but I do know methylene blue works fine to get rid of any external infection. I don't see any white gunk in their fins or anything that would tell me the shredded fins were caused because of an infection. So I would just give him clean water, maybe d0 20% water changes every day and I would just feed him good food, if he does not get better I would start considering either salt treatments or methylene blue baths.
Sponge intakes look just like sponges haha. They all kind of look like this:
You just have to make sure they have a lot of big pores so they don't restrict flow too much.
In the worst case scenario you can just wrap around filter floss on the intake, won't look great but it will do the job.

Changing the substrate sounds like a good idea, I don't want to ruin your birthday or make you spend all your money, but fine sand should be way better, it looks like a lot of gunk can get into the rocks and be hard to remove plus a fine substrate would allow you to get live plants that bettas love.