Kappa has a bump on her chin!

I just noticed it today, and I'm not sure how it happened, or why. I had a hard time trying to take a picture of it, so I tried to get a video instead. It isn't great, but you can see the dark spot when she lifts her head up. It seems to be between her gill flaps, not on them, and her ventral fins seem to be darker, like the bump.

She isn't acting differently, still spending most of her visible time begging for food. I can't get a good look at the areas, since I can't make her stop swimming around and spread out her ventral fins (which are generally tucked up against her body).

Upon closer inspection, it looks like her oviposter's a bit ragged, but her fins look fine, so I don't know how that might have happened.

What might cause something like this, and should I be (more) worried? I've got Maracyn+ if you think it should be medicated.

 

Hmm.. I think her oviposter looks ok from what I can see. I can't really see the spot, but they can have coloring changes that are normal.

 

No, she's definitely banged up and bruised...but I figured out how and why.

I've been using a small measuring spoon to give her pellets, to both hold them and shield them from the current in the tank so she doesn't lose them when they drift away, and she hasn't been having a problem...but she does lunge at it pretty hard, and there is just enough of an edge that it could have left the bruise on her chin and scraped up her oviposter/bruised her ventral fins. I figure that's what the very location-specific discoloration is, and the swelling on her chin. She was going after her food so aggressively that she rammed her whole body into the spoon I was using to feed her.

Needless to say, I've put that spoon back in the kitchen. Now I have to figure out a different way to deliver her pellets, since she bites and lunges at the the scoop that comes with the pellets...I'd already tried using it, then moved to the spoon because the scoop wasn't holding the pellets well enough while she was going after them, and she was focusing more on attacking the scoop than watching the pellets. I didn't want her to hurt her mouth trying to eat the edge of the scoop, so instead she bruised herself on a spoon.

Oy vey. Her naughty red-fishie ways have turned her black and blue! I'm giving her extra vitachem and daphnia until she's healed up, and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to deliver her pellets so that she doesn't lose them OR hurt herself going after them...miniaturized bull shark in betta scales, stinker of a piggie-fish, *grumble*.

= >

 

Usually we drop the pellets by hand, 1 at a time, in a little ways ahead of them so they can spot and chase them down. You could use aquarium tongs maybe, but we haven't tried that with pellets, just blood worms.

 

If you are concerned with her chasing the pellets I would get her a food corral and keep putting the food in it and it will not float away. Then she will come up from under it and be able to get it and not fight a spoon or any thing that might bruise her. I can see the darker areas on her and it does look like she is banged up. She will probably be okay but she needs to either chase the food on her own or get something like the corral. See the link below.



I never had much luck getting my guys to use them as they adore chasing their food but maybe since she is a little lady she will like having the food more confined. I have a brand new one that I would send you if I knew where to send it.

Otherwise one of the eyedropper or pipettes that you mix the food with dechlored water and pull it into the dropper and simply drop it into the water right in front of her nose should work fine. Have you tried that? She would not have to come into contact with that.

I do not think that she will have to be medicated but do watch her tank temp as the bruising will be worse if the temp gets above 80 but not go away very fast if it is below 78. She is not going to feel like being quite as swimmy perhaps for a few days but since she is young maybe it won't bother her.

Rose

Poor baby, give her my best!

 

Yeah, as enthusiastic as she is about food, she will just swim there and stare at me waiting for more instead of following pieces already in there, so she loses them. I'll figure something out, though. She's acting normally, so I'm not too worried, I just hope she heals up quickly.

 

My solution to feeding these 3 female betta I have together so that they each get their share is to shut down the filter while I feed them. Then I can easily drop the pellets right in front of their nose and they stay there for that brief moment that it takes her to see it and grab it.

I also have 2 platys in the tank, I turn the filter back on and feed them their flakes. They generally are so fast at grabbing the fast moving floating flakes the bettas get very little of them.

 

See, I don't want to shut down the filter. I've had enough trouble getting and staying cycled, so I'd rather leave it alone.

 

My solution to feeding these 3 female betta I have together so that they each get their share is to shut down the filter while I feed them. Then I can easily drop the pellets right in front of their nose and they stay there for that brief moment that it takes her to see it and grab it.

I also have 2 platys in the tank, I turn the filter back on and feed them their flakes. They generally are so fast at grabbing the fast moving floating flakes the bettas get very little of them.

 

I just shut the water flow down enough to feed them, and then turn it back on. This should have no effect on anything at all.

 

Don't know why it posted that one message twice. Other than that I would suggest one of those food rings like chickadee suggests above. But Flash has no problem chasing down moving food, I just make sure he is facing the same way the current is going when I drop it so he doesn't have to turn around to follow it.

 

It isn't that she can't chase the food down. She WON'T.

She'd rather stare at me and wait for me to give her more. Even when I give her daphnia, she'll just watch me for a while, even after I close the door in the hood, rather than chase after the food immediately.

 

They train us good, don't they? Yea, ours will wait for us to feed them more if they miss food just like that too. The Betta Pro pellets float for a while, and they always find the thawed, frozen bloodworms.

It isn't that she can't chase the food down. She WON'T.

She'd rather stare at me and wait for me to give her more. Even when I give her daphnia, she'll just watch me for a while, even after I close the door in the hood, rather than chase after the food immediately.

 

Yeah, she's a scaly little brat. I swear, it's gotta be the red fins.

 

Yeah I tried to feed peas to my girls today, the black one recognized it as food and would follow it as it fell and even come up out of the water to get it off my finger. But all attempts to get the other 2 interested failed. It appears they have no interest in anything that doesn't float.

 

Luna,

Have you tried training Kappa to follow your finger? Drop floating food in the water with your fingers right in front of her, and if it floats away because of the current, then put your index finger slightly into the water. Then, while calling her name, kind of "spin her around" while she's interested in your finger to show her the food.

Try to get her to associate your finger and voice, not your face, with food and I'll bet it'll work. It works with my piggie-fish Candi. I can lead her with my finger to the food every time on the rare occasions she misses it and is looking at my face begging me for more. I no longer have to put my finger into the water, she just follows it about 1/4" over the water, but I had to show her at first with my finger underwater about 1/4". I think Kappa, motivated piggie-fish as she is, would be just as easily trained.

Watch out! If you train her like this, she'll leap out of the water and bite your finger, especially if there is a pea residual on it! Like LetDiceFly's fiesty black one!

I hope Kappa's bruises heal okay and thinking of you and Kappa.

 

That works with ours too, although sometimes they just look at me as if to say "forget that, gimme more!" drool

 

She doesn't watch my face, she watches the front of the tank, where the food comes from...and she already goes after my hand as if it's food. That's not the problem...and I can't REACH the food once it drifts away unless I take the light out of the hood to feed her.

I have to grab the baster quickly and try to suck it up before it gets lost, then hope she'll pay attention when I dribble it back into the water in the front of the tank. She'll even go after the baster, but won't bother to follow it to the food.

*groan* I swear, this fish is TRYING to drive me batty!

 

Maybe a feeding ring would help then - at least it would keep the food from floating away as much.

 

I feed all 3 of my bettas with tweezers. I make sure they see the food before I drop it in that way they can grab it right away when it drops. If it happens that they don't see it and it drops to the floor they will eventually find it on the floor. They always do.

The ring is the only thing that will help to get them in one spot, so she's not chasing them. You can try either one and see how she does. Mine do really well with the tweezers. Sometimes if I move to slow for them they'll bite it right off the tweezers which happens a lot, but they never get hurt when they do it.

Let us know what you decided to do and what works. Natalie

 

Right now, I'm just dropping one pellet at a time in by hand, but she loses half of them, so I have to suck them up with the baster 2-3 times before she'll look in the right spot at the right time. Daphnia's so much easier...just sprinkle in and walk away. Peas I add with plastic chopsticks, but I can't hold and deliver pellets with them any better than I can with my fingers. I only use them because the peas will mush on my fingers and not go into the water in any cohesive form.

I don't really want to do tweezers, because if she'll hurt herself on a plastic spoon, she'll do a real number on her mouth with metal tweezers.

 

I can't seem to get my betta to eat the pea either, is their some trick to it? I tried giving them 1/2 of one on a toothpick...no luck, then I mashed it up; but when you put it in the water is turns into a pea "cloud" and all floats to the bottom!

 

Oh, no, Kappa loves peas, she just doesn't pay attention when she's being fed.

 

ALL of mine except Buster (he's new) follow the fingers. They know my fingers give em food. Most of them will hop up and take the pellet from my fingers. I feed them frozen food with tweezers too.
You can train a betta to associate things with food very easily. Being repetitive, doing things the same way until they notice the food. Buster won't come up for food yet...but he starting to watch me when I drop them in.

 

All my girls now like peas, I had to get their attention by holding a whole frozen pea (minus skin) in my fingers and let them take bites out of it. When I was trying to feed them fragments they just fell to the bottom unnoticed, but now that they know what they are they will now chase the pieces to the bottom.

 

Marty will NOT come to the front of the tank in the morning. He has to play with the fish who he sees in the back wall of the tank for at least 5 minutes before he thinks of his stomach. (his reflection) Poor boy he just does not get it yet. Diablo goes directly to the corner of the tank when he sees me or hears me or even thinks I may be coming through the room. The little glutton.

I do not feed them the way I do the others. Pellets get counted out and sprinkled on the surface in different corners. They swim all over finding them. There are only 5 of them for them to find but they search the whole surface of the tank and get them all. Bloodworms are done the same way and daphnia is really and truly the easiest, like luna said. Just a sprinkle of it and they spend a LONG time chasing down every morsel of it. I want them getting the exercise and since they both tend to be a bit quiet when they are not eating I want the eating to be as active as possible.

Kappa knows perfectly well that you are there to feed her and she is letting you do the work. The little dickens! She has decided it is easier for mommy to do the chasing of the food than for her to do it. LOL

As far as peas go, the frozen peas hold together very well if you just defrost them and do not cook them. I chop mine into pellet sized pieces and leave them in little cubes and they are like the size of little poppy seeds or sesame seeds at the largest. They are as easy to feed as pellets but they do not float. The betta soon finds that if they want their pea treat the diving is worth it. Canned peas are not recommended for pea treats at all as mostly they contain salt and other additives used in the processing and are not good for little betta.

Rose

 

LOL.. I love how smart the little stinkers are! ..and spoiled.

Kappa knows perfectly well that you are there to feed her and she is letting you do the work. The little dickens! She has decided it is easier for mommy to do the chasing of the food than for her to do it. LOL