Yes, Bettas Can Do Tricks :)

After stumbling across a video of a betta doing "tricks", the best being swimming through a hoop, I thought why not try it?

I went to my room, got out some freezedried bloodworms, and went up to my betta boy, Henry, who I figured that would be most up to the task. I decided to start with getting him to jump for food. Of course, he decided to be a total spaz and wasn't even paying attention to the fact that I had bloodworms. So I went over to Jasper (my newest male, in my avatar), but he is still terrified of me, so that was a lost effort. So I went to my last resort, my timid male who is slowly recovering from finrot, Milkshake. He gets scared of me touching the tank, and even backs away when I feed him. I began by simply feeding him as usual, to get him excited. He saw me with the next one, and watched timidly from a few inches away as I held it over the water, urging him to jump. To spark him interest, I put the tip of it underwater. After a couple minutes of investigation, he took it. I tried this a few more times, and gradually he began to take the food from my fingers more eagerly. After a while, I decided to see if he would jump. I put it just above the water, and he stared for a couple minutes. Then, to my delight, he jumped and got it! The next several times he did the same, and I was so happy because I thought with him in would be hopeless.

That's just the beginning of what I'm trying to do, and I hope that he gets more comfortable with me and I can eventually get him to do more elaborate tricks!

I'll use this post as a blog of sorts for updates.


Has anyone else had experience with teaching bettas "tricks"?

 

I managed to teach my betta to eat out of the palm of my hand, but now I'm interested in trying to get him jumping for food. That'll be interesting.

 

My betta SushI does that too
I have an R2 fish school that I need to try soon.

 

I wish by betta would do tricks

 

I'm determined to teach my betta to do this. I was actually thinking about using mosquito larva and seeing if I could get some to develop into Mosquitos and maybe I could get that to stimulate their natural environment with them jumping for food...it's a thought that hit me last night.
Don't know how safe it is though for the betta though...

 

Just curious. Is there any other tricks that bettas can do? Other than swimming through a hoop or jumping for food~

 

You can train them to nudge a ball.

 

Just curious. Is there any other tricks that bettas can do? Other than swimming through a hoop or jumping for food~

Like guppybreeder said, you can teach them to nudge a ball. Also you can get them to follow your finger and have them eat from the palm of your hand. Really some bettas are hit or miss with tricks though. Some are excellent with them, but some don't listen.

 

Another thing I've noticed with my bettas that is kind of funny is that they like to watch my dogs and cat. My dog Benson likes to lay on my bed, which is right beside my 20 gallon, which house one of my males, Jasper. And every time Benson is there Jasper darts up and down the wall, examining him. Its funny too because my cat Ginger likes to watch Jasper, and he watches her too and they are just following each other around and its adorable

 

Thx for suggesting,even tho I sadly can't get bettas right now but LOL they are so kawaiI :3

 

When I feed my bettas pellets, I use a disposable pipette since they sink pretty fast. Now when I clean the tanks using a pipette my one betta likes to grab on to the end of it. They have a surprisingly strong grip