Your Bettas’ Personalities

What are your betta friends like? I’ve very quickly gone from regarding fish as a whole as “Nature’s screensavers” to “oh man, these are water puppies” and my bettas certainly contributed.

Tom Petty the double tail is constantly darting around his tank. He nips my fingers and just generally loves my hands. He’s also a little buttface who terrorizes cherry shrimp, whacks into plants, and obsesses over food. Oddly, I’ve never seen him flare at anything. He’ll show his fins in full in those rare moments he stays still but he won’t make a display of it.

Warren Zevon the veiltail is a calmer dude. He’s afraid of my finger, but he loves my face and he’ll come right up to me when I look at him and we’ll “talk”. He flares his gills if I put my finger up to the Glass. He isn’t obsessed with food. He’s a bubble nest maker. Tom isn’t.

Tell me about yours while I avoid chores!

 

I currently own a male and female. The female is the calmer one while the male is the more territorial one. Sometimes lunging at the female and other fish (rice fish), though there is no signs of ripped fins. Can't wait until I put them in my planted tank.

 

My male loves to wedge himself under and in between anything and will get angry if I swap out his favorite ornament or do a water change. He shows this disgust in me by burrowing his head inside the grass I have in his tank and refusing to look at me. He loves to inspect the snail I have with him and will watch me from the lesuire of his favorite resting spot whenever I’m in the room
My other betta misses nothing. The moment I walk in the room she’s there begging for food. For some reason my sparkling gourami likes to follow her around. Initially she hated it and they were sworn enemies, now he keeps a bit of distance (but still follows her) and she has learned to tolerate him. When I drop in algae wafers for my Amano Shrimp she will steal it from them, and my sparkling gourami will partake in the spoils, then one of the amanos will quickly grab it back and swim away. Then my betta insists on locating my shrimp so she can have “her” algae wafer back, but they don’t give it up very easily. After enough probing she will get it back, only to have the amano steal it again. At this point the algae wafer is falling apart so my sparkling gourami follows whoever has it (at this point the shrimp usually wins) and picks up the bits that drop as my amano finds a good hiding spot, or another amano steals it.

 

I've owned many betta's over the years and each has had their own personality. I've loved watching them. Most have been pretty feisty, and a few that would bite me for trying to clean their space. I currently have a male paradise betta (pretty sure he was incorrectly named) who I couldn't leave in the petco cup at the store. He's been my most easy going betta. When I 1st placed him in the tank with his tank mates, it was like he'd never seen other fish, plants or rocks/ wood before. He eye'd everything, like went to each individual thing and looked at it until he thoroughly understood it, then went to the next thing. He had a hard time with the tank mates since they didn't want to be around him and he just wanted to look at them lol. Since then though he's found "his" spot (in the roots of some water lettuce) and just hangs out until someone comes by then he comes over to say hi. When I clean the tank he comes to hang out by my hand which sometimes makes things hard, but he's a sweet boy.

 

I have two bettas, one a pearl white (Opal), and one a beautiful iridescent black green and red (Shadow). When I first got them, shadow would stare through the divider holes at Opal and flare like crazy. Opal would just stare back calmly. Now though, Shadow doesn't do it anymore. Whenever I walk by the tank, Opal will go crazy and unwedge himself from behind the filter and start doing a little dance in front of the tank. Shadow will slowly come to the top and wait. Both of them will go crazy and nip my hands during water changes or when I'm moving decor.

 

I have 4 beautiful betta boys.

King Shark-so named because he’s a king betta and I happened to be watching “The Flash” episode where King Shark fights Gorilla Grodd. He’s no fighter though. He’s the biggest water puppy of them all. He has beautiful, deep set black eyes so he literally looks like a puppy staring at you. He loves to have chats, and he’s fascinated by every single snail in the tank. He will get his face up to a centimeter in front of them and just stare.

Mercury-so named because he looks like the color of liquid mercury. Turns out it was a fitting name because he’s actually a little bit crazy. I think he may be a bit blind because he has silver scales over his eyes. Anyway, he pays me little attention and likes to spend his time zooming around the tank.

Cobalt-so named for his beautiful chalky blue color. He’s my little model and likes to show off whenever he can. I’ve never seen his gills flare once, but he sure likes to make a spectacle of his beautiful fins. He always comes to say hI and then back to his own business.

Tungsten-so named because hey, I had a theme going alright? He’s a molten red looking guy. Pretty social, loves to come to the front of the glass and get attention. He loves to be talked to. Specifically in a deeper voice that faces him directly; I think he likes the vibrations. It’s hilarious to see him contort himself trying to go after live daphnia swimming every which way.

 

I have one betta right now. I beautiful black and blue male crown tail named Machi. He's definitely a character. He's normally pretty chill and likes to hang out under/behind the various decor in his tank. Sometimes I'll catch him randomly swimming around or occasionally flaring up staring out the corner of his tank. Not sure if he sees his reflection or the tv, or if he's just crazy
What's fun is when I walk over to the tank. He always come charging out of wherever he is then stops at the front of the tank and stares at me. Just stares. I've tried to get him to chase my finger, but he seems totally unimpressed I swear he doesn't even fan his fins at me or anything. Just stares. Creepy little devil
He HATES my dad though. When he cleans the rabbit litter box near the betta tank, MachI will come charging out, fins fanned and sometimes gills flaring, and keep at it until he gets tired. Then he'll go sulk behind his log.
He was a holly terror when I had amano shrimp in his tank. Anytime he saw one he'd chase it until it got back behind the rocks. Ended up having to move the shrimp since he was such a turd. He couldn't care less about all the snails in his tank though.
Quite a strange little fish my Machi. I have to love him though

 

I love reading these and I love the names!

Tom Petty fish is my baby. He really seems to recognize that I got him out of his little cup prison and he would jump out of his tank and follow me around if he could. He also stares st my dog a lot—maybe he’s trying to figure out just what he is.

 

Butterfly Rainbow Celestia is my male, opal, halfmoon Betta that was our... beginner fish. (My daughter named him) He’s been through a lot - finrot, fish TB, poor water quality, cloudy eye (that won’t clear up), and I think he’s getting old. He was big when we got him, and we’ve had him over a year. He is grumpy, and flares at me every time I come near his tank. He like to slowly swim around and explore, and last night, I caught him napping.







Rick Ocean is our newer Betta, he is a plakat blue marble. He is HYPER and inquisitive, and rarely slows down. He comes to talk to me, follows my finger, and does his best to get sucked into the gravel filter (hasn’t succeeded yet). He was *very* happy to be in a tank instead of a tiny plastic container. He has also changed DRAMATICALLY since we got him on 6/20/19.

The day we got him:




Monday 7/8/19 (he refused to pose the last 2 days and all pics are blurry):