# Strange/funny/weird Betta behaviors



## IdahoBetta (Dec 9, 2010)

I thought I would start a thread about what weird behaviors your fish have. 

My new (I've had him less than a month) betta Vega has two funny habits. The first is that likes to sit on the top most leaf of his silk plant like he is going to rest, then he scoots himself off the leaf slowly and free falls to the bottom of the tank. He then loops around the bottom of the tank and repeats. It's the strangest thing I think I have seen a betta do but he seems to enjoy it. 

The other habit he has is he likes to swim in the current made by the filter. He also likes to bite at the water coming into the tank off the lip of the filter. I've heard other users on here say their betta's like to swim in the filter currents too. 

I just thought I would share and wondered if other users have observed their fish doing strange things.


----------



## Emmahlee (Feb 28, 2012)

Muchacho likes to swim repeatably across the tank in the same place and do the exact same thing over and over.

He also likes to wait till the pellet goes down the filter current and tries to swim against the current to eat it.
He is so energetic.


----------



## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Sometimes Gilbert flares at his food before he eats it o.o


----------



## Shirleythebetta (Jan 9, 2012)

captain flares at his heater and tail slaps his thermometer :s he also likes to burry his self in a flower I made him and will just barely poke his head out. I have a thread about it somewheres.... Patty likes to cuddle with cory cats and they love her.


----------



## Shirleythebetta (Jan 9, 2012)

Here's the link to captain and his treasured flower

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=97076


----------



## fleetfish (Jun 29, 2010)

Little Pearl is still wondering if I'm not as scary as she thinks I am, and is learning quickly that my cat is one of the most interesting things she has ever seen, because she's most likely never seen a cat before in her life.


----------



## Shirleythebetta (Jan 9, 2012)

Fleetfish. that has to be one of the loveliest females I have ever seen (your avatar)


----------



## littlegreen (Mar 11, 2012)

My Caravaggio has taken up swimming little circles around the moss ball in his tank. It's ADORABLE.


----------



## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Reuben keeps eating sand.
There is no food anywhere in the sand.
He eats it then spits it out. >__>


----------



## Mars788 (Sep 9, 2011)

Both my fish seem to think inanimate objects in their tank are their mortal enemies. Dol's constantly tackling his thermometer and the leaves of his big leafy plant. Morpheus for some reason enjoys tackling his cave. Weird :S


----------



## fleetfish (Jun 29, 2010)

Shirleythebetta said:


> Fleetfish. that has to be one of the loveliest females I have ever seen (your avatar)


Actually, that's Waldo, my PK boy. He's a diva though, so it's okay


----------



## Karen208 (Apr 1, 2012)

Mine enjoys current too although last few days he's been exploring more so I guess he got it a little out of his system. For a few days he spent all day just swimming around the back of the tank. Maybe he likes the hand drawn background.


----------



## BetterBetta (Jun 13, 2011)

My female is always swimming in the current of my 10 G community. At her own will. She sees me, then starts doing her waggy-butt-dance and then swims to the filter and starts swimming. Its as if she's in plakat training or something xD My male likes to spit out his food 3 times before eating it. If tried giving him smaller food, soaked food, but he still does it with every kind of food xD


----------



## Shirleythebetta (Jan 9, 2012)

fleetfish said:


> Actually, that's Waldo, my PK boy. He's a diva though, so it's okay


whoops! sorry waldo.... 
He is a very beatiful BOY. :lol:


----------



## PaintingPintos (Dec 27, 2011)

Omelette is a little fish with big personality ♥ He's full grown, topping out at 2 3/4 inch... he's a sweet boy. He is constantly following my ghost shrimp Ash... he already ate Misty, the -biggest- ghost shrimp I have ever seen...lol. When I put on the air pump at night, it's in the right back corner of the tank. Omelette will swim through the bubble stream, under his mug hideout, through the plants, go to the surface, brush the surface with his dorsal fin, flip over, and repeat xD

He's a funny little fish.

Also, I have glass marbles as his substrate (Anacharis does well in it) and it's a single layer of marbles (from the side it looks like it's packed with them). When Omelette poos he can see it under the gravel, so he will just stick his head between the marbles, trying to reach the poo to eat it, and letting his bock end float up vertically 

And another thing, Omelette won't eat soaked pellets. He only eats hard pellets that aren't soaked. He just chews them. You can actually hear him crunching them :3


----------



## MadameDesu (Feb 5, 2012)

Teehee, Bettas 

Rosie also likes to play in the filter current. 
She has an obsession with bubbles too. If she sees one out of the corner of her eye, she'll follow it around and pop it. If the fresh water is bubbly, she'll pop the bubbles that stick to the side of the tank. 
She used to wedge herself between the thermometer and side of the tank, but hasn't done that in a while. 
She attacks the outside of her pineapple house. Other times, she'll go inside and then stick her head out one of the windows and just sit like that for a while. 
My favorite thing though is when she sees me come into my room and dances around like crazy. She won't stop for anything unless I get close to the tank and stare her in the eyes. I swear she hears me talking to her sometimes hahaha. 
She also seems to like when I play music XD


----------



## underdebate (Jan 26, 2012)

I'm reading through this thread and remembering all the reasons I love the tiny, crazy little fish we surround ourselves with.

Idaho, one of my two newest boys, has almost no anal fin to speak of-- he came to me missing a huge chunk, all the way to his body, but it's beginning to heal up. It gives him a few problems swimming but he seems to have mostly figured everything out: he'll do this thing where he'll go to the bottom of his tank and just buzz around on the floor, swimming around the bases of his plants, occasionally bumping into walls, just going in circles for as long as it takes to tucker himself out. Then he'll go nap inside one of the plants. Cutest thing.


----------



## IdahoBetta (Dec 9, 2010)

I wasn't expecting to get so many replies. 

PaintingPintos, I have glass marble substrate as well and Vega will try and dig at the poo he sees at the bottom. I'll hear the marbles clinking and I'll see Vega with his head buried, completely vertical as he tries to reach the poo. 

These little fish have so much personality.


----------



## kmcclasky (Dec 31, 2011)

My girls love to greet me and my husband swiming to the front off the tank and trying to get as close as possiable to our fingers, my vt hades does not have a good day until he gives me a kiss in the morning he a re like a grumpy he stays in one spot until I look at him then he purses his lips like a kissing gourmai fish. My halfmoon poesidon does not like my husband cause he will not flare out at my husband but will flare out at me for me. There so funny


----------



## kfish (Oct 5, 2010)

Sky pals around with his ghost shrimp. He has no interest in eating him.

Note Shrimpy on the leaf. They stayed like that for about 3 minutes, haha.

















They also follow each other around. Sky will swim across the tank at a leisurely pace, and Shrimpy will follow him. Shrimpy will swim across the tank at a leisurely pace, and Sky will follow him. It's adorable. Haha.


----------



## littlegreen (Mar 11, 2012)

OH, WOW! Sky is one GORGEOUS fish!!!


----------



## kfish (Oct 5, 2010)

littlegreen said:


> OH, WOW! Sky is one GORGEOUS fish!!!


Thank you! I loooove himmm. He's from Petco!


----------



## littlegreen (Mar 11, 2012)

Awesome!
Also I think I posted on this thread about Caravaggio's love of his moss ball.
Here's a video:
http://aninini.tumblr.com/post/20761851750/look-at-my-baby-3-caravaggios-new-favorite

He only really does it when someone come up to see him. As soon as he notices the person, he starts doing this. "Look how cool I am! FEED ME!"


----------



## kfish (Oct 5, 2010)

littlegreen said:


> Awesome!
> Also I think I posted on this thread about Caravaggio's love of his moss ball.
> Here's a video:
> http://aninini.tumblr.com/post/20761851750/look-at-my-baby-3-caravaggios-new-favorite
> ...


Oh my GOSH that makes me want to get a moss ball! That's so incredibly adorable!


----------



## Katy (Apr 10, 2012)

So cute, this thread! Wow I could make a list... Here's the short version:
Cleo achieves air in her jumping for food. Or just at my finger.
Keller, his list of cuteness is endless. But my favorite is that he chooses to sleep with his little head poking out at me at my bedside.
Arabia likes to be fed in his betta log.
Pistacchio is such an attention seeker I may have to rename him- he's definitely come out of his shell.
Fishywishy has like 5 real caves in his tank but he still loves to stick his head in and under everything else, rocks, plants, just to scare me that he's stuck.


That's the short list. They all flare at my cat like they could actually win that fight


----------



## MadameDesu (Feb 5, 2012)

That is too cute, littlegreen! I just got my marimo in the mail today, but Rosie doesn't seem to care for it -.-

What's your Marimo's name? XD


----------



## Katy (Apr 10, 2012)

Wow Sky is gorgeous! You got him from Petco? Lucky!


----------



## littlegreen (Mar 11, 2012)

@MadameDesu Don't despair! 8D It took a month or so for Caravaggio to start paying attention to his moss ball!

I didn't name my marimo. : ) I personally just can't go for naming a plant? It just sits there and looks round.


----------



## MadameDesu (Feb 5, 2012)

Oh come on! You gotta name it!
Mine came in an envelope, so it was squished. I named it Pancake, but it's round now, so the name doesn't really fit.


----------



## kfish (Oct 5, 2010)

X: He doesn't show his colors much. He looks different under different angles of lighting.


----------



## twinjupiter (Aug 20, 2011)

I have two funny stories.
When I first got Pandora she was a tiny skinny thing who hid most of the time. It took her WEEKS to figure out where the food comes from, unlike my other girls who figured it out in a few days.
One day, because I knew she must have been hungry, I fed my girls on the opposite side of the tank from her. While the other little piggy girls were eating, I put a couple of pellets above her. One sunk down, _hit her on the head_ bounced off and floated down to the bottom while she watched it like: "what was that?"
Pandora has since learned where the food is and now eats like the rest of the piggys. 

My other story is about a king male who lived in my 55gal community tank 
masquerading as a female for a couple months. He lived with 2 bala sharks, 3 blue gouramis, a couple of platys and 7 tetras. I fed that tank community flake food and bloodworms. When i finally noticed she was actually a he, i separated him into his own ten gallon until i could find a permanent home for him. He refused to eat the betta pellets i tried to feed him, but the minute i put some of the flake food in he ate like it was chocolate! silly boy.


----------



## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Reuben was just...... I don't know.. 
Wiggling.. Then he'd slowly lift himself out of the water, not his face, but his back, then wiggle down really fast... It was so confusing, I got up to film it but he stopped. xD He is the weirdest little thing, the bottoms of his eyes are white, so it looks like he's always cross eyed looking up. xD


----------



## MadameDesu (Feb 5, 2012)

Does anyone else's betta randomly open and close their mouth? My Rosie does that after she does her wiggly dance. She just stares at me and opens and closes it ...


----------



## Aus (Feb 3, 2012)

I have a Cleo, too. :lol:

And she's soooo aggressive. I really didn't know females got that way.. She flares all the time, jumps at flies on top of her lid so hard she rattles the lid.. and hates being cupped so much that if I fail to catch her the first time, she doesn't swim off and hide - she attacks her plants in sheer rage and then surfaces again. :lol:

Cleo clamps her fins when she's unhappy. But she's unhappy over the smallest things - can't catch that darned shrimp -clamp- food time is half an hour late -clamp - someone moved her floating wisteria - clamp- such a little drama queen. The moment she's fed, or given a new plant, or whatever, she unclamps and gets on with trying to murder the shrimp.


----------



## ZackyBear (Dec 1, 2011)

I used to have a picky CT named Bug. When my roommate brought him home he didn't eat and we were worried.

So one day I decided to try Bloodworms instead of pellets and he gobbled them right up! He would never eat Pellets, only Bloodworms!


----------



## kfish (Oct 5, 2010)

Aus said:


> I have a Cleo, too. :lol:
> 
> And she's soooo aggressive. I really didn't know females got that way.. She flares all the time, jumps at flies on top of her lid so hard she rattles the lid.. and hates being cupped so much that if I fail to catch her the first time, she doesn't swim off and hide - she attacks her plants in sheer rage and then surfaces again. :lol:
> 
> Cleo clamps her fins when she's unhappy. But she's unhappy over the smallest things - can't catch that darned shrimp -clamp- food time is half an hour late -clamp - someone moved her floating wisteria - clamp- such a little drama queen. The moment she's fed, or given a new plant, or whatever, she unclamps and gets on with trying to murder the shrimp.


LOL! This kind of makes me want to get a female, even though I so much prefer males, just so I can hope I get one as angry as yours. hahahaha


----------



## Aus (Feb 3, 2012)

LOL, kfish. She's somethin' alright.. :lol:


----------



## HazelrahLayna7 (Jul 25, 2011)

I found out a couple days ago that my lil girly Cinderella is a jumper! Nothing bad has happened yet (aka she hasn't tried to become a land dweller) but just now she jumped up and stuck on the side of the tank for half a second before falling back in. :shock: No signs of any harm though! xD 

And my boys have different ways of eating. 
Holmes is like: "OHMYFISHY ITS FOOD I MUST EAT NOWNOWNOW!" 
Sarge is like: "Oh, food," *slides up to food and sucks into mouth, trying to not act too excited about it* 
And Watson is like: *Stares. Pounces* "Nomnomnom."


----------



## Shirleythebetta (Jan 9, 2012)

Yea when Red eats he reminds me of a shark. He splashes water and flips his huge tail like if he doesn't pounce the flakes will escape. Shows how they are really preditors.


----------

