# burned by the heater or fin rot?



## Jaze (Apr 19, 2013)

i tried getting a picture of my betta, but he wouldn't stay still long enough for a good one.

yesterday, my boy's fin looked completely fine. today when i woke up, his tail fin was shredded. this happened way too quickly to be fin rot, right? could it be from the heater? i notice him resting his fins on the heater a lot when it's on. could that be the problem?

there are no other fish in the tank and no kind of fake plants that he could have torn his fin on. for now, i'm going to treat it as fin rot.


----------



## Laki (Aug 24, 2011)

Hello and welcome!

Sudden changes in tails/fins are usually caused by either biting or snagging. Bettas bite their fins due to a number of reasons: boredom, stress, attention, to relieve themselves of the weight of it, high currents etc. . . Because it is often difficult to pin point the reason, it is hard for me to tell you what caused it. Think about things that might have changed in his environment or right outside the tank, think about how strong the current is coming out of the filter and think about the types of decorations in the tank which might have snagged the tail as well. 

You will not treat this as it is not (yet) a medical condition. Healthy bettas will re-grow their tails pretty quick with WARM, CLEAN water. Give him an extra water change or two this week and you should see new growth (it will be clear at first). High protein foods (frozen bloodworms, daphnia, mosquito larvae) will make this happen faster. Temperature should be 81F.


----------



## Jaze (Apr 19, 2013)

thanks for your reply.  it honestly doesn't look like fin rot, especially since he was just fine yesterday. the temperature is around 82 F or so. i'll make sure to change out a bit more extra water. hopefully he'll have a speedy recovery.

there's honestly nothing in the tank that could snag his fins, except maybe the filter.

just for a visual: he's a veiltail betta, but right now he's looking more like a crowntail.


----------



## Laki (Aug 24, 2011)

Yes, ALL of my veiltails have bit at least once in their lifetimes. It can be frustrating. Fin rot takes time to develop, I was among the new owners scouring the internet with my new fish years ago because he bit and I thought for sure he had fin rot. A lot of the sites that mention it are vague in the description and duration of it. Fin rot happens in a lot of pet store fish, for instance, because they're kept in small dirty cups for a period of time. 

If the intake on your filter is strong he may have leaned against it and snagged his fins but I imagine that would look more like a blow out (holes midway up the tail). I think your fish is nipping his fins. 

He could be bored. Where is the tank located? I keep all my fish on my desk or in a high traffic area because they LOVE watching people. 

He might be stressed. If you change the water too frequently or move him around in a cup for changes. He might also be nipping if you turn the light off too early in the day. There are so many reasons he might be doing it and honestly, though he is a fish, you have to look at all the things you do with him and around the tank which might cause him to bite his fins. 

I'll give you an example. My last VT bit his fins after a while for goodness knows why. It started a few months after I got him and he had a messed up tail from fin melt. SO he began biting. I couldn't stop him and he did it every 3 weeks or so (you know, right after it grew back in and began coloring up) so I got a 5 gallon tank and divided it so he shared it with another male betta. They could see each other through the divider and he had a "buddy" to communicate with. He stopped biting immediately and I was able to conclude that he was bored. Not all fish benefit from divided tanks though, I am not telling you to go out and do that. I am merely sharing my story with my latest tailbiter. 

I just have one now, he's a mix between Delta and Veil. Within the last 2 days or so I have been noticing small fractures out of the end of his tail and it's a whole new story of going about finding what's wrong. 

Good luck! We're still here with answers/suggestions.


----------



## Jaze (Apr 19, 2013)

the tank is located in my room beside my bed, so i'd like to think that he sees me often. usually i'll go up to the tank and just watch him too. his fin is very stringy right now, but if he's for sure just biting it, then i'll make sure to keep an eye on him.


----------



## Sathori (Jul 7, 2013)

My betta, Gray, started shredding his fins about 2-3 weeks ago. His tail type is a super delta, so he was just short of being a half-moon. 
He was originally in a 1.5 gallon tank, which was filtered and heated. I upgraded him to a divided 10 gallon and had a "buddy" on the other side. It worked for a little while until both of them started tail biting. SO I moved his "buddy" into a separate tank, and let Gray have the whole 10 gallon to himself. The other betta stopped tail biting once he got his own tank.

I would still see Gray park his butt on the gravel and chew at his fins, or pace around the tank like he was looking for some place to go. So yesterday I added tank mates. At first he proved to be quite aggressive towards the school of neon tetras that I added, but today he leaves them alone and completely relaxed in the 10 gallon. I don't see him tail biting nearly as often and he is casually exploring the tank like he should have done before. He's no longer looking quite so anxious and his tail is healing up! 

My orange veiltail started tail biting when I moved him from a 1.5 gallon into a 3 gallon. Once I moved him back into his 1.5 gallon, he stopped tail biting.

Long story-short, it's a matter of figuring out why your betta is tail biting. It's all about trial and error. Some bettas like big tanks, some feel safer in small ones. Some like lots of plants, some like fewer plants. Some like filters, some don't. Some do it just because they can, like people who bite their nails or pick at their acne, it's just a bad habit.
Some things work for certain bettas and not for others. It all depends on your betta's personality type and the cause for the tail biting.

Trust me, to have 3/5 of my bettas tail biting, I was pulling my hair out! lol


----------

