# what's causing my bettas fins to split?



## superguppy (Feb 15, 2010)

I got a male betta (a veil tail I believe) about a week ago. At that time he seemed to be doing fine. There was a split in his anal fin, but I believe his dorsal and caudal fins were fine. He looked like this at the time:



A few days later I noticed that his ventral fin started to split in several areas and the split seemed to be progressing towards the body. He looked like this at the time:


He was in a tank with 3 zebra danios that I thought might have been picking on him, so I isolated him in the cup that he came in. I left the cup floating in my 15 gallon tank. The fin splitting didn't seem to progress after that.

However, he got out of his cup last night and I noticed today that his caudal tail now has the same pattern of splitting. Now he looks like this:



Notably, I did buy a guppy last week that appeared to have some sort of fin rot a couple days after I got it and died a couple days later. The fin just seemed to dissolve away, leaving only the frayed rays. I thought the zebras or betta might have been picking on it, but I didn't observe anything directly. I didn't notice the bettas fin splitting until I got the guppy, so I don't know if they are correlated.

What do you guys think?


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## th3g0t0guy (Jul 9, 2009)

it looks like you got yourself a crowntail betta unless there is some disease i dint know about ....but i wouldnt worry about it


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

Hmm. Pretty betta, by the way. 
Could be just the natural progression of his tail towards its proper shape. Looks like he could actually be a crowntail. Bettas tend to tuck their fins and be lighter than their natural color when they're in stress (like in a cup at a store). I'm not saying for sure that that is what's happening, but it is a possibility. 
If his tail continues to get more sparse, treat the tank with some aquarium salt to stop it, maybe some Melafix as well. 
You might also want to look into getting a separate tank or a larger school of danios. They get nippy when they are in smaller groups (we have this problem at the current moment too, since we had a couple danios die, so we're moving the little buggers as we suspect they are nipping our guppies). 
We've found that bettas do pretty well in small tanks, even as small as 2.5 gallons. We have four bettas, two each in divided 2.5 tanks, and they're doing great. We don't keep them in our community tank as they tend to get picked on.
I'd move him out of the cup and into a new tank as soon as possible. Keeping him trapped in that little cup is not helping him heal if he does have fin rot of some sort.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

What size tank is he in and what other fish are there? Many things can cause this. It could be fin rot, but IMO it does not look like it. Male bettas should really be in their own tank away from other fish. Since you only recently got him he is still young, but males do tend to be pretty aggressive. This will increase as he ages. He can stress himself out trying to chase other fish. 

These fish also do poorly with currents, do to the extra drag caused by the unnatural fins. This can make object in the tank more dangerous. Plastic plants, especially plastic cabomba, can rip fins pretty easy. Long fins are also targets for fin nippers. 

I would treat with salt or melafix as well.


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## superguppy (Feb 15, 2010)

That's interesting that he might actually be a crowntail. He had the droopy veiltail appearance and everything. I looked at it pretty closely at the store. All the rays were fused from the body to the tip of the tail. Is this how crowntails tend to form?

One thing I did forget to mention is that I think I have a good amount of current going around the tank. The betta seems like he's fine with it, but sometimes it looks like he's getting pushed around, especially when he gets too close to the filter input and outputs. Can a high current cause this kind of splitting?

As far as getting him into another tank, I don't have any other options at the moment, but I'll try to figure something out. He's in the cup in the meantime because I have seen him trying to nip at my cory trilineatus, which is not acceptable.


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## superguppy (Feb 15, 2010)

hXcChic22 said:


> We've found that bettas do pretty well in small tanks, even as small as 2.5 gallons. We have four bettas, two each in divided 2.5 tanks, and they're doing great. We don't keep them in our community tank as they tend to get picked on.
> I'd move him out of the cup and into a new tank as soon as possible. Keeping him trapped in that little cup is not helping him heal if he does have fin rot of some sort.


Do you use a heater for your bettas or do they do okay in room temp in the 2.5 gallons?


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