My Betta eats my plants

[Komar]

My Betta has been eating my live plant (a Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown"). Any ideas why?

[William]

do you feed them any vegetables in their diet?

[Komar]

No, I just feed him the regular Betta pellets, and the odd baby guppy, frozen brine, and frozen bloodworms.

[William]

Try feeding them lettuce. Might be a sign of some kind of deficiency.

Hold the lettuce under boiling water for about 30 second or freeze it before serving it. Your ottos will love it if nothing else. ;-9

[Komar]

Hey, thanks. I figured it was some kind of deficiency, so I didn't freak out too much about the plants. :wink:

[Komar]

I think I figured out the problem: my Betta was hungry. Regular food was the deficiency, I think.

Since I bumped up the temperature in my Betta tank by adding a small heater, he's been more active. However, I hadn't started feeding him more to compensate for his increased metabolism, so he got quite thin.

This dawned on me when I remembered Betta vases with live plants. The Betta is expected to eat only the roots of the plant in the vase, but this only happens because the Betta is starving.

Fortunately, my Betta is still doing well.

[William]

good to hear. glad that you found the problem :D

[Komar]

Alas, my nice red Betta died. I placed him in a divided 5.5 G tank with my larger, more aggressive, and somewhat ugly blue Betta. Within a few days, he caught a seriously bad fungal infection. The blue Betta seems to be doing okay.

Do you think the constant presence of another (particularily aggressive) Betta nearby could have caused stress, thus leading to the fungus? I've seen Bettas in divided tanks before, so I thought this would be an easy way to care for two Bettas at once.