all 3 of my current bettas are getting on a bit and are looking a little worse for wear. obviously the females fins arent exactly perfect because she was used for breeding but theyve grown back well and is in the best state out of the lot of them but the guys both have problems with their fins. one of them had terrible finrot when i bought him and hasnt fully grown back his fins but the other one self harms as in he bites his own fins. this all happened after his girlfriend jumped to her death (weve leant from that mistake now) but theyre all looking terribly run-down and their eyes are looking slightly sunken in like really old men. does anyone else have old bettas? do their fins generally deteriorate as they get older anyway? thanks for any input

Well, I'm sure bettas get grizzly as they age. If you can tell it's not rot then it might well be grizzle.

I have found that my bettas tend to look grizzled as they age. My older bettas don't look as good as they did when they were young. Who does ?

Ditto. My Felix died of old age. The edges of his fins became more frazzled, but not like fin rot - it was slow and they looked faded and unfurled, losing the pleated look, rather than quickly torn and shredded. He slowed downa lot and stopped swimming around as much. His whole body got a lot darker (hyperpigmentation and lipfuscin) - you coul djust see it. He was about three and a hald when he died. Never sick a day in his life, no diease in the tank - everyone else in there was fine. Even when it is not disease, it is hard to let them go... but it is nice knowing that it happened naturally.