Ok I have a betta that's like 3-4 I think. His colors have faded with time and he mostly just lays around on his leaf. He has a horrible time finding his food so I think his eyesight has deteriorated. Anyway, I've noticed his tail shortening and it doesn't look like fin rot. He's in a heated and filtered 10 gallon with 2 other bettas and they've never had fin rot before. This morning I think I pretty much confirmed it because his tail was damaged about a mouth's length up from the end and the end was kind of dangling. I think maybe because his eyesight is so bad he doesn't realize that it's his tail and just strikes out when he sees it moving? I've been salting the tank lightly with water changes, but it hasn't really grown back. Has anyone had this sort of thing happen? Is there anything I can do to stop it? I was thinking of using melafix, but mine is old so I'd have to buy some more. Ok thanks!

I believe that tailbiting/shredding is a sign of stress in Bettas, I'm not sure it's directly due to his loss of sight in that he doesn't know that he biting his own tail - more likely he is generally stressed and this behaviour is just the way of showing it.

I'm not sure how you can stop it from happening other than trying to correct any obvious environmental stressors like a strong filter current etc. (that is often a cause of tailbiting I believe).

I think it may be that as he is in a divided tank he is aware of the presence of other male bettas around him, although he can't see them very well and that agression is the cause of his behaviour?

You could try seperating him from the shared tank and putting him in a tank of his own to see if that helps?

As for the ripped tail, unless you can stop the behaviour it might be hard to get it to heal up. Keeping the water quality as good as you can should help to prevent any secondary problems occuring and promote healing, the low dose salting may help too. You could try melafix, half dosing for bettas is generally recommended. I would go with the clean water for now and try and figure out the cause of the behaviour.

I'm sure other members have had this problem before, maybe they can help you more. Best of luck with him

Good point mrbumblebee. If his eyesight is compromised and he is aware of other males in the vicinity he may feel threatened and lash out at whatever he can see moving.

A quite tank by himself sounds like the best idea.

Hi Imber,may we also ask what the params are on this tank Hun,and how often you're doing water changes-how much?

Ok thanks. The tank is divided male|female|male and he's been in it for most of his life. The filter is very weak on his side it's the strongest in the females compartment because it bothers her the least with her short tail.

The real reason I thought it was because of his bad eyesight is because he has a floating leaf that he loves to lay in. He wriggles himself up onto it and lays on his side on it so his nose is sticking out of the water. This makes his fins kind of float up around his face. I watched him for about 15 minutes today and at one point he snapped at his tail once but he didn't actually get it.

I probably will move him out on his own when I get my sorority tank set up because that'll free up some other tanks and I don't want him to be stressed out over getting a new neighbor after so long of time. I'll go look for some opaque dividers for the time being if you think that would help?

params are 0/0/10-20(I have 10 na out of the tap) I do water changes every week to week in the half since the nitrates don't go over 20 with just the 3 of them. They're usually 30-40%.