Do bettas play in the substrate?

jrh said:
In my experience, betas will swim in to plants, and just rest sometimes. If you catch him sleeping at night, that's probably where he'll be.

Messing with the substrate and rocks is unusual though. If you look at their mouths, they're upturned to get at mosquito larvae and stuff that swim at the surface of the water, and to gulp some air. They're not really equipped to pick up and move pebbles.
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and all of the above mentioned is why im so confused, its estes gravel, and I would guess fairly heavy, in terms of gravel... and these are craters, at least 2 or 3 times the size of the actual fish in some cases.

I have seen him swim into the gravel and pick at it, possibly grabbing some food or something that is on the bottom, but i have yet to see him actually dig one of these holes.

is there any possibility that he is looking for snails? I had a small snail in my tank that I can no longer find, for whatever reason, but he may have been able to eat the snail.
Though my daughter says she seen the snail crawling down the glass the other day.

im confused, especially over the pile of glass rocks that was over on one side of the tank.... like 15 of them all in one little pile..... wtf?

Pics.... Its sort of hard to see the actual depth, but i think you can see the level of "devistation" from what WAS a level, flat substrate.

DSCF3074.JPG
 
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well his tail is more than halfway healed now....... im still lost on this though.
 
I've got 2 betas of my own with different personalities but one thing is for sure on both of them. They pay no attention to the gravel whatsoever so I have no clue.
 
Hmmm...maybe someone came in your house, messed with the tank, then left just to make you wonder how the heck did that happen? have you made anybody mad lately?:naughty: LOL, that would be a fun way to "mess" with someone:grinyes:
 
well, I have leveled the gravel again, patted it down nicely with my cleaning rod, So I will see if this happens again.

Ive been thinking, there is a chance most of the craters were from me, but the rocks all being piled up in one corner confuses me.... because that wasnt me lol.
 
Do you sleep walk?? LOL... I kid, but when I have a lot on my mind I have been known to sleep walk, and I always end up doing the strangest things.
 
maybe you just have some sort of convict cichlid 'poltergeist' in the tank that appears at night, moves everything around, and beats on your betta.

sounds like the most reasonable explanation so far.
 
I think Wata solved the mystery:eek3:
 
Our betta's tank has a flat marble substrate, and he does play with the marbles at times. Mostly he's rooting around for a bloodworm that dropped or something, but at other times he's moved the marbles with his nose/head. He sometimes does this after a water change and gravel vaccing. I kept hearing clinking noises from the tank and wondered what in the heck it was, and then saw him moving the marbles around. At night, he slept on the marbles, with his head resting on one like a pillow. Not sure if this is the case in your tank (and no idea why your betta's fins would be ripped), but they can play with the substrate.
 
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