weird betta behaviour

Can someone tell me if this is normal or not. My betta has started to spend a lot of time sitting on the top of my filter, nearly out of the water! He is sort of half in and half out of the water,and when I push him back into the tank, he has a little swim round and then gets back onto the filter top.

I'm really worried about him, can someone help please!

I don't know if it's normal betta behaviour cam. I know my female guppy hovers above the filter a lot of the time, especially at night, but there is about 2" of water above the top of the filter so there is no danger of her being out of the water at all.

I know bettas need to get to the surface to breathe, is the tank being properly oxygenated?

The only other thing I wonder is whether there is too much water disturbance and he is looking for a quiet spot?

Hopefully someone else will have a few more ideasfor you.

Well, I've heard of Bettas chilling on the bottom of the tank but never the top. Is he eating ok , Cam?

Sorry Mary, I thought I hd replied to this. Hes eating ok I think. It;s just that he keeps sitting on the top of the filter and is literally half out of the water.

I wonder if it is because of the flow from the filter? I am wondering if I can turn down the flow? it is a fluval2 (I think) and has a little lever at the front that you can slide to reduce the flow but I dont know if that will still keepthe water clean or not.

Do you know how much I could turn it down by and still have it work ok?

Cam, have you tried pointing the nozzle of the filter so it is putting the water out against the side of the tank? That might help, or the other thing is to get a spray bar.

How big is your tank by the way?

Bettas are funny little fish in one respect as my first one completely ignored the fact that he was meant to prefer still water and used to spend his evenings zipping back and forth in the air bubbles!.

The last one I had also belied the fact that Bettas are slow swimmers 'coz he used to zip around his Bachelor Pad at high speed hence why I think he clocked himself on the decor.

i think i remember reading about bettas hanging around the top of the tank a lot but dont know that ive ever heard of one sitting out of the water.

it might be worth reducing the flow, other than that if its eating and swimming ok than just keep an eye on it.

i think the filter would still work ok if you reduced the flow of water through it but dont know how much reduction there would be. youd have to keep a close eye on your water stats.

The lever on the front of my fluval 2 doesn't seem to make a huge decrease in the flow so i'd say try it, it shouldn't affect the water stats at all. As mentioned, try angling the flow so it hitting the side of the tank sightly

some fish like to stimulate them selves, i mean see life through the eyes of a fish (betta) i bet i would love chilling and to be honest is probaly just stimulating its self through the filter vibrations

try moving the filter down in the tank... if u can

Hiya again! I did lower the filter a bit frfnf, although I cant lower it much because of the size of the tank. He still sits on it a lot of the time, but I think he's ok.

He's eating, now the filtter is a bit lower he can get on and off it easily and so he is swimming round the tank a bit more, and he's eating well.

It must just be something he likes to do I guess - weird fish!