Fin nipping fish

[yuffie]

Hi, I have an 80L tank with the following fish in it:

5 neon tetras

leopard pleco

catfish

2 angelfish

rainbow shark

2 male guppies

male betta

Everything seemed to be going ok until I got the male betta and I've started noticing fish tails being bitten and I'm not sure which fish are causing the problem.

First I noticed that the shark and the guppies had a small chunk missing from their tails.

The next day I saw that the betta had a split in it's tail.

A couple of days later one neon had a chunk out of it's tail, the betta's tail was worse, and the larger angelfish had a split tail and was missing half of one of it's long fins.

I don't think it's fin rot because the fish with damaged tails have just suddenly had the tails split or chunks taken clean out.

I watch the fish all the time and none of them appear to be very aggressive except for the larger angelfish which sometimes chases the smaller one around, but then I don't know what has bitten the larger angelfish.

Any suggestions what to do please? I hate seeing all my fishies losing their tails

[Fishkeepa]

my guess would be the angefish or rainbow shark. My angelfish ended up eating some of my neons and i read that rainbow sharks can get quite terretorial.

Thats just my guess :-?

[bOi]

Everything seemed to be going ok until I got the male betta and I've started noticing fish tails being bitten and I'm not sure which fish are causing the problem.(

Maybe thats your answer?? I had a simlar problem a while back. A normal tropical setup with neons and angels.. put a betta in it (my late Kitkat - beatiful red male crowntail) and the tank got agressive. I thought that he was just being silly.. but started nibbling eveyones fins. And this got my angels agressive and started to nibble kitkat's fins instead. Lost my kit kat to the angels.. Wasnt there when it happened so nothing I could have done.

My best bet is to put the betta in a separate tank? or a separator. Then maybe use melafix for the fins and see if the problem still goes on. :roll:

[SpidersWeb]

When angels get to a certain age they get territorial/grumpy, paticularly the males, I have one angel who is outright vicious, and he's not very old (6-9 months maybe?), I put my kois (same size) in with him and within 2-3 seconds a brutual attack began, I had to remove them straight away before they got killed. I have other female angels, same size, that don't hurt a fly.

They're so cute and friendly, then they hit the teen years :-?

I'd say the betta sparked the fire though. I've found adding another fish can fire things up with cichlids, similar to redecorating the tank, or cold water changes.

[Caryl]

I would remove the betta.

[peanuts]

I had a betta in with with guppies - had been in there for some weeks - but when the betta's tail starting growing larger, he decided that he should be the only one with a large tail and went round taking chunks out of the male guppies.

[me love fishy]

nasty

I have never noticed aggression with bettas in my tanks before, they often keep to themselves, but adding a new fish can upset the balance of the tank and some of the previous occupants might get a bit territorial, so maybe move the betta to a new tank, or swap it for something else?

[ocean4freedom]

I'd definitely blame the angels for the fin nipping (so beautiful - such a shame they're agro :evil: ) but I've always kept my male betta in his own tank with a small pearl danio and a kuhli loach for company. He really doesn't like my platties!