Normal to pick at plants??

[musetekno]

Zane today has started doing something strange and I'm wondering is this normal Betta S. behavior. As I checked his tank today I noticed that part of a leaf of the Java Fern looked like bits of it had been bitten off. At first I'd just though I had just not noticed this leaf damage before and shrugged it off. Later in the day when I looked in his tank I notice that one small plantlet had moved. Again I shrugged it off as being maybe knocked off by the bubbles caused by the UGF's outtake. A little bit ago I checked and now a differnt larger Java Fern (I haven't anchored it down) was moved to another part of the bottom of the tank. When I used a straw to move it gently back into position out of the middle of the tank a small betta bit size piece floated up. Zane grabbed then spit it back out again. Zane gets two Betta Bio-Gold pellets once a day so it cannot be that he's despart for food. Is it normal for bettas to pick at the plants in their tank or is this just an oddity?

[starlight]

>>Zane gets two Betta Bio-Gold pellets once a day so it cannot be that he's despart for food.<<

How long have you been feeding him 2 pellets a day? It sounds to me like he's hungry. There's invisible infusoria on aquatic plants that betta fry eat as their first food. Bettas for the most part do not eat plant material. My guess is that he's eating infusoria because he is hungry. To to answer your question. It's perfectly normal for a under-fed betta to attack java ferns, eating the micro-organisms that live there. It might be a good idea to vary his diet. Frozen food, freeze-dried bloodworms would be an improvement.

Two pellets a day is not enough food for an adult betta. It's not enough for a juvenile betta either. I probably feed my betta's more on their "fast" day than that. My 11 week old betta fry eat more than that and they're ------- long.

ps. Java Fern do best when they are allowed to float and migrate around the tank on their own. They have long roots but derive little to no benefit from being "planted" in gravel. They sometimes use their roots to anchor themselves to other plants. When their roots get too long, I cut them short. Kinda like a haircut.