hurt again

Flash has a new injury. This time I know exactly when it happened. I look at the fish closely every feeding time, and he was fine yesterday morning. Then I removed the visual barrier a few minutes before lifting the bowls down for cleaning, and the bettas at once darted around displaying at each other through the glass. I'm certain that Flash scraped himself against something in his bowl while dashing around, because now he has a small wound in the center of his right side, missing one scale. You can see it here where held in the baggie before I floated him back in his bowl. Just when the old wound (near the caudal fin) was beginning to heal up!

I don't think it's from the plant roots, they don't seem that sharp-edged to me, although he does push through them sometimes to reach food at the surface, I keep them thinned out and it never seems to hinder him. I think there must be a rough or sharp edge on his decor, the fake bridge he shelters under.

So I lifted his bowl down to the table
Elusive from the camera again ↓

took the bridge out, and smoothed all the edges with a nail file. It has texture to look like small bricks on it, lots of small edges. I've read that you ought to pull a piece of pantyhose across any decorations or fake plants, and if the pantyhose snags, the object could tear delicate fish fins.

To keep from stressing the fish too much, I left him in his bowl with the plant lid returned, just removed one cup of water so I could reach in to remove/replace the bridge without sloshing water over the top. He seemed quite curious to be in a new location, or to be close to me. The fish definitely recognize when a person approaches the bowl, they always swim up to the edge to look at you- and some say they can recognize their keeper.

I dosed his water with a quarter teaspoon of dissolved aquarium salts again, and will be more careful to avoid the excitement of seeing his neighbor for a good long while this time. Maybe permanently.

the good side of Flash:

his bad side (for now):