Betta behavior post-bubble nesting

[Gideyon]

My betta has been acting unusual the past couple days by not showing any interest in eating. He just watches the food float on by.  Fasted him for a day. Tried again and the same thing happened. 

Water parameters are all normal. 

But a thought came to mind.   He recently built a rather thick bubble nest. My understanding is that this usually happens when they're ready to mate. The nest in the past few days has started going away. He's not working on it anymore. 

Could his behavior be related to the end of his "ready to mate" mode?  And he'll soon get back to his usual diet?  Or is there no correlation? 

Otherwise he's still pretty active. Doesn't show any outward signs of being sick. 

In the mean time, I raised the temp. Got rid of the polypad to let the IAL tannins do its thing. (the IAL developed mulm. Is that a concern?) in hopes if it's just constipation, it'll pass. 

I was just curious if there's any relation between post-bubble nesting and behavior of a betta. 

[FrozenFins]

I dont think therers any corolation between post bubble nest and the behaivor.

I've owned a total of 3 bettas.

One of them would make a bubbles nest quite often, maybe once a week or once every other week where as the other one would make one rarely. The one I currently own has only made one bubble nest in the 3-4 month period that I've had him. I personally have never seen there behavior change that drastically when their bubble nest is going away.

I suspect that theres something else happening. I might suggest to do a waterchange, that always seems to help when my fish are acting strange.

Maybe someone who has bred bettas like @Daniel could give you a better response.

[Gideyon]

I can probably ask this in another thread, but it's kind of related. 

I was reading on mulm because I saw that growing on my IAL.  I'm still a little confused on it. Is it detritus or a byproduct of detritus?   

I've heard of bettas eating detritus.  So is he possibly eating mulm, and just full? 

I'll do a gravel vac tomorrow.   Not sure what to do about the leaf.  Scrape off the mulm or let it be? 

(I have no live plants to benefit from it) 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Gideyon

[FlyingFishKeeper]

Hi, I would agree with @James Black. As for the mulm it just develops from the decaying organics, similar to compost. (Not sure but I think that mulm and detritus are synonyms.)  If you don't have live plants I would remove it since it can cause problems with the nitrogen cycle, however if you do have plants in the future they'll do great with it.