Depressing Betta fish

[John Backlund]

Waltzed into PetSmart a while ago to get a couple thousand pounds of Kittie pootie sand, a few hundred pounds of dry cat food, and twenty-seven little packages of cat treats.

I always have to go by the wall of little Betta fish 'condos' on the way to the cat heaven department.

Dang if they don't look miserable half floating in those claustrophobic teensy cups they put them in. They hardly move in there, and I only can tell that they're not dead is because they aren't floating upside down at the surface.

What do you do with these things? I guess that they fight anything that they can come into contact with.

Anyway....

 

[brookdalebill]

Kinda makes me glad I ain’t one.
Just sayin’.

 

[naveed211]

They can actually cohabitate with certain fish.

Bettas are really cool. We had one for a year and a half and gave him as good a home as we could for being first time betta owners and learning on the fly. But when we moved we gave him to one of my coworkers who gave him some really sweet digs, she has a lot more experience.

They’re beautiful fish. Unfortunately people put them in tiny 1 gallon or less tanks and, yeah, they’re depressed then.

 

[Willie Johnson]

Give them a bigger enclosure, but separate from other critters. Cool fish.

 

[Tom-Australia]

I have one in 100 litres (50 gallons?). The little dude has a lot of personality. But yeah those small jars are depressing.i'm sure a lot never make it out of the store.

 

[Engine Swap]

In college, I took a comparative psych class and we studied these. They do attack each other.

 

[Zepfan]

I have one in a 1 gallon tank. It cohabits with a snail to clean the tank. Either the Betta fish is a very dirty fish or the snail is a slacker, or maybe both.

Couple weeks ago, TCM had a 007 marathon and watched Goldfinger. Goldfinger put 3 Betta fish in a tank together and they fought to the death, I had forgotten that part.

 

[_MementoMori_]

Kind of a perfect illustration of modern first world society, that pic is.

 

[Bones]

In college, I took a comparative psych class and we studied these. They do attack each other.

How much "psychology" do you think is going on in that tiny little brain of theirs?

 

[Bones]

We try to not buy from any pet stores that sell any live animals. It's hard sometimes, but it can be done.

 

[JL_LI]

My wife rode in a car from Leesburg, VA to Rancho Cucamonga, CA with a with her granddaughter and daughter in law, a beta in a small tank and four small dogs in a Mazda SUV. All living things survived the journey. Not being in a bowl, the beta came to the same corner of the tank each evening at feeding time.

 

[68tele]

Like seeing birds in cages, the opposite of humane.

 

[Doomguy]

Bettas and other anabantoids are really cool. They're able to breathe air with their labyrinth gland which is why they pop up to the surface every so often, they don't need to use gills to breathe. But these poor dudes are just not taken care of properly. Bettas are so good at surviving in miserable conditions due to some of their adaptations that there are these myths that they can live in these cramped, unheated, unfiltered bowls. Sure, they can tolerate it for a while but it's just irresponsible. And contrary to the myths, they are able to cohabitate with other fish sometimes. You do get some individual males with violent tendencies from time to time but a good portion of them are relaxed enough. Smaller schooling fish, particularly ones that come from the same areas as wild Betta splendens tend to be the best choice, like Boraras brigittae (the chili rasbora).

I've always kept bettas in heated, filtered 2.5 or 5 gallon tanks. They tended to do pretty well for me. I still love fish, just lost interest in bettas over the years. My main interest these days are nano fish, livebearers, and dwarf cichlids.

Been keeping fish for most of my life, well over 15 years at this point... Love it. I'll end the rant now, haha.

 

[Happy Enchilada]

A pet that comes packed in a reusable urine sample cup. How convenient!

Kinda looks like SuperMax for fishies.

 

[bgmacaw]

I've kept them before but in a 2 1/2 gallon tank with appropriate filtration and heating. They won't do well in a small cup although they'll survive if fed properly and if their water doesn't get disgusting. They're much easier to keep than nasty goldfish.

They can share a tank with some other fish but the males' long, flowing, fins put them at risk of attack by other fish species. They really only fight with each other, not other species.

 

[Engine Swap]

"Rumble Fish"

 

[rghill]

They can survive very poor water conditions, because they are essentially air breathing fish. Some are quite beautiful. They definitely deserve to be placed in a nice mellow community tank where other fish won't pick on them. They seem to do pretty well with live bearers, but they will eat other fish that are small enough, including the baby guppies. I had one eat a small neon tetra when I used to keep fish.

 

[Bryan A]

I believe their natural habitat is water puddles in rice paddy fields in China. So they don’t naturally live in bodies of flowing water nor in areas with a lot of room to move. So it’s not like a small container of water is totally unlike their regular habitats. They don’t move around much no matter what size tank you put them in, and they don’t do that well with circulating water.

I had a male and female together in a small tank once. I don’t really remember them fighting or paying each other much attention at all. I could be misremembering though

 

[kbold]

We try to not buy from any pet stores that sell any live animals. It's hard sometimes, but it can be done.

 

[John Backlund]

We try to not buy from any pet stores that sell any live animals. It's hard sometimes, but it can be done.

This PetSmart takes in numbers of cats from the local Humane Society and adopts them out, they get them all into homes, so their are exceptions.