r/Aquariums • u/DustyKiwiBirds7 • Apr 02 '24

My boyfriend very entertained with petting my bettas Betta

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2.6k Upvotes

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Yeah, you must not live in the US. It’s awful. The bettas usually look sickly and are just lying on the bottom. Even my local non chain pet store which does a lot of things right compared to big box stores still sells them in cups unless they are the most expensive bettas.

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u/dosenwurst-dieter Apr 04 '24

Oh wow thats crazy. No Im not from the US but I thought that you have pretty much the same pet keeping standards as we do (Im from Germany).

It sure was different when I was a kid cause the rules are very strict right now but Ive never seen a betta in a cup. Do they feed them? How can they breathe in such a small volume of water with barely any atmospheric air? The only thing resembling it I have seen so far was a video from betta breaders (?) in south east asia and they had a clothesline with small plastic bags hanging on it where they stored every betta in an individual bag. 😭

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u/RemoteAcadia Apr 05 '24

I just looked up the law in Germany and it looks like all aquariums have to be at least 54 liters (about 14gal). Do people usually follow that? We don’t have any law like that here as far as I know. It’s common for parents to buy fish bowls that are about one gallon for a betta or goldfish. Fish are seen as a trial pet for young kids before they get something bigger like a dog. Side note, goldfish or hermit crabs are sometimes carnival prizes for kids. The goldfish come in a bag or with a tiny bowl and the crabs come in a little plastic travel size carrier.

I’ve never seen them feed them but they probably do. There are little holes for air in the lid of the cup. Of course they can only get away with it for bettas since they have a labyrinth organ. Less common, but I’ve recently seen African Dwarf Frogs in sold in tiny containers with no filter since they also surface for air (look up the disgusting company Froggy’s Lair). Unfortunately the bettas in cups are not a rare thing, this is in any pet store you walk into in the US. They probably range from about $5 to $25. The cup is not meant to be permanent but many of those will live in a bowl or a small 2 or 3 gallon tank. I’m really curious to learn if fish keeping is treated totally differently there.

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u/dosenwurst-dieter Apr 05 '24

Ah yes this law, its for vertebrates, you can keep invertebrates in much smaller tanks. Its quite strictly followed if you sell animals, many things changed in the last 20 years as I can remember. When I was a child we had 3 pet stores in town, now there is only a gardencenter with a pet department left. If you want to buy something you have to ask an employee first and they ask you several questions, mainly if you know what you are doing, how long is your tank up and running, what is in the tank right now and so on. Once I was at the store and the employee denied selling fish cause the potential buyer (a family with children) hadnt even a tank running, but Im pretty sure there are black sheep everywhere. The smallest tanks they sell at this store are around 20l I think but you can get 10l cubes for shrimp and snails online everywhere, but no normal store would sell a 1 gallon tank or something like that, Ive seen them only on sites like Wish.com so far. Bettas are most often kept in smaller tanks, like maybe 20-30l and they are always kept alone (and I think in the gardencenter they only sell males). Goldfish for example are strictly sold as fish for ponds and Ive never seen someone having a fishtank with goldfish but Im pretty sure they are out there. Getting animals as a carnival prize is a big no-no, never heard of that before and Im pretty sure that would be highly illegal. There was this wave of micro tanks (everthing under 54l counts as a micro tank I think) the last couple of years ago, people mostly kept colorful shrimp and snails in their tanks but some put fish in them like a single betta or some tiny boraras. I had my betta in a 30l (~8 us gallons) tank before too.

I dont know if this is a thing in the US but here its quite popular to order aquatic animals online. This shop also has a mini fish category despite the law that fish are only allowed to be kept in 54l tanks. If you click on any fish youll find informations about tank size down below. Vertebrates get only sent by special courier but you can order invertebrates thru normal mail. The biggest shop for this is I guess Interaquaristik.de if you want to take a look. The prices are vastly different, at our gardencenter one red cherry shrimp costs 4,99 whilst online you can get 10 for 10€ sales all the time and maybe even get 1-2 on top.

I looked up Froggy’s Lair and they really sell a 1 gallon tank for african dwarf frogs? I thought this is impossible, I always thought the animals get stressed as hell and just die within a couple of months. What does a frog do in a 1gallon tank? Huh, I dont know what to say.

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u/RemoteAcadia Apr 07 '24

There’s definitely way more of a focus on capitalism here than on the animals well being. Fish have less rights compared to other animals like cats and dogs so that is part of it. Some employees of pet stores ask questions like that but most don’t. Goldfish are sold in normal pet stores for tanks all the time. For some reason they have a reputation of being the ultimate beginner fish for kids even though that is far from the truth. I think the average person who is not actually into aquariums as a hobby just assumes that fish only live for a few months. You can order aquatic animals online here too but people usually don’t bother to do that unless they are looking for something specific. The pet store near me has a huge range of really cool types of fish anyways.

Yes, I’ve seen the Froggy’s Lair 1 gallon tanks in person, but in a tourist shop, not an actual pet store. It’s like they are being sold as a toy instead of something living. They probably do get stressed and die in a couple months. The instructions that the company gives says to feed them an amount that basically starves the frogs which I guess keeps the ammonia from building up as quickly. I have 4 African dwarf frogs in a 20 gallon long and they use all of that space. Froggy’s Lair is 2 frogs to a 1 gallon tank.