Sometimes it's hard to be the only educated Betta keepers...

A friend's Betta died of dropsy a few months ago...I felt so bad, for it lived in a gallon reptile carrier. The poor thing.
It's hard to be the only one who knows about Bettas and their needs when talking to friends with bettas. It's hard not to offend them. It's also crazy how one slip up can make your Betta go from fat and happy, to pineconed, in only a few days.
This leads into my latest experience. My other friend bought her daughter a glo Betta a few months ago. The tank was all sorts of wrong. I convinced her to get a heater and clean the water more frequently, but that's it.
They got their Betta from Petco in surprisingly acceptable condition. It was a female, ready to breed on the dot (not a breeder female). They only bought her pellets, and fed her 15, twice a day. It got bloated very quickly, and I convinced them to get aquarium salt (from me...). The fish did okay for about 4 months. It went from normal, to pineconed, and died the following day.
The good news is they plan to get another with all of my help. I will even be getting them one from my breeder friend, nice and healthy. Wish them luck (and their Betta...).
Before, after, and setup pictures below.

 

My female Betta Katniss has the same castle.

 

Lovely fantasy set up

Good on you for trying to help.

 

Well, at least you have friends to help. I haven't had friendly, face-to-face relationships for over 6 years!

I know all too well the pain of knowing how to care for pets but they won't listen. Unfortunately it had to be the hard way, but at least you convinced them to listen to the experienced one!

Hope it works out for y'all

 

Petco seems to have a awesome selfsustaining marketing system.
Selling (often sick) bettas to people without any knowledge about them.
Strangely it is often called rescuing a betta from Petco (only that fact is ridiculous if / when you think about it).
Rescuing a fish from a licensed LFS sounds really weird to me.
Then Petco provides (= sell) all kind of meds to make the fish recover. If it dies it didn't work and one buys another one if it recovers one has got an extreme expensive betta from a company that only made profit and no risks. Companies like these should be closed immediately.

Hoping your approach will help your friend.

 

Rescuing a fish from a licensed LFS sounds really weird to me.

In most places the licensing requirements for pet stores are less stringent than a convenience store or hotdog stand.

 

In most places the licensing requirements for pet stores are less stringent than a convenience store or hotdog stand.

Big and grave systemic errors at work...

 

In most places the licensing requirements for pet stores are less stringent than a convenience store or hotdog stand.

Even then. Rescueing anything from a shop theat sells them is weird isn't it.

Sounds just as weird as "I just rescued a hotdog"

Rescueing is what we call it when we get 180 dogs from a pupymill (yesterday overhere grrrrrr)

 

For many years we ran a wildlife rescue centre. Animals confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade were brought to us by the authorities. But often individual people would turn up bringing a monkey, or a parrot or something and saying that they bought it to rescue it from the awful conditions it was kept in. Of course then the seller would go back to the Amazon and bring back more to sell.

 

For many years we ran a wildlife rescue centre. Animals confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade were brought to us by the authorities. But often individual people would turn up bringing a monkey, or a parrot or something and saying that they bought it to rescue it from the awful conditions it was kept in. Of course then the seller would go back to the Amazon and bring back more to sell.

And the cycle continues. Grmpf.

 

That's the pet industry for you. You should see how they ship Bettas! (Of you haven't already..)
It's so sad and horrible...but, it saves them money.

 

RSBettas,

This is probably going to sound silly, but perhaps you can start your own aquarium club specific to bettas if you have time. Nothing official....turn it into something fun. Have a betta night every so often. Go on field trips to pet stores and talk about the good and the bad.

Sorry, it's the teacher in me coming out, lol!

 

RSBettas,

This is probably going to sound silly, but perhaps you can start your own aquarium club specific to bettas if you have time. Nothing official....turn it into something fun. Have a betta night every so often. Go on field trips to pet stores and talk about the good and the bad.

Sorry, it's the teacher in me coming out, lol!

Not a bad idea though.

 

For many years we ran a wildlife rescue centre. Animals confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade were brought to us by the authorities. But often individual people would turn up bringing a monkey, or a parrot or something and saying that they bought it to rescue it from the awful conditions it was kept in. Of course then the seller would go back to the Amazon and bring back more to sell.

Been there done that. We once had a galapagos tortoise surrendered to us with a tale of it having been 'rescued' as a baby. It was the size of a large kiddie pool by the time the centre got it.

 

That's the pet industry for you. You should see how they ship Bettas! (Of you haven't already..)
It's so sad and horrible...but, it saves them money.

I grew up working in the industry if you will, we bred Malawi and Tanganyika cichlids as a family side business pretty much for the whole of the 1990s.
Very much the reason why I insist on responsible decisions in fishkeeping and practice a certain degree of activism in that field. Even if that means the individual fish gets the short end.

 

This doesn't have to do with bettas, but I bought duckweed offline last week (bad idea!). The package said 500 pieces, and I was like "okay, not too bad for 5 bucks!"...
I waited 6 weeks for it to come in! 3 weeks past its due date, I was pretty sketched out to have finally found it in my apartment mailbox. I said "could this be it?". And indeed it was, for it reeked of dead fish and hot algae lake water (through the packaging!!). When I opened it, there was tons of duckweed, and much more than half of it was beyond dead. I manage to get a decent amount out. I know duckweed is a bit of a pain, so I mostly got it for the root systems and natural look. I ended up with, way, way, way more than 500! Now it's a problem, and I have to get rid of a bunch.
Moral of the story: don't buy duckweed from japan, unless you live in japan...
Living in the U.S., that duckweed has seen better days.

 

Moral of the story: don't buy duckweed from japan, unless you live in japan...
Living in the U.S., that duckweed has seen better days.

I think dried duckweed can come back to life.

 

We once had a galapagos tortoise surrendered to us with a tale of it having been 'rescued' as a baby. It was the size of a large kiddie pool by the time the centre got it.

Rescued from the Galapagos Islands by an ancestor 100 years ago, eh? Hominids...

 

Rescues of tropical fish from a pet store supports a crooked industry.
If you don't cough up to buy from a reputable breeder when possible {if you can find them} then you get what you get. Sick fish in most cases. I am shocked { not }.
The list of abused fish may well start with bettas but does not end there.
The fish 'industry' does not align with the fish hobbyist. Plain and simple.
Sorry newbs.
The way bettas are shipped should be a crime.
I have shipped fish around the world.

 

Rescues of tropical fish from a pet store supports a crooked industry.
If you don't cough up to buy from a reputable breeder when possible {if you can find them} then you get what you get. Sick fish in most cases. I am shocked { not }.
The list of abused fish may well start with bettas but does not end there.
The fish 'industry' does not align with the fish hobbyist. Plain and simple.
Sorry newbs.
The way bettas are shipped should be a crime.
I have shipped fish around the world.

Excactly!

It's one thing if activists buy a specimen of a species so rare you can count the individuals left on the planet like Orang Utans or pangolins on a black market somewhere in South East Asia if the local authorities won't support the confiscation. That you can call rescues.

But it's out of the question that rescues in western countries can only be confiscations from animal hoarders or unlicenced owners of protected species. Best if they also get fined massively. But buying an animal from a legal (though immoral) seller... only making it worse. That's what I mean by "if the individual fish gets the short end".
The fish that are not bought due to boycott are indeed sacrificial animals. Important is to stop the money-flow, not the individual.