Is Cycling Necessary For Betta Fish?

[RobRocksFishTank]

Sorry... Here's a better one.
 
I worked in one place that had a special display set-ups with multiple compartments and multiple tiers. One of them was for bettas. The others were saltwater for housing small invertebrates and some specialty type fish. They were great for display and function. They were really one big tank divided into multiple compartments sharing the same filtration system. They were kept bare bottom and the flow was good enough to keep most of the debris from settling. Scrubbing them for algae really was a real pain, though, and it had to be done fairly often.

 

[Wildbetta]

Just some food for thought.
 
Even in the best of conditions, Bettas have a fairly short life span. If I remember right, it's about three years. Experienced keepers were the majority of the business at the stores I worked at. I'm sorry but this rescuing them from the store is way overdone in this thread. That was a small portion of the business at all the places I worked at. I worked in a bit more than few pet stores, some better than others, and most of the Betta customers had kept them successfully before.
 
There were two stores that had questionable practices with their Bettas. One actually supported a local fighting ring. These customers put big money on the fights and payed big money for the wild caught "fighters". The other one was receiving them in these tiny bags that barely held a tablespoon of water and even less air. The water was heavily medicated. They lived in those bags for well over a week sometimes. Really cruel stuff on both accounts.

 
Actually domestic fancy bettas can reach ages of 10 years when kept in the most optimal conditions.  However 3 years is the "normal" range seen most often with pet bettas which tend to be kept in less than optimal conditions for most of their life.
 
Domestic fancy bettas are shipped in very small amounts of water for a couple of very good reasons.  It helps keep them from shredding their own fins, to conserve space and weight when shipping since orders normally run into the hundreds of individuals when shipping from betta farms, and they do not need a lot of water and rely mostly on the air in the bag.  The rule of thumb when shipping bettas is 2/3 air to 1/3 water in the bag -- basically with their being just enough water in the bag for the fish to be fully covered no matter how the bag is turned but no more than that.    However if I read your statement correctly it sounds like they were incorrectly bagged.  I have seen some videos of stores unpacking bettas and most of those videos (while shocking to most people who don't know better) do not show anything that is considered "out of the ordinary or cruel" when shipping bettas.