Just Do It Already! We Need Writers!

[jourdy288]

Sign here to petition against bettas in small miserable cups.
Please do it. It takes only a moment of your time, and each signature makes a difference. So far we had near 800 clicks, but only 56 signatures. as of 8-27 08:45 P.M. Just sign!
If you sign, you help bettas all over. Just please do it.
Please pass it on via E-Mail, to your friends, and their friends, and so on.
Edit: We are now writing a letter to big LFS main offices.

 

[Rex740]

I dont like them being in little cups but i think they have to in a petstore. This is because they are not going to waste a tank just for one betta. They need room for other fish too. Maybe if the bettas will be put in bowls, that would be good.

EDIT-Oh, it says they will be put in bowls. i will sign.

 

[FBTgirl]

Thanks for putting my petition up Jourdy..

 

[CathyGo]

I see nothing wrong with using the cups in stores IF the bettas are all sold within two weeks and water changes are done every other day. Crowntails normally are sold within 5 days and regular bettas within 2 weeks at the Petsmart I work at. Females take a while to get sold though. I'm thinking closer to a month with them. A community female tank wouldn't work though. The cups are TEMPORARY. You guys are acting like the bettas have to spend most of their lives in them. Now some cups are too small but most are a decent size. We have less than 1 dead betta a month and most of those have died right after arriving so it was shipping stress. If a betta is sick we pull it off the shelves and treat it. We have one in back who is missing half his fins from fin rot and has a swimbladder problem. He is in a half gallon container that gets it's water changed and Melafix added everyday. He has stopped losing his fins and is slowly growing them back. He still spends most of his time floating. He'll most likely be adopted out to the person who has been taking care of him for the last month and a half.

Quote from petition: Not to mention that the Betta fish in these tiny cups most likely die soon because of the lack of tank cleaning.

My reply: If the cups are MAINTAINED CORRECTLY this does not happen!!! Don't blame the cups blame the people who overfeed them or don't do the water changes that it is company policy of both PetSmart and PetCo to do!!

 

[FBTgirl]

In my petco I see 3 betta fish died everytime I go there. They have mold in the cups. And also I saw a male betta for almost a month there. I still do not like them.

 

[GuppyDude]

The conditions in which the bettas are kept in the cups varys from store to store im sure, but not all places let their betta cups go to hell. If maintained betta fish are perfectly fine in there for the short period of time it takes to sell them. i agree with cathygo on this one.

 

[Danno]

I think that cup size also has something to do with it. I have seen 3 up sizes so far. One that is 2 inches in diameter (that one was BAD). One that was 3 inches in diameter (normal betta cup). And also a 5 inch diameter cup (that was pretty good).

 

[Scotch_Egg]

Ive signed and adding the link to my sig so everyone can go to it. Good cause!

 

[GuppyDude]

5'' is suitable. When I bred betta fish i ordered 4.5'' cups to house the fry. If LFS could just spend the little extra cash, they could always reuse the cups after the fish have sold, just plop them into a baggy upon purchase. The 4.5'' i had were indestructable pretty much, and only $.10 each from a whole seller in china. I realize LFS are a bussiness and are trying to make money, but the economic appeal of buying reusable cups (from an outsider's perspective), sounds like a smart idea.

The problem of the inhuman treatment of betta fish truly stems from their mass production in south Asia; where most LFS order their betta stock from. Bettas are a lucrative bussiness there, and the over production of the fish has made them cheap and indespensable. If there were some way to get the governments of those countrys involved in implementing policy on fish breeding, purhaps we would see change here in the states, and probably all over the fish keeping world. The bettas would be more expensive as a result, but they would also be kept a little better if the LFS was paying top dollar for them.

Direct attempts by larger animal rights groups such as PETA (damn them), to stop the ill-treatment of bettas has continually met failure. I hate to be a doom sayer to your petition (i will sign it), but i think its an issue that demands a broader course of action; probably one that covers not just bettas, but all domesticated fish.

 

[CathyGo]

In my petco I see 3 betta fish died everytime I go there. They have mold in the cups. And also I saw a male betta for almost a month there. I still do not like them.

Then ask to talk to the manager in that specific Petco. Or write an e-mail or call PetCo customer service. Send photos of the conditions they are in if you can. If you get a form letter or e-mail write back saying that you would like to know if somebody actually read your e-mail, what is going to be done to get better conditions for the fish, and a direct # to somebody who can do something other than copy+paste a form e-mail. Once people realize I won't settle for that kind of crap they tend to pay more attention to what I'm saying and give me the info needed to go in and talk to the manager about how he plans to improve conditions and verify that my concerns were passed on to him. The other fish were probaly just as bad off as the bettas you saw and corporate needs to do a walk through to bring conditions to the employees attention. That's what happens at my PetSmart. Corporate folks do regular walk throughs of our department to evaluate the conditions the animals are kept in. If something isn't right they tell us and we have to fix it before the next walk through.

Some male bettas may be there longer because their colors or fins aren't so great but they do get sold within a few months in almost all cases. Smart employees will pull the ones that have been on the shelf longest to the front so they are more likely to be bought.

Edit: PetSmart cups are 3.5 inches and PetCo cups are 4.5 inches. Yes I've seen the tiny little 2 inch cups and those ARE bad. Bettas don't even have the room for all their fins scrunched into those.

 

[-germ-]

I see nothing wrong with using the cups in stores IF the bettas are all sold within two weeks and water changes are done every other day. Crowntails normally are sold within 5 days and regular bettas within 2 weeks at the Petsmart I work at. Females take a while to get sold though. I'm thinking closer to a month with them. A community female tank wouldn't work though. The cups are TEMPORARY. You guys are acting like the bettas have to spend most of their lives in them. Now some cups are too small but most are a decent size. We have less than 1 dead betta a month and most of those have died right after arriving so it was shipping stress. If a betta is sick we pull it off the shelves and treat it. We have one in back who is missing half his fins from fin rot and has a swimbladder problem. He is in a half gallon container that gets it's water changed and Melafix added everyday. He has stopped losing his fins and is slowly growing them back. He still spends most of his time floating. He'll most likely be adopted out to the person who has been taking care of him for the last month and a half.

Quote from petition: Not to mention that the Betta fish in these tiny cups most likely die soon because of the lack of tank cleaning.

My reply: If the cups are MAINTAINED CORRECTLY this does not happen!!! Don't blame the cups blame the people who overfeed them or don't do the water changes that it is company policy of both PetSmart and PetCo to do!!

CathyG, would you say it is right (morally, health wise) to keep Betta in these small containers on a permenant basis?

 

[CathyGo]

Nope, all my bettas are in at least a gallon container and that's what I recommend to customers if they ask me about them. Sometimes they put them in a good size tank sometimes they go for something so tiny that the cup they were sold in has more room. 1 female has a 5 gallon all to herself at the moment. 1 female and 1 male(seperated) are currently in a 10 gallon that's half full because I'm trying to breed them. Another female is free in my 55 gallon and my other male is in a betta house in that same tank. PetCo had a ton of nice crowntails and I'm gathering females for my 55 gallon tank so I've bought a few recently.

 

[stang1]

I don't agree with the cups at all, mainly because they are too small but also because it gives customers the wrong idea about what size tank/bowl they can be kept in. At my lfs, the Bettas are kept in decent sized tanks or in breeding nets. They did keep them in the small plastic Betta barracks but I explained to the manger that these were far too small, so they no longer use them.
When a customer comes in to buy a Betta, I always recommend keeping them in a 5G+.

 

[-germ-]

Don't you think then, Cathy, that to some extent PetSmarts keeping Betta in such small containers may actually encourage or mislead aquarists toward keeping Betta in such small containers themselves?

 

[djceri_g]

all signed! Good luck with it!