I have a betta rescue story, although he wasn't rescued from a pet store he was rescued from a first year student apartment (sometimes just as dangerous
![lol :lol: :lol:](/images/smilies/ipb/laugh.png)
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Anyway this girl bought a betta because all of her friend were doing it. She put him in a big 1 gallon bowl in the middle of her coffee table and used him as a center peice. Unfortunately that's what he turned into. They never remembered to feed him, and when they did they dumped the tank full of fish flakes. They never remembered to change his water, i don't think it was actually fully changed! She would just notice the water was low and take it over the tap and top it up, no dechlorinator at all or anything!
The poor little betta didn't even have a very good name, they called him Shat-face because they were always drunk or high when they watched him. He was soo small and had barely any fins (I actually thought it was a female
![crazy :crazy: :crazy:](/images/smilies/ipb/crazy.gif)
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But he was able to survive all this, tough betta that he was.
Then this girl went home for the winter break (4 weeks i may add) and kinda forgot the betta back in her residence where they turn the thermostat WAY down. She didn't even realize she had forgotten about him until she was driving back to school.
When she eventually looked at him, there was barely enough water to cover him and he was lying on his side to stay underneith the water and had lost most of all his fins, dorsal too!. She felt bad so she took the tank over to the tap and filled up the water and dumped half the container of food in with him so he'd have plenty to eat.
And yet he was able to survive that whole ordeal.
So at the end of the semester, she was tired of her centerpeice and was getting ready to flush him down the toilet because she didn't want him anymore
My boyfriend came to the rescue and told her that i'd take it (even before i knew, lol)
So he came to me at the beginning of the summer in a little soup jar. At this point we still thought it was a she because it was soo small and little fins. I renamed him Nova, because he was going to start out a new life sitting beside my fish betta Van.
This was him at the end of the summer
other than his interesting dorsal you'd never even known he had fin rot.
He had so much personality, i've never actually seen a fish get depressed when another fish dies. When Van died, Nova always seemed to be looking for him when he turned in the direction where his tank used to be
![-( :-( :-(](/images/smilies/ipb/cry1.gif)
It was soo sad so i got him a another blue betta friend Cobalt and he was soo happy. he bubblenested right away
Sadly Nova passed away in November this year due to Ich (i didn't know what it was at the time and wasn't able to treat it, i feel so guilty now) but he lived for more than 2 years even though he put up with all that abuse. but i'm sure he was very happy that i rescued him
![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)