Siamese Fighting Fish

[Marty]

Well, I live in Australia and I think that during the summer time a heater would kill a betta here

Over 40 degrees C room temp... That to hot???

Mind you, during the winter it gets down to about 18... Brrr... (OK, sometimes a little lower than 18).

We also have aircon, so the temp remains pretty constant inside all yr round.

 

[Marty]

Sometimes I will put a betta in a bare vase (7"H) for a day or two just for display when I have visitors.

What do you do with fry?? (assuming you have bred them before, given your knowledge on these fish). I know the males have to be seperated at a certain age.

 

[modernhamlet]

Why do the pet stores keep the bettas in those lil plastic cups on the shelf and all the other fish are in tanks?

1. Male bettas must be kept seperate from one another. That's hard to do in standard tanks.

2. Bettas will tolerate those living conditions, at least temporarily.

It sucks and it's not particularly nice to the bettas, but that's the reality of the market. The store where I got my betta keeps them in glass bowls about 3x the size of those awful plastic cups. They were much healtier as a result.