What got you hooked?

[Whiskerz]

hmm well it all started when i first signed up for this forum and someone was talking about their bettas and the attitudes their bettas have, so i decided to get one....and then they just kept coming in my room until i had no more room left


im sure another one will come in my room one of these days

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

im sure another one will come in my room one of these days

yeah when you bug the crap out of me to buy you a tank

 

[tekknocolor]

lol i jus had bettas off n on and wen i came to this forum and saw the other species there were i kinda got interested, i wouldn't call it hooked,...yet

If you're not hooked... why do you keep coming to the betta and gouramis section of the forum?! And why keep talking about bettas... j/k (wait a minute... I'm always here too... ) So, let's face it, it's an addiction by now! First step is admitting you have a problem!

You got the sickness we all got!!!!

My interest didn't start until I got my betta Apollo...
(He's not even mine, he's my fiance's first betta... lol) And then realizing that he's got a wonderful personality (the betta, not my boy.. not that I'm saying he doesn't... I'm putting the shovel down )

 

[GuppyDude]

lol its like trying to quit smokeing, " just one more and thats it..." " ok mybe 2"

 

[maui]

thanks for sharing all the stories, i love hearing them

now how did i end up getting hooked on bettas....?
well it started last summer, my sister bought this really pretty vt from the lps. he used to live in our kitchen. He had soooo much personality – every time you were in the kitchen he would be up at the glass wiggling around looking at your like “what ya doing over there?” it was soo cute I eventually adopted this betta, named him Elliot and took him to school with me when i moved out last September.
Unfortunately Elliot passed away right before my eyes, it was the saddest thing ever. It was like he was having intense seizures and crashing in to everything. I was crushed, i broke down and cried in front of my roommate and she was like “erm Alison it’s just a fish...”
Anyways, after Elliot’s passing i wanted a new betta and thats when i got Gavin he was great! He lived in a tank on my desk and when ever i was studying he would spend all his time chillin in the corner closest to me as if he was keeping my company – ahh i loved it! My sis then bought me a female, Maven and she became Gavin’s buddy. I kept there tanks side by side and i think Maven had the biggest crush on Gavin.

The addiction really started at the end of April this year. As my friends were getting ready to head home for the summer on of them mentioned that she had some bettas that she was going to “either give away or flush” I was horrified to say the least, so i adopted them from her.

From that point on i couldnt go in to a pet shop, let along drive by a pet shop without checking out the bettas. I currently have 5 boys and 6 girls and i cannot wait to set up my 15 gal divided tanks so i can have space for more.

 

[bkk_group]

my wife hooked me. she is thai and once told me how she remembered catching them from the wild as a kid. one of her school projects as a youth was breeding bettas as well. i remember having them as a kid but really had not thought about them (or any other fish) since then. well, we were married last year and moved to a new place and outside the front doors, someone had left a bunch of toys and clothes to be donated to the salvation army. in amongst them we noticed a couple of tanks, our new landlord saw us looking at them and suggested we take them, that was the trigger. our first betta was a LFS veil tail, little did we know it wouldn't be our last since my wife wasn't allowed to work legally (she was in the process of immigrating here) we thought a fun project for her (and i) would be to breed them, for old times sake. we eventually found a short-tail plakat and a compatible female and bought an excellent book called "bettas; a complete pet owner's manual" (excellent book by the way). it was that book, that we used for our research. i didn't even know about fish forums back then, i did do some online research though and came across a site called plakatthai.com. that site (not to mention my wife) was my introduction to thai breeding. i became very interested in "fighter plakats" and being the obsessive compulsive person i was emersed myself in the culture. when i get interested in something i need to know everything about it, no half measures for me. our first ever spawning attempt was successful and we were well on our way. eventually, i found a fish forum "aquamaniacs" and thought i would stay there for a bit. i became disillussioned with the people there though when the subject of fighting came up and i was compared to jeffery dahlmer for merely suggesting plakatthai.com as a site to look into "if you really wanted to know what it was all about". well, people freaked out and censored me and i said "fine, please delete my profile as i'm through with you". it was a month or two later that i came across this forum and i have been here ever since. one day while looking for another female to breed for our next spawning we met a cool LFS employee who, when we told her were breeding suggested another store to look into as the owner there also bred bettas. it was through that shop that we were introduced to marianne of bcbetta.com and became memberes of the local betta association she had organized. once we met marianne, things got crazy as we visited her numourous times and always came home with more fish and more info. 9 tanks later and numourous juvenile jars etc etc our living room has become our betta room. we have been lucky to have been successful in our breeding and have learned a lot each time. once we have gotten rid of all our current ct spawn we will in all likelyhood specialize in wildtype plakat as i feel strongly about doing all i can to help preserve threatened species like mahachai, imbellis and smaragdina. we will only purchase captive bred fish and will only breed pure bloodlines, no x breeding between species. at the moment i have a pair of "wildtype" imbellis but have decided to never breed them as there is something not right with their genetic makeup. i'm not sure what the american breeder did (who i purchased them from) but every thai breeder i have shown pics of these fish has said that they are a mutation and should never be continued. this has all tought me a valuable lesson about how we should be careful about what we decide to breed and what we advertise fish we sell as.

 

[IBFrog]

Actually I got hooked on the looks of Bettas when I was in High School and started keeping other fish. I kept them a few years until they all died of old age and I went off to college. I didn't have time to devote to fish then and just never got back into it until this last year when I had to retire early. (A patient broke my neck and I became very depressed.) Now that I have time, and my wife and I are stay at home types, we decided to get some fish. We started with a small community aquarium of neons, guppies and cories and got one white Betta because we both like Bettas. As the Betta grew, he got some red and then light blue streaking in his fins. Of course I wanted to be sure I was doing right by him so I did research and found this forum. We now have ten more. I find them fascinating as each has a very distinct personality and they enjoy interacting. And of course the colors and the way they just float in their tanks is so soothing.

 

[cation]

I got hooked on bettas because they taste so good!
















just kidding.

 

[GP]

I got hooked on bettas because they taste so good!
















just kidding.

boy oh boy do I hope so..