what started your love for betta's?

[steppy104]

here's mine...when i got my first betta, it was an accident. he was terrorizing my sisters fish, and she was about to flush him. but before she did, she asked me if i wanted it. "sure...why not" and named him cutie. then, come to find out, i fall in love with this little guys attitude! so dang fiesty!! well, i wanted another "siamese fighting fish". so i went to the store to look. WOW! SO MANY COLORS!! ooh...they're called *betta's*? cool."

that led to 2 more betta's that i call dragon and scragle. but then *cutie* died, after i had him for over a year.....somehow along the line, i ended up with 6 betta's....and i luv em all!

so, how did you get your first betta, and what did it lead to?

 

[Acrobit]

My first betta was named Sebastian - I was obsessed with the Little Mermaid when I was little. I had him when I was two or three, and he lived in a 5 gallon tank (decorated Little Mermaid style, of course) on my dresser. I didn't take care of him, he was actually my mom's but I referred to him as mine. After him, I had four other bettas - all named Sebastian. I didn't own bettas for a while after him but I bought Felix, a red veiltail, in 2003 and that started my obsession once again.

 

[Draven]

My first is the only one I have right now. My girlfriend got him for my birthday and I fell deeply in love with him. I am all ready planning on getting 2 more for home, and probably a couple more at work in the long run. I love his personality and how he sometimes gets bored and swims over to say hi to me as I do with him when I get bored B)

 

[rykitten]

As horrible as this is now, I bought a betta vase for my work. I eventually moved him to a bigger tank.

Around the same time I rescued a friends betta that was in a vase. The plant was long dead, and the betta hadn't eaten or had it's water changed in months. I tried to nurse the betta back to health but it died the next day.

But what really got me hooked was this site! I came here for advice with my office fish tank and stumbled into this section. I saw many beautiful bettas and fell in love!

 

[White Whale]

It was an episode from "La Femme Nikita" that started me on these guys.

 

[Grams]

actually this forum got me hooked on betta specially from ittys julies and wuvs huge selection.

 

[Love2havefish]

my friend started getting me hooked on bettas last Christmas. She's always been telling me how she wanted a betta, so for christmas i bought her a tank and put a divider in and put in 2 bettas. When i went shopping for the bettas, my bf happen to be with me, and he was the first one who got hooked. he bought one..then it turned into four....then it turned into 6. Now..we have 14 together

 

[wuvmybetta]

I've always kept veiltails since I was a little kid, I was kind of obsessed with them ) . After I had my daughter, my oldest betta died and with a new baby I decided I'd quit keeping fish for a while. One day when Tuesday was 2 we were walking by the Wal-Mart betta display and she went bonkers for a purple betta, I figured it was destiny and that she inherited my love for bettas so we bought him (old man is still with us 2 and a half years later,but not looking so well these days )

The computer is what did me in though! I never realized there were so many different betta types until a couple of years ago when I was searching online. There's no turning back now

 

[juliethegr8t]

After I got my first tank, the 10 gallon, set up and doing alright, I decided I wanted another tank. MTS hit really quick. I liked the look of the Minibows, and decided I wanted to try a betta...

Went to Petco and searched through every betta until I found the right one. Captain Jack Sparrow was the right one. I didn't know a whole lot about them, and he wasn't in much water.. so when I got him home I found that about half of all his fins were ripped off. He was still soooo beautiful though, deep red body with turquoise overlay, and bright red fins with blue and green. Jack turned out to be so incredibly hilarious, every morning when the shade goes up and the light comes in (he still does this!) he swims madly around his tank, flaring at anything and everything. He's a character!!

Sooooo of course this led to the beginning of an obsession. I had to have another! Convinced my mom that since the tanks at Walmart were only $10 and not very big, it wouldn't be a big deal. So that brought home my at the time steel blue boy, who turned dark blue with maroon highlights. Sadly, he isn't with me anymore...

Well, after that it just kept getting worse. I realized there were different tail types, and loved all the different colors and personalities. Crowntails were next...

 

[AlexsDaddy]

I had always wanted to have fish, and I always really liked betta. The betta bug hit me hard. I got my first one 2 weeks ago. I love his personalty. He is playing with some bubbles that the filter's making right now. After a couple days, when I went to the tank to see him, he would start dancing around and getting excited to see me. That bought me right there. I got my second one 2 days later, but it has been a week and a half and he is still not eating. I'm worried about him. It has been 2 weeks since my first, and I just went out and got my 3rd today. When I picked him up, he was flaring in the mirror and going nuts in the cup. I liked his attitude, and he is bigger than my others. In a nutshell, I love bettas!!!!!

 

[Dane]

I was about 8 or around there.. and my dad took me to go pick out a betta. I had a two gallon fish bowl, a little air stone, and some plants. I took care of this fish for about a year and a half. And loved him, his name was Oscar by the way. Well, I went away with my mother for a little bit, and came home to realize Oscar had more of a red tone than he did before I left...

well, apparently he had passed away, and my father replaced him hoping I wouldn't notice.. I was sad about Oscar's passing, but the second fish, Oscar (2 lol) lived for about two years (and he was about a year or so when I got him).

Ever since then.. I've been owning bettas on and off... now i'm back into the swing of things, owning about 14 bettas (which is NOTHING) but since I'm going to europe for four weeks I'm not investing in any more bettas since I wont be home to look after their habbits. My father will be taking care of them, feeding, water change, heat monitoring, etc.

(oh, did I mention I put my bettas before everything else? lol. I used all my spending cash (which was a looooot, now I have nothing) on stuff for them (including the bettas) in the past 3 months ahaha.)