What the heck even is this….

[TheTenthDoctor]

Went to petco the other day, saw these new bettas. It seems like petco is just breeding bettas and grasping at straws to come up with more expensive types. “Alien bettas” what a scam…more like greet common plakats…

Your thoughts

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Went to petco the other day, saw these new bettas. It seems like petco is just breeding bettas and grasping at straws to come up with more expensive types. “Alien bettas” what a scam…more like greet common plakats…

Your thoughts

All I know about alien bettas is that they are the newest strain of hybrids. I’ve heard male alien bettas are usually infertile because of the process breeders have to get through in order to the get coloration/“shine”.

Alien bettas” what a scam…more like greet common plakats…

True, basically a plakat betta with more insane colors/shine, and major reproductive issues.

 

[Rocky998]

That's just sad

 

[GaryE]

Petco breeds nothing - these are produced on Asian fishfarms, like the other recent varieties. They're sold all over the world. It's a very competitive as abusiness, and new forms with bad names are the thing now.

We keep buying hybrids and gene splices and severely inbred animals, so they keep selling them...

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yeah, I've seen alien bettas. I think they're some sort of crossbreed. But they don't look as good as regular wild bettas.

 

[sharkweek178]

The worst part of this hobby is walking past the betta shelf and seeing all those poor bettas kept in a little cup in room temperature water, many of them dead or dying.
If I could change one thing about pet stores, it would be how they display bettas.

 

[P3rhaps009]

Went to petco the other day, saw these new bettas. It seems like petco is just breeding bettas and grasping at straws to come up with more expensive types. “Alien bettas” what a scam…more like greet common plakats…

Your thoughts

to be honest I wouldn't really excpect much from petco.

 

[Chickenboi]

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

 

[GaryE]

The worst part of this hobby is walking past the betta shelf and seeing all those poor bettas kept in a little cup in room temperature water, many of them dead or dying.
If I could change one thing about pet stores, it would be how they display bettas.

I've gone from always having fancy bettas, and breeding some for the fun of it, to refusing to even consider buying them. To me, the issue isn't how they are housed in stores, it's how large their fins have become. I think it's crossed the line into cruelty breeding.
Large fins as Bettas had 15-20 years ago are manageable for them. But the fins have doubled, and the strength of the fish has remained the same. The market drives us into some very dark roads.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I've gone from always having fancy bettas, and breeding some for the fun of it, to refusing to even consider buying them. To me, the issue isn't how they are housed in stores, it's how large their fins have become. I think it's crossed the line into cruelty breeding.
Large fins as Bettas had 15-20 years ago are manageable for them. But the fins have doubled, and the strength of the fish has remained the same. The market drives us into some very dark roads.

Problem is if people refuse to buy fancy fin bettas, they will live out their remaining short days on a shelf in a tiny cup. It’s not like they can return them all the way back to Asia.

 

[P3rhaps009]

Problem is if people refuse to buy fancy fin bettas, they will live out their remaining short days on a shelf in a tiny cup. It’s not like they can return them all the way back to Asia.

the worst part is that they get fin rot so children dont want to buy them and they go through a slow and painful death

 

[Rocky998]

the worst part is that they get fin rot so children dont want to buy them and they go through a slow and painful death

Idk what's worse... The children buy it or they don't lol

 

[P3rhaps009]

Idk what's worse... The children buy it or they don't lol

yeah when children buy them they usually end up in the same condition except now in a probably smaller cup and a stressful neon plastic plant

 

[sharkweek178]

Problem is if people refuse to buy fancy fin bettas, they will live out their remaining short days on a shelf in a tiny cup. It’s not like they can return them all the way back to Asia.

But if people do buy them, then the suppliers breed more. Ultimately, the solution is going to have to be more awareness so that people stop buying them and stop rewarding that kind of breeding. If there's no market, then the breeders stop.

 

[GaryE]

You have to take the long view. Short term, you have to feel sorry for the Betta, but most of us think the damaging mutations are beautiful. The farms churn Bettas out in numbers you can't save. When I worked with importing, we once received a shipment of wild fish from Asia, and they had packed the spaces between the large bags with fancy Bettas, as living bubble wrap. They are that mass produced.
If you have room to take in 50,000 Bettas a week, you can talk rescue.
If we buy fancier and fancier fins, we get swimming pugs and French bulldogs - neat creatures but intentionally handicapped ones. It's a choice that will always be made. If I wanted another betta, I'd hunt for one with smaller fins and all the body colour I wanted. No one does that.
In order to have those fins undamaged (we don't like to 'adopt' Bettas with ragged fins) they can't be allowed to use those fins for swimming. They have to be jarred. They go into your tank physically unfit, with their noses up and tails dragging. In time, they get their muscles toned, but they are messed up creatures. Reduce the finnage by 40% and they become hardy community tank residents that swim well on day one. And they are still pretty.

The battle against cruel breeding is not going to be won by us. For every aquarist who decides Betta jarring and overbreeding are wrong, there are 10,000 who just buy. Balloon varieties of fish, blood parrot cichlids - we shape fish for convenience and because cute sells.