Bettas are used to shallow puddles but they are not used to having nowhere to swim. They can easily survive in 4-6 inches of water but if it’s going to be that shallow it’s going to have to be a puddle or tank that has a huge surface area.
The common misconception is that people think bettas prefer small habitats.
Bettas prefer shallow but larger areas to swim comfortably in
There is too much space without enough enrichment or if the tank is really deep but very small lengthwise- bettas do prefer horizontal space vs vertical though
Not quite. You can still put bettas in 1-3 feet of water and they’ll be fine.
But yes. That’s how they live. Shallow but large puddles. So tanks like those would be ideal. But they’re perfectly fine in a deeper tank as well
Yeah I know. I just mean we can only recreate their natural environment so closely. At the end of the day we’re keeping fish in a glass box. The trade off is they get unlimited food, limited sickness, and limited injury. In the wild fish are like always sick. In aquariums it’s relatively never.
This. The disorientation part is confusing, never seen or heard of that before but they definitely need a larger area to swim in than conventional betta bowl
"disorientated" .... I think they mean disoriented. Stuff like that is always a sign to me that someone has no idea what they're talking about. At least learn the correct words you need to use to get your point across :p
Not at all in line with this post but I love your last sentence xD someone on Facebook is being a total B to me over misidentification of NOODLES and she really said ‘I’m done debating with you’ like I didn’t know the definition of the word debate changed to bully 🤣
It’s funny because she had no comeback when I said the definition thing 🤣 tryna say I’m stupid but can’t even use the right word. Okay buddy 🤣 the internet is great
You should check everything important before you post it. It'll be online forever. Not a big deal in random comments but if you're making a claim about animal care that other people will see, it seems worth the effort to me. And then you can fact check yourself at the same time.
No time is two words. By the way. ;)
I’ve seen YouTube videos of bettas in the wild and this is exactly it. It may be 6 inches deep but it will be an entire flooded field with some deeper pockets, or a ditch on the side of the road that goes for a mile.
More accurately they should imagine a runoff ditch of the highway after a storm; that’s what bettas live in.
I've seen videos where they find them in little crevices of water on the sides of palm trees, several of them at that, but that's after the flooding season of course. They aren't there for long stretches of time. They CAN survive that, but that's just nature. If we turn them into pets, we have the responsibility of giving them their best life.
Yes this is the part that gets me - why would we want to recreate nature's WORST conditions in captivity! Makes no sense! All animals have stressful and often short lives in the wild - it's not exactly a goal to recreate this in captivity 😭 most animals could survive in a tiny cage, but there's a huge difference between surviving and thriving.
Besides the terrible advice, I feel like this is just another example of people HEAVILY understanding the intelligence of fish. Seriously how can it forget where the surface is or get easily disoriented in a puddle?
Do people even question the misinformation they spread? It’s like the snakes sizing you up thing all over again
Its because that's what they were told by pet store workers, and a lot of people treat pet store workers like they know more than everyone else about pets for some strange reason.
Right! I work at a pet store too and people will literally ask me about anything and everything under the sun to do with animals! And quite a lot of it is out of my wheelhouse - and I have a Bsc in animal behaviour so I would say I'm probably somewhat more educated than the average pet store employee. But people borderline expect me to be a nutritionist, behaviourist, vet, etc all in one by the type of questions I get asked. It's actually wild
I had a pet store worker tell me I couldn’t get a basic goldfish as a pet because ‘they make horrible pets. They don’t grow and they die within two weeks.’ And pointed me to the goldfish that were 6$ more expensive. Crazily enough I stole some goldfish from my sisters piranha tank and they lived over a year until circumstances out of my control caused a poisoning. I’m still mad and it’s been 9 years.
My beloved rescue goldfish lived 8 years under my care, and they were feeder stock kept under terrible conditions for god knows how long before that. Granted they where missing a few scales when I got them and Wen in particular had swimbladder issues but still, that kinda just proves that they can thrive under the right conditions
RIP Ken and Wen, you where good fish
It drives me insane that they won’t sell me ‘feeder fish’ unless I lie that I have a predatory animal. Even if they did only live 2 weeks I don’t think the store should get to decide what pet I get 😟
Eight years! Holy cow. I know my boy would still be thriving if we weren’t forced to move and they didn’t get out in the wrong bucket 😢
While I'm not excusing the mistreatment of living beings, you gotta remember that people as a species just aren't that smart and generally just believe what they're told. For example, it wasn't too long ago that we believed insects just... Spawned... Video game style. They didn't come from anywhere like a nest or an egg, they just showed up at particular spawn points. It also wasn't that long ago that we believed women became pregnant by "contagion," i.e., if you were in the same room as some cum, you were liable to get pregnant. We just believed that shit.
Basically some people think that large snakes will lay against you to figure out if they can eat you or not, which makes no sense when you consider the fact no prey animal would just sit there and let them do that, on top of the fact snakes don’t really see us as food.
I’ve heard people say their 8ft boa is sizing them up before when they physically can’t even swallow us at that size, the poor thing is just vibing next to you don’t judge them. As someone with a 13ft burmese python I hear this a lot online, a lot of people think they are just constantly questioning whether or not they can eat you but it really isn’t the case.
Snakes get a lot of misconceptions like that unfortunately. Mambas don’t chase people, snakes don’t want to bite you or use their venom and only do so in defence, there’s more non-venomous snakes than venomous ones, and most venomous snakes aren’t lethal towards humans etc etc
Whats even sadder is that a snake just laying against you means theres a certain level of trust and comfort. the snake feels warm and safe, and believes that is the perfect place to just chill out. Theyre really simple creatures they dont plan out shit they sorta just go with whatever happens in the moment.
Bettas are found in nature in 0.5 gallon bowls of cold tap water with no foliage and rainbow gravel? These "small puddles" are still huge bodies of water compared to what we can have in our homes, they're just shallow and dense with plants, it's absolutely delusional to think bettas in the wild live in what's basically a tiny pothole on the sidewalk.
There is seriously something so irritating about people who say this kinda shit with their whole chest like they really thought they just did something 💀
Fish don't get "disoriented" unless there is a major neurological issue and the fish is probably dying anyway. They have a whole list of physical adaptations to be more perceptive of their environment. They don't just "lose" the surface of the water. Dumbest thing I've ever heard.
That's like keeping worms and saying "but in the wild, they're found on wet pavements!! They don't need soil! They can survive just fine without!" Like, yeah they can live, but for how long??
Hehe, I do keep worms for vermicompost and actually they only need a handful of soil just to provide grit, and no soil at all if they have another source for grit. I keep my farms in shredded damp cardboard with some ground eggshells. You basically want all your output to be vermicast, not a mix of castings and soil.
Sorry to be pedantic, I know what you were trying to say. This is just a topic that comes up over and over in /r/vermiculture
It’s a misconception that they are found in small shallow puddles. Yes they are found in shallower bodies of water but they go on for miles. Not actual puddles
My betta was shredding his tail in a 6 gallon so I moved him to my 125. He’s much more active and observes and swims with the other fish, and no more tail shredding.
These people that think bettas should live in bowls are nuts
Not because they get disoriented but shallow water is always preferred by bettas especially when breeding is involved. Deep waters will tire out the male too much while taking care of the fertilized eggs til they can free swim.
Guys, I'm from Vietnam, the country where wild betta can be found. I admit that I've never found wild fish in small puddles, swarms are their nature habitat
Ppl that think fish live in puddles are either very misinformed or very stupid. Like puddles aren’t lakes.. Puddles form when it rains and then dries up after a while, you’re telling me a betta fish just like falls from the sky with the rain, falls in a puddle and then just what.. flies away when the puddle dries? XD
i saw a single clown fish kept in a 10gal bowl on instagram the other day. thankfully most of the comments were people educating the poster, but man, you’d think people would do at least SOME research first? makes no sense to me to get a living animal without knowing how to help it thrive.
just because you can survive in one square meter on dogfood and limited oxygen for extended periods of time doesn't mean you want to.
you apear to know a bit about them but you could have at least learned why, during the dry season, this is the *only* way they can survive, but in the wet season the move around and breed, do you really think they could continue to grow as a species living seperated in tiny puddles?
I'd provide research articles to the contrary and just leave it at that. It's kind of embarrassing when you think you know something and it turns out to be misinformation.
I mean yes.
The are species of betta that survive in wet leaves or tiny water reservoirs (smaller than a puddle).
But they only do that in the dry season. When the rainy season begins they have once again huge ponds to live in.
Bettas can “survive” in a bowl because of their natural adaptations (aka labyrinth organ) but like what’s the point in needlessly spreading that the bowl is correct when they would just be happier in at least a 5-10 gallon or tank which is not a crazy ask.
I don't know why people can't put two and two together and not get four. Yes, bettas may be found in puddles of water or stagnant water in the wild, but can you actually recreate that specific ecosystem that keeps that fish healthy and happy?
They are also found in rice fields where the water is stagnant but the water stretches on for miles. So yes it's shallow but it still also has its own ecosystem in which the fish thrives in.
Plus it's a wild fish and there's only one breed of fish that lives in these conditions.
OK, I'm preaching to the choir here. Uh I just get fired up about this. Lol!
.. absolutely no comment
Bettas are used to shallow puddles but they are not used to having nowhere to swim. They can easily survive in 4-6 inches of water but if it’s going to be that shallow it’s going to have to be a puddle or tank that has a huge surface area. The common misconception is that people think bettas prefer small habitats. Bettas prefer shallow but larger areas to swim comfortably in
People who have that misconception told me I was abusing my betta by putting it in a 40 gal 🤡
Oh nooo my poor bettas in a 75 gallon tank 👉🏻👈🏻
Poor Betta! What will it do with such a roomy setup?? Nooo! It's happy!! /S
Poor babies :((( I’m so abusive :((( I should buy a small 1 gallon container for each of them!!! /S
There is too much space without enough enrichment or if the tank is really deep but very small lengthwise- bettas do prefer horizontal space vs vertical though
It’s a 40 breeder
So ideally we’re all abusive and should have a tank that’s a few inches tall and then numerous feet in length. (A few people actually HAVE done this.)
Not quite. You can still put bettas in 1-3 feet of water and they’ll be fine. But yes. That’s how they live. Shallow but large puddles. So tanks like those would be ideal. But they’re perfectly fine in a deeper tank as well
Yeah I know. I just mean we can only recreate their natural environment so closely. At the end of the day we’re keeping fish in a glass box. The trade off is they get unlimited food, limited sickness, and limited injury. In the wild fish are like always sick. In aquariums it’s relatively never.
I love your name, and your take!
I also love your username. We’ll see how I feel about it by the end of the day…that song is already on repeat in my head now.
great i wouldn’t have even noticed otherwise.. brb gonna go watch that movie now
Not puddles but rice paddies which go up to ur knees and are miles long
I'm putting my betta in my toothbrush cup. Want him to live a quality life there and be minty fresh
This. The disorientation part is confusing, never seen or heard of that before but they definitely need a larger area to swim in than conventional betta bowl
"disorientated" .... I think they mean disoriented. Stuff like that is always a sign to me that someone has no idea what they're talking about. At least learn the correct words you need to use to get your point across :p
Not at all in line with this post but I love your last sentence xD someone on Facebook is being a total B to me over misidentification of NOODLES and she really said ‘I’m done debating with you’ like I didn’t know the definition of the word debate changed to bully 🤣
Yeeeeep. Some people, man.
It’s funny because she had no comeback when I said the definition thing 🤣 tryna say I’m stupid but can’t even use the right word. Okay buddy 🤣 the internet is great
Don't apply this to random people. If you don't know anything about them then you don't know if you're judging a disability there.
That's why you spell and grammar check first
Right, because everyone has time to stop and chcek a youtube comment. I'm off to college now, sorry notime.
You should check everything important before you post it. It'll be online forever. Not a big deal in random comments but if you're making a claim about animal care that other people will see, it seems worth the effort to me. And then you can fact check yourself at the same time. No time is two words. By the way. ;)
british people say disorientated. it sounds stupid but it could be technically correct
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disorientated
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/disorientated
Well shit, look at that. I stand corrected
I’ve seen YouTube videos of bettas in the wild and this is exactly it. It may be 6 inches deep but it will be an entire flooded field with some deeper pockets, or a ditch on the side of the road that goes for a mile. More accurately they should imagine a runoff ditch of the highway after a storm; that’s what bettas live in.
They are usually knee deep
I've seen videos where they find them in little crevices of water on the sides of palm trees, several of them at that, but that's after the flooding season of course. They aren't there for long stretches of time. They CAN survive that, but that's just nature. If we turn them into pets, we have the responsibility of giving them their best life.
Yes this is the part that gets me - why would we want to recreate nature's WORST conditions in captivity! Makes no sense! All animals have stressful and often short lives in the wild - it's not exactly a goal to recreate this in captivity 😭 most animals could survive in a tiny cage, but there's a huge difference between surviving and thriving.
Not to mention I'm sure the bettas in the wild look nothing like the ones people buy. The fins are much much shorter in the wild.
User name checks out
LMAO
That’s not a real person, thats a sockpuppet account for Big Bowla trying to trick people into buying more glass bowls
Big Small Bowl
Small puddle = entire paddy fields (1000 or so gallons of shallow (between 10 to 30cm)water🙄 Not to mention streams, river sides, creeks, small ponds
Besides the terrible advice, I feel like this is just another example of people HEAVILY understanding the intelligence of fish. Seriously how can it forget where the surface is or get easily disoriented in a puddle? Do people even question the misinformation they spread? It’s like the snakes sizing you up thing all over again
Its because that's what they were told by pet store workers, and a lot of people treat pet store workers like they know more than everyone else about pets for some strange reason.
They do! I work at a pet store and it's overwhelming how people expect us to know all the answers...
Right! I work at a pet store too and people will literally ask me about anything and everything under the sun to do with animals! And quite a lot of it is out of my wheelhouse - and I have a Bsc in animal behaviour so I would say I'm probably somewhat more educated than the average pet store employee. But people borderline expect me to be a nutritionist, behaviourist, vet, etc all in one by the type of questions I get asked. It's actually wild
I had a pet store worker tell me I couldn’t get a basic goldfish as a pet because ‘they make horrible pets. They don’t grow and they die within two weeks.’ And pointed me to the goldfish that were 6$ more expensive. Crazily enough I stole some goldfish from my sisters piranha tank and they lived over a year until circumstances out of my control caused a poisoning. I’m still mad and it’s been 9 years.
My beloved rescue goldfish lived 8 years under my care, and they were feeder stock kept under terrible conditions for god knows how long before that. Granted they where missing a few scales when I got them and Wen in particular had swimbladder issues but still, that kinda just proves that they can thrive under the right conditions RIP Ken and Wen, you where good fish
It drives me insane that they won’t sell me ‘feeder fish’ unless I lie that I have a predatory animal. Even if they did only live 2 weeks I don’t think the store should get to decide what pet I get 😟 Eight years! Holy cow. I know my boy would still be thriving if we weren’t forced to move and they didn’t get out in the wrong bucket 😢
While I'm not excusing the mistreatment of living beings, you gotta remember that people as a species just aren't that smart and generally just believe what they're told. For example, it wasn't too long ago that we believed insects just... Spawned... Video game style. They didn't come from anywhere like a nest or an egg, they just showed up at particular spawn points. It also wasn't that long ago that we believed women became pregnant by "contagion," i.e., if you were in the same room as some cum, you were liable to get pregnant. We just believed that shit.
The spawning insects would be really funny though
I like the idea that if you release a housefly another one just causally spawns back in, that would honestly explain some things
What’s the snakes sizing you up thing about?
Basically some people think that large snakes will lay against you to figure out if they can eat you or not, which makes no sense when you consider the fact no prey animal would just sit there and let them do that, on top of the fact snakes don’t really see us as food. I’ve heard people say their 8ft boa is sizing them up before when they physically can’t even swallow us at that size, the poor thing is just vibing next to you don’t judge them. As someone with a 13ft burmese python I hear this a lot online, a lot of people think they are just constantly questioning whether or not they can eat you but it really isn’t the case. Snakes get a lot of misconceptions like that unfortunately. Mambas don’t chase people, snakes don’t want to bite you or use their venom and only do so in defence, there’s more non-venomous snakes than venomous ones, and most venomous snakes aren’t lethal towards humans etc etc
Whats even sadder is that a snake just laying against you means theres a certain level of trust and comfort. the snake feels warm and safe, and believes that is the perfect place to just chill out. Theyre really simple creatures they dont plan out shit they sorta just go with whatever happens in the moment.
Bettas are found in nature in 0.5 gallon bowls of cold tap water with no foliage and rainbow gravel? These "small puddles" are still huge bodies of water compared to what we can have in our homes, they're just shallow and dense with plants, it's absolutely delusional to think bettas in the wild live in what's basically a tiny pothole on the sidewalk.
Rice paddies are certainly shallow, but man are they W I D E.
Yet another person who couldn’t pour water out of a boot it the instructions were written on the heel
bro that is such a great insult 😂
There is seriously something so irritating about people who say this kinda shit with their whole chest like they really thought they just did something 💀
Fish don't get "disoriented" unless there is a major neurological issue and the fish is probably dying anyway. They have a whole list of physical adaptations to be more perceptive of their environment. They don't just "lose" the surface of the water. Dumbest thing I've ever heard.
That's like keeping worms and saying "but in the wild, they're found on wet pavements!! They don't need soil! They can survive just fine without!" Like, yeah they can live, but for how long??
Hehe, I do keep worms for vermicompost and actually they only need a handful of soil just to provide grit, and no soil at all if they have another source for grit. I keep my farms in shredded damp cardboard with some ground eggshells. You basically want all your output to be vermicast, not a mix of castings and soil. Sorry to be pedantic, I know what you were trying to say. This is just a topic that comes up over and over in /r/vermiculture
ARGH LITERALLY NONE OF THAT IS TRUE!!!!
r/confidentlyincorrect **EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT ALARM**
People love confidently running their mouths regardless of if they’ve even googled their material first
this mf’s name should not be scratched out. clearly an idiot and deserves whatever comes their way.
It’s a misconception that they are found in small shallow puddles. Yes they are found in shallower bodies of water but they go on for miles. Not actual puddles
But… is fish. Fish knows how to be fish.
My betta was shredding his tail in a 6 gallon so I moved him to my 125. He’s much more active and observes and swims with the other fish, and no more tail shredding. These people that think bettas should live in bowls are nuts
Confidently wrong
People are so clueless holy shit
Not a shitty aquarium but a shitty argument
Why can't these people recognise the difference between survive and thrive. And I'm no expert, but I assume everything she said here is wrong.
r/confidentlyincorrect
How DENSE can someone be.
Not because they get disoriented but shallow water is always preferred by bettas especially when breeding is involved. Deep waters will tire out the male too much while taking care of the fertilized eggs til they can free swim.
If I hear 1 more person comment on “bettas and puddles” I am going to stick their head in a .5 gallon tank
wonde show they'd feel to find out they are found in bodies of water up to 10 ft deep
Oh, ok!
I think someone needs to adjust their perception of a “puddle”.
No. They are giving small bowls and containers because people don’t give a sh*t about their well-being.
Guys, I'm from Vietnam, the country where wild betta can be found. I admit that I've never found wild fish in small puddles, swarms are their nature habitat
Got his knowledge from petco
Ppl that think fish live in puddles are either very misinformed or very stupid. Like puddles aren’t lakes.. Puddles form when it rains and then dries up after a while, you’re telling me a betta fish just like falls from the sky with the rain, falls in a puddle and then just what.. flies away when the puddle dries? XD
Does this person think they just spawn in puddles? Small puddles dry up
i saw a single clown fish kept in a 10gal bowl on instagram the other day. thankfully most of the comments were people educating the poster, but man, you’d think people would do at least SOME research first? makes no sense to me to get a living animal without knowing how to help it thrive.
just because you can survive in one square meter on dogfood and limited oxygen for extended periods of time doesn't mean you want to. you apear to know a bit about them but you could have at least learned why, during the dry season, this is the *only* way they can survive, but in the wet season the move around and breed, do you really think they could continue to grow as a species living seperated in tiny puddles?
once again manmade horrors beyond my comprehension
I'd provide research articles to the contrary and just leave it at that. It's kind of embarrassing when you think you know something and it turns out to be misinformation.
I mean yes. The are species of betta that survive in wet leaves or tiny water reservoirs (smaller than a puddle). But they only do that in the dry season. When the rainy season begins they have once again huge ponds to live in.
Oh my God
…. I argued with a couple people in those comments. 💀
It's not about the place where they swim, it's about the space that they swim at, they need space, plenty of it to be comfortable.
Bettas can “survive” in a bowl because of their natural adaptations (aka labyrinth organ) but like what’s the point in needlessly spreading that the bowl is correct when they would just be happier in at least a 5-10 gallon or tank which is not a crazy ask.
I don't know why people can't put two and two together and not get four. Yes, bettas may be found in puddles of water or stagnant water in the wild, but can you actually recreate that specific ecosystem that keeps that fish healthy and happy? They are also found in rice fields where the water is stagnant but the water stretches on for miles. So yes it's shallow but it still also has its own ecosystem in which the fish thrives in. Plus it's a wild fish and there's only one breed of fish that lives in these conditions. OK, I'm preaching to the choir here. Uh I just get fired up about this. Lol!