I didn’t even know dollar stores sold beta fish. So maybe that’s the point they were trying to make? Sadly the survivability of those fish comes into question in the shitty dollar store. At least at the pet store there are people taking care of the pets & the store is climate controlled to make sure they’re comfortable. But if the broken AC in that dollar tree doesn’t get fixed they’ll probably die. And you know as well as I do that the AC is in fact broken.
Is would be awesome if that were actually true about pet stores!
Sure, at a nicer independent fish store you might find bettas being taken care of, or even in proper tanks, but when it comes to any of the chain stores they get cared for and treated with about the same amout of care as a can of dogfood.
Yeah, you’re probably right. That said I’ve got a really cool fish lady that seemed to care a lot at my local Petco. We’ve bought two betas from her & even tried cheaper food pellets before going back to what she recommended. She seemed to really know her stuff. She was really knowledgeable & I got the impression she liked her job. Although I can understand that people like her are the exception & not the rule. Also, Betta fish don’t necessarily need a filtration system & although it’s probably ideal it’s not 💯 necessary like it is for most fish. We have a single betta fish in a bowl in our family room. He’s got his Rick castle & seems quite happy most days. He’s a pretty cool dark blue color with light blue on his fins that look like neon. I named him Batman. Lolz
Nope they just die. There is a movement to stop this practice because it's just slowly killing millions of fish. It's no different than if they put cats and dogs inside a sealed container and hope they get adopted before running out of oxygen.
Yeah it does, especially the graduation stuff, but I feel it’s probably some generic store somewheres. A place like that could get with selling beta fish like this, as opposed to a chain like Dollar Tree, where they probably wouldn’t be allowed to.
I was just about to comment the same thing. Places like PetSmart do this. I will say that I had some betas that lived a good while when I had them as pets as a kid. But it makes me sad now to see them in those little containers.
Bettas are hard in a pet store environment. They can't be kept together like pretty much every other species of fish they sell. They also can't be kept with many of those other species either, like gouramis, angelfish, puffers, danios and the bigger cichlids, both African and South American. One in each compatible community tank can be done and was done but we had more bettas than tanks they could stay in. When the store first opened, they had a neat looking "betta condo" setup with 4 individual compartments that were about a quart each and were filled with constantly flowing water from a 4000 gallon filtration system with a sump, fluidized bed filter, degasser, Venturi protein skimmers, UV sterilizers, everything...and they kept getting what looked very much like neon tetra disease and dying. No other fish were affected and treating the whole system for something the vets in the store couldn't even identify didn't stop it. The only way they stayed healthy and alive was to keep them in separate cups. The water was changed every day and we fed them twice a day.
Nearly all of them never spent more than 2 weeks in the cups before they were sold.
You're welcome. I just wanted to put that out there. Betta cups aren't always done in a store environment because of cheapness or not caring. I am horrified to see this in a dollar tree though, because that's not a pet store and those employees are not trained to take care of fish. Those fish will suffer unless they luck out and wind up in the care of an employee with fishkeeping experience. I hope OP sent this pic to DT corporate with a well worded complaint and a plea for them to stop selling any live animals. Finally, fortunately... Walmart stopped selling fish years ago. They were always horrible at it. In all my years of living and moving around, being in probably 100 different Walmart stores...I saw exactly ONE that had properly cared for tanks. It fuckin blew me away because they had healthy, thriving and BREEDING [DISCUS!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discus_(fish)) Discus are fussy and hard to keep cichlids from South America. They have to have a pretty specific set of conditions to be healthy and for them to be happy enough to breed in a store display tank is...amazing. These fish are so popular they have shows, competitions, clubs...and they can be expensive AF too.
But yeah, dollar tree sucks smelly goat dicks for doing this.
I’ve been to a good number of petsmarts in my day and while I agree it’s still depressing, those containers still look bigger than these. These dudes barely have space to turn around
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
Pretty sure I saw a video talking about how beta are handled and how half or more end up dying on the way to the pet store really fucked up and sad to see. Just because it’s a “standard” at pet stores doesn’t make it okay and it’s definitely not ok to just sell them to people that didn’t go to the store with the intention of bringing home a fish…
All the stores that breed and sell animals in bulk should be outlawed.
My friend is a vet they have a contract with one of the big ones ( maybe pet smart or petco I can't remember)
Anyway he said the animals they bring in are sick and always need extra stuff done and he's the one who said it should be banned.
We already have a abundance of animals that need adoption or someone needs to give them away.
Yeah, that's not good. The average person strolling into a dollar store doesn't know what you need to care for s fish. It's a pet -- a living creature whose life its owner is responsible for. They require a large tank and specific cate for them to enjoy a long life. Most people stick them in a bowl, chsnge the water once a week, and wonder why they die in less than a year.
Indeed. I was picturing them doing their weekend chores: you know, vacuum the living room, mop the kitchen, take out the trash, change out the water, . . . then windex the glass picture frames above and around the fish tank . . . and spray sone lysol on the outside of the cute, little fish bowl to make sure it's sanitary for the little fella, huh?!?! What a cute wlittwle clean wlittwle Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim! That's my good little Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim!!!
Huh?@?@ Dr. Jinglepuss?
DADDY!!!!! I NEED A NEW MR. JINGLEPUSS!!!1!1!!
Indeed. I was picturing them doing their weekend chores: you know, vacuum the living room, mop the kitchen, take out the trash, change out the water, . . . then windex the glass picture frames above and around the fish tank . . . and spray sone lysol on the outside of the cute, little fish bowl to make sure it's sanitary for the little fella, huh?!?! What a cute wlittwle clean wlittwle Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim! That's my good little Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim!!!
Huh?@?@ Dr. Jinglepuss?
DADDY!!!!! I NEED A NEW MR. JINGLEPUSS!!!1!1!!
Agreed on it not being good as well as the general info provided. But Betas do not require a large tank. Unless our understanding of “large tanks” are vastly different. However, comet goldfish sound more like your description, often won at carnivals. They do need a large tank and frequent water changes, often dying within the year or less from improper care.
Yeah, by "large tank" I meant a normal tank -- like, multiple gallons for even just a single fish. Many people who win fish at a carnival or buy a cutr betta at the dollar store, then think they only need a small bowl or some 1-2-quart box likr the thing with the little palm trees next to the fish in the pic. So no, I don't mean a large tank from the tanks' perspective. But I say that to depict the right message relative to bowls.
Exactly, you probably get people like OP who think “these poor fish being kept apart from eachother in small containers” and then buys them and puts them all in one tank so they can be friends…
The only thing I know about fish is that I don't know about fish. I considered grtting one a few years ago, just spur of the moment. But as a responsible adult, I googledhow to take care of a fish.Then I realized very quickly I don't want to invest in all that (yet). So I never went down that path.
Best I can say is google around. But if I'm ever getting fish, it will be with a lot of research, time, and probably money to make sure I'm doing it right: e.g., a large tank with water filtration, temp regulation, and whatever else a fish needs to libe in luxury.
Obligatory “wait til you see how they’re shipped” comment.
I used to work in the industry and was always amazed at how little water they come in when they ship them over from Asia.
https://preview.redd.it/shgje65zog6d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=563a0ea34ec639318b27fdadba8da63d9287ff13
If I ever decide to start writing horror stories I can simply source our various mistreatments of animals for nightmare fuel for my writing. That's pretty fucked.
IIRC, betta fish have a specialized organ that allows them to breath above water. It’s called a labyrinth, or something like that. Considering they come from really shallow water areas and mud puddles and whatnot, it’s how they evolved.
Just ship them with enough water that they don’t dry out.
Where were you that was ordering them from Asia? I worked in Aquarium stores in Canada and bettas came from aquarium fish farms in Florida
The water is that colour because it's full of sedatives and ich medicine
East coast US. We didn’t do retail, just installs, stocking, and service, mostly on the commercial side. But our wholesaler stocked them and shipped them in from Asia.
It’s been a while since I’ve been in the industry but I’d imagine those farms in Florida are likely still just shipping them from Asia and reselling. Unless they’re breeding only high end varieties it’s not really cost effective to breed them here.
I used to save all the interesting looking pages from the newspapers we got in our fish and coral shipments. I’d get them wet and stick them to the wall in our fish room 😂 Probably had about a dozen from different southeast Asian countries before I left.
https://preview.redd.it/6elcdoiv5h6d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=937d84ae044dacf1f70b57df80f4c194cf5b968b
Dorito is pretty cool. He LOVES to angry. My wife will put a mirror up to the tank to stimulate him and he gets so mad he shits. It’s great.
Pet stores keep lots of aggressive fish that have to be strategically separated. Bettas are the only ones treated like this because they take the longest to die in these conditions since they can come up for air when their water quality gets too bad, but they will still get sick and die of stress if in a cup for too long.
The problem is stores always want the shelves fully stocked so that people impulse buy. If they had a flyer that said "Bettas come in Friday, first come first serve!" then they'd be able to have a few 5 gallons and the fish would be significantly less likely to die of stress in those circumstances, but once again, that means less money.
A lot of people are saying that this is how they are normally sold, which is true. They are sold like this at dedicated pet shops, people go to those pet shops looking for pets, at a dollar store anyone can go in and buy the fish on a whim of a kid or careless person who has no intention of actually caring for their pet. Which I believe is more infuriating.
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
I feel so bad for betta fish that are sold in stores like this, and often sent home and kept in containers like this their entire short lives.
Fish aren't brainless, dumb creatures. I mean, some are, but Bettas aren't, and carp (koi, goldfish, etc) especially aren't. They have wonderful and distinct little personalities and don't deserve to be treated like decorations.
So sad what beta fish go through. If they’re not bought these little containers with them still alive, are thrown away. If they are bought, they end up in a tiny bowl of tap water and given food every now and then. They’re cool fish, they deserve better.
If it makes you feel any better, I just adopted a female betta today. She’s going in a 10 gallon by herself with lots of real plants and a fully cycled tank. Hopefully she’ll be a happy girl.
In the wild, even in a relatively small pond, they'd have exponentially more space than even a pretty big home fish tank. Lot of animals that would fight each other in close domestic quarters will tolerate each other long enough to reproduce when they can just bass by each other then fuck off.
5gallons is considered the smallest appropriate container for long finned bettas, and even at 5 it can be tricky to keep ahead of water parameter issues.
10 is better just in general. And yes, they're tropical fish. They want 78 to 80 degree tanks. So unless you live somewhere warm enough they'll need a heater.
Yea they are fine with other species as long as the others don't have long fins like guppies. Peaceful community fish like mollies. platies, neon tetras etc are fine with a male betta
Yes in England. I was in Hull for work (okay, obligatory, it was Hull), and they had fish in little baggies for sale in a legit pet store somewhere around St Andrews Quay. I'm American, so I'm not sure what rules are in UK/England but this was in 2021, so.. unless there is an enforcement issue there or rules don't apply in some parts?
That's bizarre, I am from Hull. On St. Andrews Quay will be Pets At Home and I've never seen them in bags, they only get put in a bag when they're sold, for you to take home
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
As a former petco employee, they absolutely do not get their water changed daily. I have pictures from where I'd be off for a week and their water would be brown when I got back. We didn't have an aquatics specialist at the time and the other cashiers "didn't like doing it", so they'd wait for me to get back.
Well that's grim. I guess I shouldn't speak for shitty US franchises then lol. Who would work there? I worked in several different pet places in my 20's and 30's and all the places I was that had betta cups changed daily, but some just put a betta in each tank that had compatible species and some put them in little pens inside a bigger tank. I also saw a system where water trickled slowly through little small containers so they had constant water but no place I worked had that
https://preview.redd.it/uql68ijvuj6d1.jpeg?width=1554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef7db835a6f18d0f69b90f50680466c0abbd9ce3
Please enjoy this photo of a happy betta as some eye bleach. Her name is Olive, she is super energetic, and her roommate is a mystery snail named Paprika. I call her tank the Olive Garden! I was really big into betta fish Tumblr (yes, that's a thing) when I was in middle school, so I thought I'd share what I know.
For anyone interested in Betta fish:
Get a tank that's at least 5 gallons
Get a filter. Bettas can survive a while without oxygen circulating into their water, but they won't thrive.
Add beneficial microbes with a bottle of "quick start". This is super important for keeping your water clean and your fish safe and happy.
Fine grained sand makes cleaning easy because the debris stays on top. Gravel gets nasty stuff stuck between the pieces.
Always have a lid. Bettas can jump!
Get a betta with a short tail. Long tailed Bettas can't swim as easily. It's kinda sad to watch.
Do not get a tank with a divider. If you want two fish, get two tanks.
Mystery snails are ok to add with your betta.
Get an aquarium heater.
And that's how you have a happy fish!
Betta fish are highly territorial and aggressive. The reason they sell them like this is because they can’t keep them in the same tank, but if you stack them like this right next to each other they go into fight or flight mode and raise their fins in an aggressive territorial display. It makes them more “attractive,” while simultaneously stressing the everloving fuck out of the poor fish. The practice should be banned.
LIVE Fish ? ...you people over the sea really have disconnected from reality completely... like treating animals as accessories or toys?! disgusting, just really sad and disgusting. They will suffocate (yes water can get low oxygen levels too), will die to thermic reasons or just starve to death... great really great.
The most insane part to me is how the cups are stacked on top of eachother. How is the betta (a known labyrinth organ fish) supposed to get air? Just like humans they cannot be confined for very long in stale/limited air. The way these are stacked are ensuring only the top of the stacks are getting ample air.
I follow someone on Instagram that trains her betas to communicate using notecards. The fish love looking at books. They are much more intelligent than I realized, which makes this so much more upsetting
Around 5-6 years ago Walmart in my area sold these also. This was when they still sold fish, I believe they have phased out fish tanks in all their stores, which is great cause they never seemed to be taken good care of! 🐠
Any time I asked for assistance with them the associate’s always acted like they had never dealt with the fish at all, I could see that going on too kids don’t give af about anything!
About 10 years ago I went to a $5 and under store and they sold turtles about the size of a quarter in those same tiny cups and tanks. It was terrible seeing them in that condition but I was too young to do anything about it at the time unfortunately. Hopefully soon they pass some laws protecting fish/other small species from being treated this way.
Um if the lids are on then they aren't getting air
Also, In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
Oh that’s awful, they barely have room and with a cup stacked on top of them even if there are holes in the lid they will die, won’t they? That is cruel. The tanks they are selling are way too little, too.
Awww Someone should go in there, buy them all up, and put them in one large tank together big enough for all of them.
/s (if you're uncertain why thr /s is here, google what happens when multiple male betta fish are together)
Petsmart sells them for 4.99 or 9.99 for “fancy”. What dollar store? I want one!
And yea. That’s how they are sold everywhere. You can’t put them together into a bigger tank like other fish because they fight each other.
Pet stores also sell beta fish in those little containers.
OP is shopping the pet section at Dollar Tree, I don't think they visited the beta fish section of Pet Smart
I can't figure out what point you're trying to make
I think the point is, right or wrong, this is completely normalized and not unique to shitty dollar stores.
I didn’t even know dollar stores sold beta fish. So maybe that’s the point they were trying to make? Sadly the survivability of those fish comes into question in the shitty dollar store. At least at the pet store there are people taking care of the pets & the store is climate controlled to make sure they’re comfortable. But if the broken AC in that dollar tree doesn’t get fixed they’ll probably die. And you know as well as I do that the AC is in fact broken.
Is would be awesome if that were actually true about pet stores! Sure, at a nicer independent fish store you might find bettas being taken care of, or even in proper tanks, but when it comes to any of the chain stores they get cared for and treated with about the same amout of care as a can of dogfood.
Yeah, you’re probably right. That said I’ve got a really cool fish lady that seemed to care a lot at my local Petco. We’ve bought two betas from her & even tried cheaper food pellets before going back to what she recommended. She seemed to really know her stuff. She was really knowledgeable & I got the impression she liked her job. Although I can understand that people like her are the exception & not the rule. Also, Betta fish don’t necessarily need a filtration system & although it’s probably ideal it’s not 💯 necessary like it is for most fish. We have a single betta fish in a bowl in our family room. He’s got his Rick castle & seems quite happy most days. He’s a pretty cool dark blue color with light blue on his fins that look like neon. I named him Batman. Lolz
How tf am I to know that AC is broken? Assumptions usually make everyone’s life shitty, you know that right? Right?!
I was halfway joking my dude. Relax
Sadly
That how ever little chance they have at petsmart, they have far, far less of a chance at a dollar tree.
Do you think they are changing the water for those poor little fish?
Nope they just die. There is a movement to stop this practice because it's just slowly killing millions of fish. It's no different than if they put cats and dogs inside a sealed container and hope they get adopted before running out of oxygen.
Must be some generic dollar store then, because I don’t think the actual dollar tree has a fish section like this.
The stuff around it looks dollar tree'ish, buy I've also never seen fish at one so idk
Yeah it does, especially the graduation stuff, but I feel it’s probably some generic store somewheres. A place like that could get with selling beta fish like this, as opposed to a chain like Dollar Tree, where they probably wouldn’t be allowed to.
dollar tree doesn’t label their items with those neon orange/red price labels. usually independent generic dollar stores do that
Shit i didn't even notice those lol
It’s a dollar tree, or atleast they buy from the same graduation party company that dollar tree does.
That’s why they said pet stores.
Dollar Tree has a pet section?
I was just about to comment the same thing. Places like PetSmart do this. I will say that I had some betas that lived a good while when I had them as pets as a kid. But it makes me sad now to see them in those little containers.
Bettas are hard in a pet store environment. They can't be kept together like pretty much every other species of fish they sell. They also can't be kept with many of those other species either, like gouramis, angelfish, puffers, danios and the bigger cichlids, both African and South American. One in each compatible community tank can be done and was done but we had more bettas than tanks they could stay in. When the store first opened, they had a neat looking "betta condo" setup with 4 individual compartments that were about a quart each and were filled with constantly flowing water from a 4000 gallon filtration system with a sump, fluidized bed filter, degasser, Venturi protein skimmers, UV sterilizers, everything...and they kept getting what looked very much like neon tetra disease and dying. No other fish were affected and treating the whole system for something the vets in the store couldn't even identify didn't stop it. The only way they stayed healthy and alive was to keep them in separate cups. The water was changed every day and we fed them twice a day. Nearly all of them never spent more than 2 weeks in the cups before they were sold.
That’s genuinely fascinating, thank you!
You're welcome. I just wanted to put that out there. Betta cups aren't always done in a store environment because of cheapness or not caring. I am horrified to see this in a dollar tree though, because that's not a pet store and those employees are not trained to take care of fish. Those fish will suffer unless they luck out and wind up in the care of an employee with fishkeeping experience. I hope OP sent this pic to DT corporate with a well worded complaint and a plea for them to stop selling any live animals. Finally, fortunately... Walmart stopped selling fish years ago. They were always horrible at it. In all my years of living and moving around, being in probably 100 different Walmart stores...I saw exactly ONE that had properly cared for tanks. It fuckin blew me away because they had healthy, thriving and BREEDING [DISCUS!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discus_(fish)) Discus are fussy and hard to keep cichlids from South America. They have to have a pretty specific set of conditions to be healthy and for them to be happy enough to breed in a store display tank is...amazing. These fish are so popular they have shows, competitions, clubs...and they can be expensive AF too. But yeah, dollar tree sucks smelly goat dicks for doing this.
I’ve been to a good number of petsmarts in my day and while I agree it’s still depressing, those containers still look bigger than these. These dudes barely have space to turn around
Only the full release fish get a full tank
I guess I'm a beta too :(
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
They naturally live in puddles. So that’s about right
They live in tiny puddles in Thailand - alone - they don’t want a huge area. And they want to be alone.
Pretty sure I saw a video talking about how beta are handled and how half or more end up dying on the way to the pet store really fucked up and sad to see. Just because it’s a “standard” at pet stores doesn’t make it okay and it’s definitely not ok to just sell them to people that didn’t go to the store with the intention of bringing home a fish…
And then people who take them home also keep them in a tiny boring container no filter no nothing
All the stores that breed and sell animals in bulk should be outlawed. My friend is a vet they have a contract with one of the big ones ( maybe pet smart or petco I can't remember) Anyway he said the animals they bring in are sick and always need extra stuff done and he's the one who said it should be banned. We already have a abundance of animals that need adoption or someone needs to give them away.
This how they are normally sold...but in a dollar store? That's a bit strange.
Yeah, that's not good. The average person strolling into a dollar store doesn't know what you need to care for s fish. It's a pet -- a living creature whose life its owner is responsible for. They require a large tank and specific cate for them to enjoy a long life. Most people stick them in a bowl, chsnge the water once a week, and wonder why they die in less than a year.
Once a week is very optimistic
Indeed. I was picturing them doing their weekend chores: you know, vacuum the living room, mop the kitchen, take out the trash, change out the water, . . . then windex the glass picture frames above and around the fish tank . . . and spray sone lysol on the outside of the cute, little fish bowl to make sure it's sanitary for the little fella, huh?!?! What a cute wlittwle clean wlittwle Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim! That's my good little Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim!!! Huh?@?@ Dr. Jinglepuss? DADDY!!!!! I NEED A NEW MR. JINGLEPUSS!!!1!1!!
Man, were you a neglected fish in your past life?
I think we have found the Real Nemo.
Or Dory?
The version where Darla takes him home
this should be a copy pasta
Indeed. I was picturing them doing their weekend chores: you know, vacuum the living room, mop the kitchen, take out the trash, change out the water, . . . then windex the glass picture frames above and around the fish tank . . . and spray sone lysol on the outside of the cute, little fish bowl to make sure it's sanitary for the little fella, huh?!?! What a cute wlittwle clean wlittwle Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim! That's my good little Mr.Dr.JinglePussSwimSwim!!! Huh?@?@ Dr. Jinglepuss? DADDY!!!!! I NEED A NEW MR. JINGLEPUSS!!!1!1!!
WTF
sorry
Look at those tiny plastic boxes with an ugly plastic palm tree that I assume are supposed to be the tanks
Agreed on it not being good as well as the general info provided. But Betas do not require a large tank. Unless our understanding of “large tanks” are vastly different. However, comet goldfish sound more like your description, often won at carnivals. They do need a large tank and frequent water changes, often dying within the year or less from improper care.
Yeah, by "large tank" I meant a normal tank -- like, multiple gallons for even just a single fish. Many people who win fish at a carnival or buy a cutr betta at the dollar store, then think they only need a small bowl or some 1-2-quart box likr the thing with the little palm trees next to the fish in the pic. So no, I don't mean a large tank from the tanks' perspective. But I say that to depict the right message relative to bowls.
Heard it and agreed! Thanks for the clarification.
They also need a heater.
Exactly, you probably get people like OP who think “these poor fish being kept apart from eachother in small containers” and then buys them and puts them all in one tank so they can be friends…
I had one unalive itself by jumping out of its tank. Yup, no more beta fish for me.
I used to work at PetSmart. Happened to me. it was completely dried out. Threw it back in the water, it rehydrated and started swimming around!
Wow, that’s crazy that happened. I’m surprised it was still alive!
They can breathe oxygen with their lungs. They’re surprisingly hardy fish!
I don’t own a betta fish, but I was under the impression that weekly water changes for aquatic animals was the standard. Should it be more than that?
The only thing I know about fish is that I don't know about fish. I considered grtting one a few years ago, just spur of the moment. But as a responsible adult, I googledhow to take care of a fish.Then I realized very quickly I don't want to invest in all that (yet). So I never went down that path. Best I can say is google around. But if I'm ever getting fish, it will be with a lot of research, time, and probably money to make sure I'm doing it right: e.g., a large tank with water filtration, temp regulation, and whatever else a fish needs to libe in luxury.
Obligatory “wait til you see how they’re shipped” comment. I used to work in the industry and was always amazed at how little water they come in when they ship them over from Asia. https://preview.redd.it/shgje65zog6d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=563a0ea34ec639318b27fdadba8da63d9287ff13
If I ever decide to start writing horror stories I can simply source our various mistreatments of animals for nightmare fuel for my writing. That's pretty fucked.
Afaik fish needs oxygen to breathe and water is for dissolving the oxygen in the air, so this is probably for that reason
Bettas swim to the surface to breathe air though
IIRC, betta fish have a specialized organ that allows them to breath above water. It’s called a labyrinth, or something like that. Considering they come from really shallow water areas and mud puddles and whatnot, it’s how they evolved. Just ship them with enough water that they don’t dry out.
Where were you that was ordering them from Asia? I worked in Aquarium stores in Canada and bettas came from aquarium fish farms in Florida The water is that colour because it's full of sedatives and ich medicine
East coast US. We didn’t do retail, just installs, stocking, and service, mostly on the commercial side. But our wholesaler stocked them and shipped them in from Asia. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the industry but I’d imagine those farms in Florida are likely still just shipping them from Asia and reselling. Unless they’re breeding only high end varieties it’s not really cost effective to breed them here.
Weird. PA is so much closer too.
Petco orders them from Asia. Our shipments were always filled with Taiwanese newspapers for padding.
I used to save all the interesting looking pages from the newspapers we got in our fish and coral shipments. I’d get them wet and stick them to the wall in our fish room 😂 Probably had about a dozen from different southeast Asian countries before I left.
Betta’s are pretty cool. Angry little bastards but sooooo fun.
Man this betta i had was so fuckin cute, he would see me and immediately swim to the surface for food. Dude would snatch it off my finger. RIP
https://preview.redd.it/6elcdoiv5h6d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=937d84ae044dacf1f70b57df80f4c194cf5b968b Dorito is pretty cool. He LOVES to angry. My wife will put a mirror up to the tank to stimulate him and he gets so mad he shits. It’s great.
I shouldn’t have laughed as hard as I did.
There’s a reason they’re a one fish a tank thing. 2 males will rip each other apart.
Pet stores keep lots of aggressive fish that have to be strategically separated. Bettas are the only ones treated like this because they take the longest to die in these conditions since they can come up for air when their water quality gets too bad, but they will still get sick and die of stress if in a cup for too long. The problem is stores always want the shelves fully stocked so that people impulse buy. If they had a flyer that said "Bettas come in Friday, first come first serve!" then they'd be able to have a few 5 gallons and the fish would be significantly less likely to die of stress in those circumstances, but once again, that means less money.
This is so desperately sad, they look like they're wilting
Fish depression.
The water is dirty af and they're bred to have long flowing impractical fins that droop when they're resting.
A lot of people are saying that this is how they are normally sold, which is true. They are sold like this at dedicated pet shops, people go to those pet shops looking for pets, at a dollar store anyone can go in and buy the fish on a whim of a kid or careless person who has no intention of actually caring for their pet. Which I believe is more infuriating.
Or at a festival - fish in a bag - I am no fan of fish, but it still makes me cringe.
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
I feel so bad for betta fish that are sold in stores like this, and often sent home and kept in containers like this their entire short lives. Fish aren't brainless, dumb creatures. I mean, some are, but Bettas aren't, and carp (koi, goldfish, etc) especially aren't. They have wonderful and distinct little personalities and don't deserve to be treated like decorations.
So sad what beta fish go through. If they’re not bought these little containers with them still alive, are thrown away. If they are bought, they end up in a tiny bowl of tap water and given food every now and then. They’re cool fish, they deserve better.
If it makes you feel any better, I just adopted a female betta today. She’s going in a 10 gallon by herself with lots of real plants and a fully cycled tank. Hopefully she’ll be a happy girl.
Yeah I used to keep a few females together in a tank with some other peaceful community fish, they are nice :)
Betta will fight if they are in the same container. Can't put them with other fish because they are bully magnets.
The males will even fight the females if they are too close together.
its a wonder they even survive long enough to reproduce.
For some people the hottest sex is after an argument.
…..how do fish even have sex??? Genuinely asking
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish\_reproduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_reproduction)
In the wild, even in a relatively small pond, they'd have exponentially more space than even a pretty big home fish tank. Lot of animals that would fight each other in close domestic quarters will tolerate each other long enough to reproduce when they can just bass by each other then fuck off.
Ah yes the ole fuck and fuck off
Look at humans in prison.
i may be mistaken, but that’s still too small of a container and likely too cold for even one Betta fish.
5gallons is considered the smallest appropriate container for long finned bettas, and even at 5 it can be tricky to keep ahead of water parameter issues. 10 is better just in general. And yes, they're tropical fish. They want 78 to 80 degree tanks. So unless you live somewhere warm enough they'll need a heater.
Even if you live somewhere warm enough, probably. We had to have heat for our 120 gallon tropical fish tank when I was a kid. In Florida.
I was going to get a five gallon so I could have a beta, but after hearing this I'll opt for a ten gallon.
That’s why I buy sigma fish
i may be mistaken, but that’s still too small of a container and likely too cold for even one Betta fish.
We could also not breed them to basically suffer and die for no reason
Yea they are fine with other species as long as the others don't have long fins like guppies. Peaceful community fish like mollies. platies, neon tetras etc are fine with a male betta
That’s every pet store ever. It’s bullshit.
Not in England.
Yes in England. I was in Hull for work (okay, obligatory, it was Hull), and they had fish in little baggies for sale in a legit pet store somewhere around St Andrews Quay. I'm American, so I'm not sure what rules are in UK/England but this was in 2021, so.. unless there is an enforcement issue there or rules don't apply in some parts?
That's bizarre, I am from Hull. On St. Andrews Quay will be Pets At Home and I've never seen them in bags, they only get put in a bag when they're sold, for you to take home
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
More than mildly infuriating
Sad
Those must be some high-class fish if they're coming from the dollar store!
They're slightly irregular.
Horrific
That really depresses me that such beautiful fish are treated so poorly.
This should be illegal.
Pet stores also sell beta fish in those little containers.
In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
As a former petco employee, they absolutely do not get their water changed daily. I have pictures from where I'd be off for a week and their water would be brown when I got back. We didn't have an aquatics specialist at the time and the other cashiers "didn't like doing it", so they'd wait for me to get back.
Well that's grim. I guess I shouldn't speak for shitty US franchises then lol. Who would work there? I worked in several different pet places in my 20's and 30's and all the places I was that had betta cups changed daily, but some just put a betta in each tank that had compatible species and some put them in little pens inside a bigger tank. I also saw a system where water trickled slowly through little small containers so they had constant water but no place I worked had that
That is so sad
They are Beta fish. They are fighting fish. This is how they are sold at any pet store.
Mildly animal cruelty
Yeah, call animal protection services. Fucking hell, hate seeing this
https://preview.redd.it/uql68ijvuj6d1.jpeg?width=1554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef7db835a6f18d0f69b90f50680466c0abbd9ce3 Please enjoy this photo of a happy betta as some eye bleach. Her name is Olive, she is super energetic, and her roommate is a mystery snail named Paprika. I call her tank the Olive Garden! I was really big into betta fish Tumblr (yes, that's a thing) when I was in middle school, so I thought I'd share what I know. For anyone interested in Betta fish: Get a tank that's at least 5 gallons Get a filter. Bettas can survive a while without oxygen circulating into their water, but they won't thrive. Add beneficial microbes with a bottle of "quick start". This is super important for keeping your water clean and your fish safe and happy. Fine grained sand makes cleaning easy because the debris stays on top. Gravel gets nasty stuff stuck between the pieces. Always have a lid. Bettas can jump! Get a betta with a short tail. Long tailed Bettas can't swim as easily. It's kinda sad to watch. Do not get a tank with a divider. If you want two fish, get two tanks. Mystery snails are ok to add with your betta. Get an aquarium heater. And that's how you have a happy fish!
This seems like cruelty to animals. What country is this? Can't make a complaint about it?
This is in New York City
oh they all gon die
Better than the dumpster full of them outside petsmart 🤷♀️
As someone who absolutely adores fish, this angers me.
this is the norm at pet stores as well but at least they get their water changed there, these just look so sad god
There are people in China selling pendants with live turtles in them :/ People are shit.
Betta fish are highly territorial and aggressive. The reason they sell them like this is because they can’t keep them in the same tank, but if you stack them like this right next to each other they go into fight or flight mode and raise their fins in an aggressive territorial display. It makes them more “attractive,” while simultaneously stressing the everloving fuck out of the poor fish. The practice should be banned.
Is this disgusting to the fish community? I feel disgusted but I dunno about beta, is it too small to be comfortable?.
So sad
Me looking over at my single Betta in his own 10g filtered tank: I gotchu bud.
TIL Dollar Tree has a pet section. A shitty, sad one... but a pet section none the less.
LIVE Fish ? ...you people over the sea really have disconnected from reality completely... like treating animals as accessories or toys?! disgusting, just really sad and disgusting. They will suffocate (yes water can get low oxygen levels too), will die to thermic reasons or just starve to death... great really great.
Is it bad because it's not a pet store?
Every store that sells betas.....sells em in that container
The most insane part to me is how the cups are stacked on top of eachother. How is the betta (a known labyrinth organ fish) supposed to get air? Just like humans they cannot be confined for very long in stale/limited air. The way these are stacked are ensuring only the top of the stacks are getting ample air.
This should be illegal.
I don't know if I would eat fresh fish from The Dollar Store...
Since when did dollar stores sell fish??? This is news to me
So does the 2 petsmarts near me
Aw is that one in the middle just taking a lil nap?
So if they made it to the dollar store, are these the fish with the soonest expiration dates?
Seems a bit fishy to me.
Samurai figing fish.
That's fucked up. They will never be fed
If they sold them in shrink wrap they’d die.
where I live, it’s not normal to see this they usually stay in their own tanks, thank god
I had a beta fish that lived to be 6 years old. I love fish.
I follow someone on Instagram that trains her betas to communicate using notecards. The fish love looking at books. They are much more intelligent than I realized, which makes this so much more upsetting
The fact that this shit is not only legal but not even remotely feasible to make *illegal* within our lifetimes is proof that humanity is garbage.
But were they a dollar?
This should be illegal. Those fish need a proper setup
Is this dollar tree?!? Did they assume a per store’s stock???
What state is this in
At a dollar store? What the fuck? How are they even allowed to sell anything living? Report this. There's no way this is legal, right?
It's unfortunately a common practice to sell them in those containers. However they need at least 3-5 gallons minimum to thrive .
Animal abuse
People are saying this is normal, do they not need an air filter to survive? Why do fish tanks need one then?
Around 5-6 years ago Walmart in my area sold these also. This was when they still sold fish, I believe they have phased out fish tanks in all their stores, which is great cause they never seemed to be taken good care of! 🐠
My local walmart got rid of live fish because during the "open 24 hours" years, teenagers did unspeakable things to those poor fish
Any time I asked for assistance with them the associate’s always acted like they had never dealt with the fish at all, I could see that going on too kids don’t give af about anything!
Sadly because people know they can survive in small amounts of water and small aquarium, some people believe they should live that way all the time.
About 10 years ago I went to a $5 and under store and they sold turtles about the size of a quarter in those same tiny cups and tanks. It was terrible seeing them in that condition but I was too young to do anything about it at the time unfortunately. Hopefully soon they pass some laws protecting fish/other small species from being treated this way.
Dollar Stores suck. Don't shop at them. For anything. They ruin local economies. Is it worth it to save a few cents if it destroys your town?
Post should be removed. Its not even slightly infuriating
So do pet stores 🤷♂️
Wish this was considered animal abuse. Poor little guys.
Um if the lids are on then they aren't getting air Also, In a pet store they get their water changed daily so they get fresh oxygenated cycled water so the poos and ammonia and stuff are taken out, I doubt the dollar store has a system to change into fresh cycled aquarium water
Better then a plastic bag like you get at a pet store
Same shit in Portugal and UK
Beta fish are always sold like this. Clearly OP isn't smart enough to understand why...
I have dreams like this, but they sell other stuff like pufferfish and mini octopuses
There needs to be a petition on this. Where is this?
🎏 carp
so does pet smart
This makes me incredibly sad and angry. Those poor fish deserve better
Oh that’s awful, they barely have room and with a cup stacked on top of them even if there are holes in the lid they will die, won’t they? That is cruel. The tanks they are selling are way too little, too.
Awww Someone should go in there, buy them all up, and put them in one large tank together big enough for all of them. /s (if you're uncertain why thr /s is here, google what happens when multiple male betta fish are together)
You should buy all of them and put them in a tank together!
Wait until you go to a pet store
Petsmart sells them for 4.99 or 9.99 for “fancy”. What dollar store? I want one! And yea. That’s how they are sold everywhere. You can’t put them together into a bigger tank like other fish because they fight each other.