Betta cruelty

[kikuchiyo]

The East Asian fish industry is cruel; things like that, like juicing, painting, and the hybrids discussed on another thread orginate there. It's hard to fault the menial workers; they're dirt poor, poorly educated folk. They are doing menial farm work that requires little education. But so many of the industry's bad practices originate there (not that they are not continued or perputated in the West either).

Reading that stuff, I'm surprised the little things survive at any rate, especially enough to sell. Not to mention the poorly reported juicing of fish like dwarf gouramis with male hormones. And the person most affected by it (other than the poor fish themselves) are of course the consumers who have no idea this is going on.

Even more frightening is that this is capitalist farming run amok; we see the consequences to the fish if we poke our heads in. Think about what is done to food industry farm animals (or look up whats done to chickens, for example or the hormones food mammals are injected with). I'm not a vegetarian but the very thought that such practices edges me closer.

I honestly wish there was someway that we could limit our dependence on unethical SE Asian breeders, but there are very few places in the world where those fish are developed on that scale (certainly not in the more affluent Far East).

 

[TYPO]

hmn, time fer my opinion. my 2 females share a 18 with other community fish, while my 2 males share a divided 10g. each of them has 2 female guppies and a snail to keep thhem company. my white double-tail is very content in a .5g bowfronty-plasticy thing i have. she was in the 18g, but wasnt happy at all. i put her in the .5 and she's happier than ever.

also, on that note, i believe a 2.5 is the minimum size for a betta. it's enough room for them to swim, but, it's small enough that you can have many in a large room.

bettas are poorly marketed. i still remember when i was a little kid, asking why they lived in the little cups, and the store people always answered, 'beacause they like it.'

it makes me sad to see the bettas, when they have about an inch of water, and they are still blowing themselves a nest. it's like, they're saying, 'HEY!! you cant kill my spirit. see??'

 

[Watcher74]

Those Bettas at one of the LFS here will turn your stomach. I saw the other day a 1 gallon tank divided into three areas with plexiglass. The middle section had filtration running on it(lucky betta) with no way for the water to circulate to the other two sections.

The betta in the right side, or rather the body, was laying on the gravel and had been dead so long it had a haze of rot around it. I wondered how many days it had been dead.