Featherfin: Thank you for the outstanding post. It is ine of the best written on the site. Well done and thank you for the information. I have been giving some consideration to a betta for a very large community tank and your post was most informative!
Where does a betta REALLY live in the wild?
- Thread starter Featherfin
- Start date
hehe.... my betta has a 20gallon all to himself, and he likes it that way.. so do i..
excellent writeup Feather!
Plecosterone
We don't need no stinking badges!
Excellent post. My betta is in a 75 gallon heavily planted tank and he is always swimming through the plants hunting for swordtail or platty fry. Even in small tanks I feel they need plants to swim through. Wild caught or farm raised, as most of the ones we buy now days are, makes little difference in the way they live. Instinct is something very hard to breed out of a species.
Nice writeup. Instead of a sticky, we need to have some sort of table of contents or FAQ post with links to posts like this. It avoids having 30 stickied posts, but makes them easily accessible. This is something everyone needs to read, whether they own bettas or not.
GREAT POST Feather!!!
But be sure to note EVERYONE that bettas have been & are found in puddles in their natural environment. That is no lie. It's not much different than the conditions that you find all over the world & on almost every continent for fish who have their pond, stream, lake etc... dry up & the ones that are able to survive in puddles until the rains come,....DO! But puddles are far from their natural environment.
LJx
But be sure to note EVERYONE that bettas have been & are found in puddles in their natural environment. That is no lie. It's not much different than the conditions that you find all over the world & on almost every continent for fish who have their pond, stream, lake etc... dry up & the ones that are able to survive in puddles until the rains come,....DO! But puddles are far from their natural environment.
LJx
The point that a survival mechanism is just that, an adaptation that allows an organism to survive seriously adverse conditions for a short amount of time. It can't be extrapolated to say "it happens sometimes so its ok to keep them like that all the time."
These websites do not have photos of betta splendens, but a good habitat photo of the closely related species smaragdina can be found here:
http://www.plakatthai.com/smarag.html
The Plakatthai website has many different sections that describe the Thai style of collecting fighting fish.
These websites are from a man who collects many different species of betta. He always includes habitat photos as well as photos of the fish. I think his site is particularly interesting because he gives a good representation of wild betta habitat, common to all the different species.
Organized by species:
B. pulchra, B. imbellis
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/pontian.htm
B. imbellis, GREAT habitat photos:
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/pontian.htm
B. bellica, B. coccina, B. persephone
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/Ayer_Hitam_last1.htm
Many different species native to Thailand, with photos of exactly where they were collected:
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/Thailand2.htm
From just a quick glance at these photos, it's obvious that these aren't mud puddles. To an oblivious tourist, maybe. But they are obviously complex habitats, and far more extensive than just a mud puddle. Just because it doesn't look like a huge lake doesn't mean there aren't hundreds, if not thousands, of gallons of water in those shallow swamps.
http://www.plakatthai.com/smarag.html
The Plakatthai website has many different sections that describe the Thai style of collecting fighting fish.
These websites are from a man who collects many different species of betta. He always includes habitat photos as well as photos of the fish. I think his site is particularly interesting because he gives a good representation of wild betta habitat, common to all the different species.
Organized by species:
B. pulchra, B. imbellis
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/pontian.htm
B. imbellis, GREAT habitat photos:
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/pontian.htm
B. bellica, B. coccina, B. persephone
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/Ayer_Hitam_last1.htm
Many different species native to Thailand, with photos of exactly where they were collected:
http://www.ikanpemburu.com/html/field/Thailand2.htm
From just a quick glance at these photos, it's obvious that these aren't mud puddles. To an oblivious tourist, maybe. But they are obviously complex habitats, and far more extensive than just a mud puddle. Just because it doesn't look like a huge lake doesn't mean there aren't hundreds, if not thousands, of gallons of water in those shallow swamps.
