BETTA BIOLOGY:

Wild Bettas: In the wild, these small fish look quite a bit different than the ones you find in North American pet stores.  The wild ones are short-finned and multi-coloured, compared to the long-finned ones we are used to seeing in pet stores.

Their native countries are warm, tropical places like Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. In these countries, they are found in shallow ditches and especially in rice paddies.

The water in these places is stagnant and as a result the oxygen level is usually very low.  These fish are designed to live here, however, as they are able to take oxygen from the atmospheric air which they get by rising to the surface of the water. 

They gulp the air into a convoluted organ located in their heads called a labyrinth.  If you watch your fish closely you will see him rise to the surface from time to time to gulp in some air. They need to do this about every two minutes as they cannot survive only on the oxygen they obtain through their gills.  Their gills are about 50% smaller in size than they would be on any other fish the same size.  These smaller gills, however, are necessary as the fish cannot survive on the oxygen obtained at the surface alone either.

Both gills and the labyrinth are essential to this fishes' survival.

It is a good thing that bettas have small gills as they are often fighting one another.  The males are especially pugnacious and begin to square off and fight, whenever they encounter one another.

That is why you see the males in small containers in the pet store because you cannot put them all together in an aquarium and keep them looking good. They will tear each other to shreds in an attempt to find out who is the boss. They rarely fight to the death, but only scrap until one of them backs down and flees from the area.

In the rice paddies, these fish feed primarily on mosquito larvae and they serve to control the numbers of these biting insects in their native countries.  At rice harvest time, the rice paddies are drained and the only bettas to survive are the ones that end up in the hoof-prints of the water buffalo that are used to work the fields.  If two males end up in one, only one will be alive the next day.  If a male and female end up in a hoof-print then they will spawn and produce offspring.  Should the parents die of starvation, the young will survive on microscopic life in the water and when the rice paddy is re-flooded, they will swim out into it and re-colonize the area.

Because bettas are designed to survive these small quarters you often see them in containers the size of coffee cups in pet stores.  This is nothing short of abuse, however, as they should have at least a litre of water each and the wastes should be syphoned out and 25-50% of the water changed every three days.  The poor fish in these coffee cups can't even turn around in them properly.  It is sad to see such an elegant fish treated in such a cruel manner.

If fish could talk or scream, I'm sure we would hear lots of complaints from these pet store fish!

The biggest difference between pet store fish and show fish can be seen in the tails of the fish. Until recently, pet store fish invariably had a veil-tail.

Recently, many crown-tails have been showing up and they sometimes even have a half-moon tail.

Soon, it will probably be difficult to find a veiltail betta in a pet store as more and more people are favouring the wider spreading delta-tails and half-moons.

Extended-ray tails were probably the precursor to crowntail bettas.

Deltatails were the widest opening tails before the appearance of the halfmoon tail.

Roundtails and spadetails are the rarest tail forms. Bettas can also have two tails.

At any rate these fish have become popular in North America because they have been selectively bred to produce long fins and vibrant colours.  Many hobbyist clubs have formed in the United States and a few shows are organized each year where breeders can take their best fish to be judged for prizes, ribbons and trophies.  The usual stipulation at these shows is, however, that any fish entered must be auctioned off at the close of the show.  In this way even newcomers to the hobby can pick up good fish with the necessary genes to produce quality offspring.

The International Betta Congress is an organization of people dedicated to preserving and propagating all species of bettas.

These people host a number of International Fish Shows every year in the United States and breeders of bettas from all over the world send in their fish to be evaluated by trained judges.

 Maybe some day one of your fish will win a prize!