Just because of some previous comments elsewhere i would like to get peoples views on this particular subject.

Do you think keeping bettas in guppy traps is cruel?

Hell yeah, for any prolonged amount of time anyway!

It depends which sized trap and for how long. The small 150x100x100 ones are a bit small for long term housing but it's far better than having them in an unsuitable tank with hostile tank mates. I have one in a 200x150x150 net breeder and I reckon it's all good.

I guess my biggest issue with it is that i believe home aqauria deserve an environment and that includes access to fresh or flowing water, those guppy traps are just no good for that. No problem with it for emergency's or for a day or two but i really feel like its quite cruel to keep an animal like that.

you should see where they live in the wild

Betta splendens which you see in the stores aren't found in nature. They are a domesticated breed of fish from Thailand.

its not fair to treat them as wild fish and use that excuse to justify means.

not an excuse just a fact

they are still able to live in water with low DO and no flow

In fact they much prefer low flow as they struggle to stay upright in a current as it pushes against their long fins and tails. Nearly all the imported fighters (males in particular) will have been raised in small jars.

they still look unhappy to me ive taken to separating off a section of the tank with glass for them and putting a larger type gravel in the bottom for the fry to hide in i do that with almost all my fish now

you should see where they can live in the wild

I'v fixed that for you

They might be able to live in a hoof print but I bet it is not their favored habitat.

As sentient beings who have created this species don't we have a responsibility to them?

We haven't created the species, we have selected and line bred [culti]var

In fact they much prefer low flow as they struggle to stay upright in a current as it pushes against their long fins and tails.

This. I'd much sooner put a halfmoon in a guppy trap than my high tech planted tank.

The fins that all the "fighter fanciers" love have been selectively bred and do not exist in nature. These fins put them at more of a disadvantage than the smallish containers they are kept in. These small containers all help in the development of these long and fancy fins that people love about these fish. I have bred and reared heaps of these fish and used to keep them in specially designed tanks of glass subdiveded into small squares with s/s mesh on the bottom and suspended off the bottom in a larger tank. To do a water change on a couple of dozen "jars" you lift the internal tank then drop it (about 3 times a day. I had a number of tanks like that. If you breed these fish and they don't have well developed fins (through flaring at their neighbours) no one wants to buy them.

so you physically lift and drop the internal tank without changing any water in the main tank?

its a neat trick if that's all you have to do

It is. It allows for the removal of excess food AND a few water changes to the fish before changes in the main tank. Alternatively an auto water change system can be added to the main tank. The food was mainly live lumbriculus.

In slightly related news, I just took my male super delta (avatar) and put him in a partially filled 45x25cm tank with a bunch of mozzie larvae that were turning into mosquitoes. It's great watching him charge around the tank after live food and I think it's important to try to encourage as much natural behaviour as practical.

In slightly related news, I just took my male super delta (avatar) and put him in a partially filled 45x25cm tank with a bunch of mozzie larvae that were turning into mosquitoes. It's great watching him charge around the tank after live food and I think it's important to try to encourage as much natural behaviour as practical.

Agreed! Feeding a variety of live food along with dried is very important.

I don't think they are cruel. These fish were bred, raised and kept in bottles and small tanks ever since they were domesticated.

I've had fighters freak out and panic in bigger tanks, and find that many seem happier when they are in smaller areas. As long as you keep the water clean and the fish healthy I don't see a problem with them at all.

+1, I feel smaller tanks dedicated to the fish is better,

although most people miss the

As long as you keep the water clean and the fish healthy

part

around 10-50L is perfect imo

It is. It allows for the removal of excess food AND a few water changes to the fish before changes in the main tank. Alternatively an auto water change system can be added to the main tank. The food was mainly live lumbriculus.

thanks! sorry ive been so long for the reply im defiantly going to do this ive just had about 40 red jewels start swimming around yesterday so ive got them in a jar so ill move them into a new setup like that soon

I don't think they are cruel. These fish were bred, raised and kept in bottles and small tanks ever since they were domesticated.

I've had fighters freak out and panic in bigger tanks, and find that many seem happier when they are in smaller areas.

My experience is the opposite and im sorry but 500mls of water in LFS qaulity water is cruel, more times than not, they look miserable or ill. In fact they seem most happy in community tanks with plenty of plants and appropriate fish mates. When i used to breed these fish regularly, i would not separate them, i kept them all together once they were big enough to move from the spawning tank, into a large heavily planted tank and would only remove the occasional larger male or female or the prettiest boys to let their fins grow without interruption. Keep them like this and you find they lose ALOT of the supposed "aggression" towards each other that justify's these practices. This style of breeding is about efficiency and money making.

I understand the "raised this way so doesn't know any better" argument, but we know betta and people manipulated this species this way. So why not give it a chance at a better life than the miniature iso cubes you sentence them to?

When I was breeding on a commercial scale (Luke should be doing this atm) we used to put the whole spawn (sometimes 2 or 3) in a big heated pond full of driftwood, they very rarely fought much, about 2-4 weeks before sale they would be taken out and put in a conditioning tank (around 500mL per cube) that had clean water refreshing constantly (probably a 1-2x per hour turnover rate) just to get the fins nice (tbh most came out perfect anyways)

as far as I know many large scale breeders overseas use this method as well, they just "jar" them to clean up the fins for sale

I would bet that if there was a way to raise them to the quality we see on imported fighters without having them in jars then the exporters would have done it a long time ago.