# Your Thoughts On Bettas In Cups At Pet Stores?



## BubblesTheBlueBetta (Jul 15, 2015)

I'm sure you've seen the betta fish in cups at pet stores. What are your thoughts on it though?:-?


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## megaredize (May 21, 2012)

Well I understand why they do it. They know they can't put them all in an aquarium because they will fight and die and speaking from a business point it makes it easy for someone to walk into petsmart/petco wherever and just pick one they like and cash out instead of asking for assistance and getting an employee to fish out the fish you want from one of their tanks. 

if they had better standards it wouldn't be so bad. why cant the water be changed regularly. if it was the fish would survive longer, look better and most likely be bought instead of passed up on. 

Petsmart here has bigger cups than my LFS. My LFS cups are TINY! There's a pic below with me holding it so you can see how small it is. i do keep one of those cups around because it is handy in case i need to cup one of the fish to take them out, but compared to pics I've seen on this forum it seems like my LFS has the smallest cups for their bettas that I have seen.


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## BettaBeau (May 14, 2014)

What irks me most about those cups is when the pet store has so many bettas that they stack the cups, which blocks the air holes. I always rearrange the cups so the air holes are open. 

As long as the water is being changed regularly, I think the cups are okay.


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## megaredize (May 21, 2012)

Ya i know what you mean, petsmart tends to do that. stack the cups. at least my LFS doesn't do that but they are usually crammed together so the fish flare up at each other a lot. 

My LFS also has this betta system


but what i dont like about it is when one fish gets sick they all do because it is a drip system. the fish i tried to save last week that had bad ick was in there so all the bettas had ick. i ended up telling the owner when i get my dumbo betta (who was in a cup not this) and he treated them with methylene blue but the other day when I was there and i got more plants i noticed there was no bettas in the system they were all new ones in cups. I think they lost the few bettas from ick that were in there.

They also manage to jump out of that system during the night and die unfortunately too. So i would rather buy them in cups. usually i know when they get their shipments in too so they dont stay in the cups for long.


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## blackjack (Jul 19, 2015)

BettaBeau, I do the same thing. I don't get it. It's obvious the tops have holes for a reason. Why cover them. It doesn't make sense.

Otherwise, I understand keeping them like that in the store. It's meant as a temporary thing and I'm okay with it. What bothers me is that so many stores encourage keeping them in containers approximately that size.


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## BilboBetta (Nov 7, 2015)

One of the locals in my area has them in cups and has an airline going through the top of each cup. Very hot and humid in their fish room also. You can also tell that all of their fish, not just bettas, are well cared for. Prices are a bit higher there but, you get what you pay for and I don't mind spending a bit more if it helps them care for their fish.


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## Crash (Jul 19, 2015)

I only have a problem if it's clear they're not doing water changes on the cups. If you can't see the bottom of the cup because it's so full of waste, or worse, can barely see the betta cause the water is so cloudy, then that's just plain abuse. Also as Beau said, when they stack the cups so the holes are covered. My LFS has a "betta tower" where all the bettas are in little square containers with air bubblers in them in the tropical fish room so it's nice and warm. I can tell sometimes they don't clean the cups on time, but most of the bettas they have are quite healthy. There are some with fin rot and one in particular has a swollen gill, but it's much better than what you see at a petstore chain :/


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

My problem with it is when the cups become Betta torture devices. My local Walmart stores the Bettas in cups crammed on a shelf. The Bettas can see each other so they are stressed, the water is never changed so it eventually becomes cloudy and filthy. It breaks my heart to see them like that and I just wish I had the space to house more then one Betta so I could rescue some.


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## BubblesTheBlueBetta (Jul 15, 2015)

Walmart takes horrible care of the betta fish! I'm so glad my local Walmart doesn't sell fish.


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## blackjack (Jul 19, 2015)

I know. It's horrible. Until about a year ago, (fortunately it was eventually taken down), my local Walmart had a paper near the fish about betta,"care." It actually said that because they get oxygen from the air as well, that they could live in as little as 4 oz. of water. That is not a typo. That is about a 1/2 cup and pure animal cruelty and torture.


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## hannat (Oct 9, 2014)

It bothers me mostly because when a betta gets sick, my local PetCo treats the fish right in its cup, making dosing extremely challenging. Also, there is no barrier between the cups so they constantly see each other.


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