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Hello friends, welcome back to the channel. Today I want to answer some of the questions I most
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frequently asked about keeping better fish. The first question I often get is, is a better and a
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Siamese fighting fish the same thing? And the answer is, well maybe. The better fish that most
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of us are going to buy from the store, the bright red or green or yellow or multi-colored fish with
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the long flowing fins, are typically better splendens. That's their scientific name. And they
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used to be called the Siamese fighting fish, although typically now they're just referred to
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as bettas. But bettas also refers to around 60 or 70 other fish that are in the same family
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So a Siamese fighting fish is a betta, but a betta isn't necessarily a Siamese fighting fish. It
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depends which member of the betta family you're talking about. Another question I'm frequently
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asked is what do betta fish eat? And in the wild, bettas are essentially carnivores, insectivores
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they want to eat live worms or bugs crustaceans insects baby fish anything they come across
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that is alive and will fit in their mouth they will typically eat now in the aquarium we don't
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tend to have access to all of that so what we can give them is live or frozen bloodworm we can give
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them daphnia or mosquito larvae but they'll also eat good quality flake or pellet food now flakes
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and pellet food are particularly useful because they tend to contain a wide mix of minerals and
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nutrients and vitamins and help give our bettors a balanced nutritious diet that means they going to have a long happy healthy life and display bright colours
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I'm also often asked how often we should feed our better. Now, in my experience, with a better, in fact, with almost all fish
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it's better to feed them two or three small meals throughout a day
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than it is to dump a load of food in once a day. feeding your bed to small frequent meals is better for the fish because it tends to eat a bit have
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time to digest it pass it out through its system then later in the day eat a bit more have time to
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digest it pass it out through its system whereas if we just drop it all in one go typically it will
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eat eat eat eat eat as much as it can and the rest of the food will just drop behind the rocks
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behind the heater into the clump of plants where it will typically sit and rot and and spoil our
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water quality. Whereas if we put a small amount of food in, two or three times a day, typically
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the better will consume all or most of that food before it has a chance to fall behind decorations
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behind rocks, out of reach where the fish can't eat it. Another question I'm often asked, and I
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think I get asked this in light of the vases I've got, is can you keep a better fish in a vase
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And I would say no. For a better fish, a vase is just simply too small a volume of water
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Better fish need to be kept at a stable temperature, they need good filtration
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they need swimming space. A vase typically doesn't offer any of those things
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And whilst a vase may be fine for snails or shrimp or even one or two male guppies they really are not large enough to keep a better fish for any length of time In fact really the minimum water volume you should try and keep a better in
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is probably about five gallons but seven or ten gallons would be even better. The larger the
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water volume we keep our better fish in, the easier it is to keep that water stable and healthy and
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clean for the better to live in. Now I'm also often asked what is the best temperature to keep a
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better in and in my experience anywhere between about 76 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit is absolutely
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perfect for a better and that equates to between about 24 and 27 degrees centigrade. Now unless
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you're fortunate enough to live in a lovely tropical environment where the aquarium water
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will naturally stay at that temperature, the best way to maintain that is to add a small
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submersible aquarium heater. And I find small modern heaters, 25, 50 watts, set somewhere in
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the late 70s, provides the absolute perfect water temperature for a better to live in
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Now I'm also often asked, can I keep more than one better in an aquarium
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And assuming we're talking better splendors, the one most of us keep with the long flowing fins
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the bright colors typically the answer is no the males will fight each other to
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the death unless you're keeping them in some super large aquarium where each can have its its own territory but generally speaking one male now there's a lot of
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talk on the internet of keeping a better female sorority tanks where you just keep a group of females together this is not something I ever tried but the research that I done when I did look into it is that these typically work in the short term but you won find many people that have kept their tank successful for
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year after year. Typically in the short term that can work but in the long term it rarely proves
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successful. So in my experience I would only ever keep one better in an aquarium. Now of course this
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does beg the question, well can I keep one male and one female in an aquarium together
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And what the problem here typically is they will want to breed, that will happen
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and the breeding with better splendens tends to be a fairly aggressive affair. The male will start
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by building a bubble nest on the surface, which is a fascinating thing to watch, but then
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unfortunately he's very aggressive towards the female, and often the female gets quite badly
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beaten and has a lot of fin damage from the aggressive way in which the fish breed
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In my experience, unless you're actually wanting to breed bettas to produce the next generation
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I would just keep a male or a female. I wouldn't try keeping them together. That's just my experience
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Now, another question I'm often asked is how long the better fish live for
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And whilst the short answer to that question is probably on average three to four years
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There are a lot of things you can do to help your better live even longer than that
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And I address those points in this video here
