Fancy fish or save a dieing one?

[MermaidLex]

hey yall! i have kept bettas in the past and got one to live for 7 years or something craz like that. but i want to get them again and i am trying to deside between
1) getting a normal betta from the petstore and trying to make its life better (because half the bettas at the locl petstore are dieing and i feel bad (how would you go about nurceing it back to health?)) and after proveing to my parents i can take care of one betta getting a show quality one
2) getting nice butterfly halfmoon whose life would probably be luxorious without me.
so i want advice on that please and wanted to know what you feed your bettas becuse i see tons of stuff online about what to feed them but never a day by day scedule so please tell me what you feed them.
i dont quite know how the forums work yet so sorry if i did something wrong!

[1fish2fish]

Unless your planning to show or breed I would go with the petstore betta :).. they can always use a loving home. A tank 2.5 gallons or more, heated to 76-82*, and clean water is all they need to get to prime condition.

I feed my bettas TopFin Betta Pellets at least 10 feedings a week (2x a day for 5 days out of the week). One day I feed pellets for one feeding and freeze dried rehydrated bloodworms. Once a week they get two feedings of live brine shrimp.

[Eolith]

I'd start with one from the pet store. If you're choosy, you can find some pretty fancy ones there. Both of mine are from the pet store and are pretty unique. One has blue eyes!

[xxabc]

I'd definitely go with a petstore. I've actually found a butterfly before!! ...maybe. Unless the poor thing was just that sick. But yes, I've seen very nice ones before that were just in terrile condition. If i'm aloud to, I'll say the store I prefer that has the better bettas (in my opinion, and in my area.)

A little offtrack here, but I went to a couple highchain stores (with bettas). My count?
5 dead. 3 with ick (absolutely. terrible). 2 females, 1 male twitching like crazy.
...
-sigh-

..if that helps your opinion at all. Lol :)

[1fish2fish]

I got this little butterfly beauty at walmart (not an HM though)

[Chicklet]

Buy and save all of them! that's my motto.
nah really thou doesn't matter which you buy it's never gonna stop the endless abuse Betta's receive.

I will say one thing tho, betta pellets is one food I WILL NEVER ever feed any of my Betta's ever again!!, It's not all it's cracked up to be!

I blend and mix my own fish food,
When I receive any "rescue betta's I'm often given betta pellets, Which I use to trash first thing!,
But that's wasteful so now I slowly delve them out to my Goldfish...

good luck on your choice

[xxabc]

1fish, beautiful fish. No joke.

-Sigh-
I was saw a purple double tail at petco. It was so sad. i definitely would have bought it if I had...everything I needed. Haha. And I saw a pretty orange (debatable. it could've been the light) opaque halfmoon.

And I didn't know they sold giants at Petco! Guess I do now.

[dramaqueen]

I got all my bettas at PetSmart and all of them were healthy when I got them. I feed mine Hikari betta bio gold and Wardleys pellets.

[xxabc]

I think petsmart (here) is one of the worst. They way overstock, or at least, their shelving "techniques" are terrible. There's like...3 rows from front-to-back of betta fish, and like 5 shelves of that. Nobody looks that far back! Nobody crouches that far down!! It's only high "enough" for certain dogs to not get to it.

But walmart (here) is no doubt no doubt the worst. Disgusts me. That's why I get mine at Petco. They're in better condition. That's where I got my first, and living, betta.

[dramaqueen]

My Petsmart just has 2 shelves but there are about 4 rows of bettas.