Bettas As A pet for you – Have You Done Your Homework? Find Out if You Should Be A Betta Parent!

So you think you want to be a Betta fish owner, huh? Though usually considered to be a minimal time investment pet, there's more to it than that and it's good to make sure that this pet would be a good fit for you before going and grabbing one. After years of caring for these guys, I'm pretty well-equipped to help you understand proper Betta care, so keep reading to see if this is the pet you should have!

To start with, there are a couple important items for you to think about. For starters, Betta fish need warm conditions (water around 80 degrees fahrenheit), which is more than a lot of us here in the US or Europe keep our homes at. This simply means that you'll want to take care to buy a tank heater so that you're tank's temperature is constantand kept around 78 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. This isn't too difficult though, and is generally accomplished by a cheap heater, depending onhow large your Betta's home is...

Which brings us to our next topic: how big of tank you should get. There's nothing worse than someone on a messageboard who wrongly recommends to people that Bettas will be fine in a small living space. And I don't just mean small as in a 3 gallon tank, they seriously suggest buying those lame little Betta cubes and bowls you see at the pet stores. And in all honesty, it's not hard to see why this bad information gets spread around; because big pet store chains generally don't know that much about individual species and sell the cubes and whatnot but anyone who wants a happy Betta fish should really be looking for a 5-10 gallon tank, which means you need to have a place to keep this tank where it will have light during the day, and dark at night (just like you would like for yourself).

If you stuck around this long and are still considering getting a Betta fish, then good for you, because most other considerations are minor, the cost of the fish and its food, for example, and buying a filter/monitoring water quality, so let's take a look at the positives now.

For example, one of my favorite things about Betta fish care is how closely bonded you will become with your pet. Right away, Bettas have no trouble realizing that you being in the room means it's feeding time, and will be ready to greet you with admirable enthusiasm the second you get home from work or classes. Furthermore, those who are around more (like someone like me who often writes or works from home), will become aware of that Bettas will start to gravitate near the side of the tank closest to you while you're around, they really do take notice!

With the massive amount of personality and reward for such a small investment, it comes as no surprise to me that so many people own Bettas nowadays. Now matter what you decide, I hope you learned something here today and that in the future Bettas just might find their way into your pet-keeping life.