WHY I LIKE BETTAS: Why I believe these beautiful fish are the best aquarium pets to keep
(Click on Bettas to return to the main betta page or on main site to browse 70 topics ranging from exotic kaleidoscope designs to the strange world of lucid dreaming.)
I
don't like fish. That's an odd thing for someone who raises and
breeds bettas to say but it's true. I find fish tanks smelly, noisy,
messy to clean, and most fish, although they can be attractive, are
boring because unlike cats or dogs they don't interact with their
keepers. So, what's different about bettas?
The main difference is that unlike most fish, bettas will interact with their keepers. When I come over to one of my bettas, instead of blankly swimming around, more often than not he or she will face me and study me as much as I do him or her. I put my finger to the tank and it'll be examined. I've even trained my some of my bettas to be fed by hand. They actually jump out of the water to snatch food off the end of a feeding stick. But most interesting of all is that although they don't have any facial muscles, they none-the-less manage to assume expressions that tell me just what they're thinking. No one who has kept bettas can fail to recognize that look of disgust they have when fed the wrong food or are simply fed up with their keeper. Equally so, there is no mistaking the bright look they assume when vanquishing a foe in a neighboring tank or snapping up a brine shrimp.
Add to this their unsurpassed beauty and ease of care and you have a fish that even a fish tank hater like myself is helpless to resist.
