The Beta Complex

Bananas make my teeth feel weird. Is it just me?

Do you ever feel like you're trapped in a fishbowl that no one wants to look into? Not a nice bowl with gravel and a plant either, but one of those tiny cups Betas are sold in.

I've always felt bad for those fish. All the other fish that are for sale get to swim around in big, bubbly aquariums, but the beautiful Betas are confined and separated into spaces barely big enough to turn around in, their view obscured by a price tag. True, the big aquariums are full of fecal matter and bloated half-eaten corpses, but at least they can move in there.

Yeah, I know. If you put the Betas together they will kill each other. But do the cups have to be so small?

"While these fish evolved within the rice paddies of Siam, they cannot comfortably survive in a cup or a vase with a lily plant. They need room to swim and stretch their fins, and air to breathe."

I have been known to purchase a Beta or two, and put them into large, beautiful, separate containers. I soon learned why those little Beta aquariums are necessary.

Betas are suicidal.

When you use an aquarium, you have a filter system that constantly nourishes the water with fresh oxygen, which the fish need to survive. When you use a bowl, it's necessary to use a container with a lot of surface area to allow the water to breathe. Betas take advantage of this surface area to hurtle themselves into the great unknown void of death at the first opportunity.

Can you blame them? They're Betas. If they were Alphas, maybe they'd have a chance. If ever there was a fish with a complex, it's a Beta.

Back in the pet shop, the other fish across the way, those goldfish with the big googly eyes and the ruffled fins are saying to each other, "look at those Betas. They think they're so great, with their vivid colors and oversized dorsals. What I wouldn't give for a little cup to call my own, without Brian over there pooping in my face."

So I guess it's all a matter of perspective.