Betta hobby: barriers for entry and solutions

Too many people are turned off to betta keeping. Main reasons are all well-known such as:

1. too expensive
2. not enough time
3. not enough stock available

Too expensive

If you're getting your bettas imported, then yes, it will ended up to be too expensive. Importation cost usually is equal to the cost of your fish if not more! Purchasing a USD20 fish will cost you around AUD25 to AUD30 to import. Don't forget your shipping cost as well, that would be around AUD20 to 25. The old mathematics of "purchase more to reduce cost" doesn't actually work here since the more you purchase, the more you're paying for importation cost anyway. If you purchase a betta, would you just purchase one? Rationale governs that you purchase more than one, or perhaps just a single pair. On average purchasing 2 pairs of bettas costs around AUD220 (USD40 per pair, AUD100 total import, AUD20 shipping) - the hobby is looking more and more distant for everyone to afford...

Sharing shipping cost can reduce your cost a little bit, hence do that whenever you can to share with other fellow buyers.

At the end of the day, you are at the mercy of your importer/transhipper. Unfortunately nothing can be done about that, except if your importer/transhiper would be so kindly reduce the fee ;)

Your best option would be to join similar-minded people in the hobby, such as SSS, or any betta forums where you can find established breeders selling their stock for more-than-reasonable price.

Not enough time

You either need to make the time, or organize your timing better. Sometimes this is very difficult choice when mixed with family, job, and life in general. Surprisingly, if you take care of your bettas on a strict routine/regime, you may find that they don't actually take much of your time.

For instance, we have been successful on keeping bettas on the following schedule:

• 5am : first feeding, quickly check any bettas needing attention
• 7pm: second feeding, time to flare them and enjoy for a good half to one hour

This doesn't work lately because of job traveling. Of course we need to adjust the above if we are spawning any of the bettas.

When you spawned your bettas, you need to be able to commit yourself to 3 or 4 meals a day for that tiny fry of yours. Usually this is required for the first 1.5 months, then you can relax a bit and let them join the adult feeding regime.

Some have been quite successful in feeding their bettas every other day (i.e. once every 2 or 3 days). We usually don't suggest this unless you're feeding a 4+ months old bettas, but then you need to try to see what works for you.

Not enough stock available

What can we say, there always be not enough stock, despite you may have browsed through your forums or auction sites. But if you're a bit relax on things, you may find a similar, or good enough stock. For instance, if you're looking for that awesome dragon, may you settle on full-mask perhaps? You only need to cross the full-mask to a poorer-quality dragon to produce that awesome dragon that you've been dreaming on. Creativity helps here.

Looking back the hobby for these past couple of years, it has been apparent that it will remain slow and a lot of work is needed to attract more people into the hobby. The funny thing about the hobby is...it's a hobby, which means there shouldn't be needing any attractions to begin with! Unfortunately the barriers, particularly the cost, is way too high for some, even if they're experienced breeders like us. We look forward for other initiatives such as CBS or plain old let's share the cost together.

Until then, give us a shout if you need any of our stock (only when we do have some). Hope we can share them with you and together we can ease the entry barrier.