META Building a Better r/bettafish: Culture, New Mods, and a Look Ahead

496 Upvotes

Hey everyone, Roboto, your friendly neighborhood (actually human) mod here with some subreddit updates!

First, the least fun part in all of this –

We need to talk about our subreddit culture.

Our community is toxic. There’s no other way I can think of to describe what has been happening. Even worse, this reputation extends beyond our immediate community into other subreddits and even other platforms. People are afraid of us.

I’m going to take some ownership of this. The harsh reputation of this subreddit far precedes me as a mod, but in recent years, our hard-fought progress on this front has been lost. That’s on me. The lack of consistent moderation here has let rules 1 and 2 go under-enforced for too long, allowing hostility to take root as the norm.

The adversarial and unwelcoming environment we’ve collectively created functions in direct opposition to our subreddit goals, and frankly what I believe to be the goals of many users here. If we care about betta fish first and foremost, this culture needs to change.

Our expectations and what better looks like

If you have good advice to give, give it in a more constructive, not destructive, way. Shaming people makes them shut down and disengage so they don't even process the rest of the good advice you have to offer. Don't highlight all the things they're doing wrong, focus on what they can do better and why it's helpful in a way that encourages them to do it.

So instead of saying "your empty tank is sad," share the opportunities for improvement, like "betta fish benefit from tanks with lots of plants and hiding/resting places so your fish would be happier if you filled the tank in a bit more."

We can’t ignore that people will think they're doing research by going and talking to presumed experts or reading product information. Store employees are presumed to be properly trained and products marketed at bettas are assumed to know what they’re talking about, too. It doesn't help that there's very little consensus online about what adequate care even is. For example, Petco's online betta care guide, updated in 2025, says bettas need a minimum of 1gal. Furthermore, many quality care guides are on niche websites that may not seem credible to a new hobbyist compared to a well-known chain.

With that in mind, we all need to stop:

Telling people they should have done more research
Immediately calling people abusers for making mistakes
Shaming the pineapple (or any other novelty decor/bowl)
Attacking aesthetic choices instead of addressing actual care needs
Debating what it means to rescue a betta on posts where ethical sourcing of fish isn’t the main topic

Going forward, comments exhibiting the behaviors listed above will be removed as violations of rules 1, 2, or 4 depending on the exact nature of the comment.

I know members of our subreddit are burned out from the bad husbandry they see constantly. It's exhausting and I won't pretend it's not. But if we bully one owner into submission, cool, that's maybe one fish saved. How many owners did we scare away from asking for help in the process? We're going to have a far broader impact building people up in this hobby, not tearing them down.

That said, this is a two-way street of support. I'm cognizant of the fact that people offer their time and mental energy supporting our subreddit, and they don't deserve to have that wasted by people who don't care to use it. If someone is given better information and advice and refuses to take it, that violates rule 3. We often get reports about all the fighting around ignored advice, but not the ignoring itself. In the future, please report these instances to us. For this to be successful, we also need users to avoid escalating disagreements when OP refuses valid and respectful advice.

Now for the fun stuff –

New mods

We recently brought on 12 additional mods to enable us to better support this community’s needs. Please help us welcome:

They’re going to introduce themselves in the comments below and I’ll try and link their names in this post as they do.

It takes a bit to get 12 brand new people to operate as a consistent group, so we may occasionally over-moderate while everyone learns.

I realize that our increased emphasis on subreddit culture may make removals feel arbitrary at times. In the spirit of transparency, I have given the new moderators the guidance that if a senior mod isn’t free to give timely feedback, when in doubt, they should remove posts/comments that are believed to violate rules. Senior mods will still review the content in question, and removals may be reversed, if necessary.

If you disagree with a moderator’s decision, please send us a modmail and one of the senior mods will review your concern and get back to you.

Updated tools and resources

Small updates at this time, but more exciting things in the pipeline!

We’ve begun a major revision of the subreddit wiki. Some of our work in progress pages are already live, with more to come.
Select pages are also now linked in the subreddit sidebar to streamline access to key information for new betta fish keepers.
In the next few weeks, we will be rolling out additional tools that should make it easier to share information that we often find ourselves repeating. Our hope is that this will help address some of the burnout we see many of you all experiencing.

Roboto is a super sentimental actual human

I realize this post started on a challenging topic, but despite the highs and lows our community faces, I remain grateful that I get to do this with you all.

I’ve been a mod of this community for nearly 7 years, and a member for far longer. In that time, so many things, from our mod team, to Reddit as a platform, to our own lives and the world around us, have become fundamentally different.

There are very few constants I can point to after all this time, but the enduring engagement and passion of this community is one of them and I’m honored to steward this space.

At the core of it all, this hobby, and this subreddit, are comprised of people who really want the best for one another and that makes this work so much easier.

Thank you all, sincerely, for riding with us as we figure this thing out. I’m excited for the next chapter of our subreddit, and I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in the next 7 years.

- Roboto

Edit: If anyone has additional feedback about our community culture, please share it in a comment below, or feel free to send us a modmail.

168 comments

r/bettafish • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago

Discussion r/Bettafish Weekly Help Post - October 16 to October 22

2 Upvotes

Welcome to r/bettafish!

This is the place to ask anything and everything about bettas.

⚕️If you're looking for help with illnesses or weird behavior, be sure to include the following in your comment:

Tank Size
Water Temp
Ammonia / Nitrite / Nitrate readings
How long the issue has been occurring
A picture of the problem
Any additional helpful context

Click this link to view our CARESHEET

🐟 Caresheet Summary:

Bettas require a minimum of 5 gallons, 10 gallons being optimal for one betta and 20 gallon long minimum if you're housing peaceful community fish with the betta
Bettas are tropical and require water temps of 78-82°F or about 26-27°C, a thermometer and adjustable heater is recommended to ensure these temps
Bettas need a filter, like any other fish. It is a common misconception that they like dirty water, but the opposite is true.
Bettas need a cycled tank, before getting a betta the tank should be cycled - this process involves adding a source of ammonia to the tank, using a test kit to monitor ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels, and usually takes 4-6 weeks to complete properly
Bettas have delicate fins so sharp plastic plants are not recommended; silk silicone or live work best
Bettas can breathe surface air and are good jumpers, they require access to the water surface at all times and a lid.
Bettas eat insects in the wild, a good quality betta formulated pellet food fed twice a day is recommended.

Click this link to view our WIKI

📚 Quick synopsis of the wiki:

Contains info on basic betta care, diseases, potential tank mates, tail types/coloring, differences between males/females, ordering bettas, moving with bettas, disaster prep and MORE!
This most likely has the answers to your questions and is in the process of being updated. Feel free to ask questions if you are confused or aren't sure about something.

Click here to learn about Power Outage Protocols

How to add a picture to comments: Image Guide or use Imgur for multiple images:

Imgur Instructions: Go to imgur.com and select "New Post". Add all the clear pictures you have so we can better determine what is going on with your fish. It is recommended you set the album to private if you don't want random comments. Click upload. From there, click the share button- if you are on mobile, hit "copy to clipboard" and paste the link into your comment on here. If on desktop, copy the link and paste it here. For those new to technology- ctrl + c is copy, ctrl + v is paste. To have your link like this , put these [ ] brackets around the text you want to show, with no space before the first word or after the last word, and without adding a space after the second bracket, use parentheses ( ) for the link, with no spaces between the parentheses or the link itself.

_________

Be sure to read our community rules before posting. Feel free to repost questions if yours was not answered last time!

Ask away!

1 comment

r/bettafish • u/Wraith_Black • 12h ago

Picture Raziel's profile pic for Finder.

225 Upvotes

He's trying, bless him.

3 comments

r/bettafish • u/pittstopkip • 14h ago

Video What is this wormy thing?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

159 Upvotes

Should I be worried?

45 comments


1. BE NICE.	We're all humans with real human feelings. (Most of us.)
2. No spam, selling, advertisements, or social media.	This includes selling equipment, fish, or linking to YouTube channels, seller pages, blog posts, Facebook, Instagram, fundraisers, etc. When it comes to posting on this subreddit, we limit this to two posts per day. If you want to post multiple images, please use an album. If you have videos/gifs to post, please use v.reddit.com, imgur, gyfcat or streamable. Please follow reddits reddiquette.
3. No posts or comments praising or advertising betta fighting.	Seriously, do we need to tell you why?
4. Please include water parameters and tank info in your help posts.	If you have a question or problem, please add a CLEAR picture and some details (tanksize, equipment, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels etc.). "Everything is fine" is not a tank parameter!
5. Don't post discussions or pics to complain/hate/shit on bad betta tanks/products/care.	This includes bad care in fish stores, bad novelty bowls, someone else's bad betta care. Posts that ask for input on how to deal with someone's bad care are allowed.
6. Don't post irrelevant stuff, ok?	If it doesn't involve a betta fish, it doesn't belong.
7. All posts but memes must be original content.	So no artwork/photos from other artists (known or unknown), or breeder pictures (except when used in a side-by-side comparison of the advertised betta to the one you actually received). Repost those memes, though, you know you want to.

Welcome to r/bettafish!

Help time to put her down? (tumor) NSFW

Help Help with betta Spoiler