About Bunstay: Betta Fish Care, Honestly

I’m Bun Berka. I grew up in Rabat, where the pet stalls sold goldfish in glass jars and nobody thought twice about it.

My first betta died six weeks after I bought him. He came with a one-gallon kit and a shop assistant who told me bettas prefer small spaces. What killed him was ammonia poisoning, then fin rot. Everything I had been told was wrong.

Later I found out I live twenty minutes from Gibsonton, where a lot of those fish are bred. So I went to look. Those farms run proper filtration, hold temperature, and test their water. The fish leave healthy.

They die in the last mile: the cup, the shelf, and the bowl someone carries home thinking it is enough.

Bunstay is about closing that gap. Everything here is what I run on my own tanks, checked against welfare and veterinary sources.

What we believe

We recommend the minimum conditions that keep a betta healthy, not the minimum that keeps it alive.

Most betta advice describes survival conditions. A betta can survive in a bowl for a while, which is exactly why the bowl keeps getting sold. We write about the conditions in which a betta actually does well, and we do not negotiate on that for a commission.

In practice: never a tank under 5 gallons, never a tropical fish without a heater, and never a claim about a disease that we cannot source.

Where the fish actually come from

Florida farms roughly 95% of the freshwater ornamental fish produced in the United States, concentrated in Hillsborough, Polk and Dade counties. The industry trade body sits in Gibsonton, a short drive from where these articles are written.

Those farms are professional operations. They hold temperature, run real filtration, and test their water. The fish leave healthy. What fails is the last mile: the shipping cup, the shelf, and the bowl the customer takes home believing it is enough. That gap is the subject of this site.

How we work

• Care guidance is tested on 4 tanks before it is published
• Health claims are cited to veterinary and welfare sources, never to other blogs
• Photographs of tanks, fish and symptoms are real, never generated
• We publish three articles a week, edited by a person, rather than filling the site with volume
• We say when we do not know something

The full detail is in our editorial policy and fact-checking policy.

What we are not

Bun Berka has kept bettas for 9 years and is not a veterinarian. Where a question needs clinical expertise he does not have, the article says so and points to someone who does. See the disclaimer.

Get in touch

Corrections, questions and press: [email protected], or use the contact page. If you think something here is wrong, we especially want to hear it.