This page is where I list every source I cited on KnowBetta, with notes on who wrote it and who published it, so you can double check the info for yourself.
Most of the online sources below are free to read in full, though some are paywalled or only in print. I’ve linked to where you can find each one, and your local library can often get you the rest.
If you spot a dead link, a sketchy study, or a source that deserves a more critical eye than I’ve given it, shoot me a message at [email protected].
Journal Articles
Pleeging, C. C. F., & Moons, C. P. H. (2017). Potential welfare issues of the Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) at the retailer and in the hobbyist aquarium. Vlaams Diergeneeskundig Tijdschrift, 86(4).
A veterinary review of the welfare issues in how bettas are sold and kept, from the store shelf to the home tank. Senior author Christel Moons is Associate Professor of Applied Ethology and Animal Welfare at Ghent University in Belgium, where she’s directed the animal welfare research group since 2011. The journal is the peer-reviewed, open-access publication of Ghent’s veterinary faculty, publishing since the early 1930s.
Lichak, M. R., Barber, J. R., Kwon, Y. M., Francis, K. X., & Bendesky, A. (2022). Care and use of Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) for research. Comparative Medicine, 72(3), 169–180.
A husbandry guide for research laboratories that keep bettas, with a solid breakdown of the basics: water, feeding, housing, handling. It comes from the Columbia University lab of Andrés Bendesky, which compares the genomes of wild and fighting-strain bettas to find the genes that breeding for aggression actually changed. Comparative Medicine was a journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science; in 2025 it merged into the association’s other journal, JAALAS, so if you go looking for it, that’s where it went.
Clark-Shen, N., Tariel-Adam, J., Gajanur, A., & Brown, C. (2024). Life beyond a jar: Effects of tank size and furnishings on the behaviour and welfare of Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). Animal Welfare, 33, e62.
An experiment that rotated male bettas through housing from a 1.5-liter jar up to a 19-liter tank. In the smaller and barren containers, the fish rested more, swam less, and spent more time on what the authors classify as “abnormal behaviors,” like stereotypic swimming. The authors’ own conclusion is that small, barren housing is “detrimental to their welfare.” Senior author Culum Brown is a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney whose research focus is fish cognition and welfare. Animal Welfare is the official journal of Science for Animal Welfare, published by Cambridge University Press since 1992.
Oldfield, R. G., & Murphy, E. K. (2024). Life in a fishbowl: Space and environmental enrichment affect behaviour of Betta splendens. Animal Welfare, 33, e1.
A direct test of tank size and enrichment: bettas kept in smaller volumes swam less, and enrichment changed their behavior too. Ronald Oldfield studies fish in the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University.
Kajimura, M., Takimoto, K., & Takimoto, A. (2023). Acute toxicity of ammonia and nitrite to Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). BMC Zoology, 8(1), 25.
Measured toxicity thresholds for ammonia and nitrite in adult bettas, from Makiko Kajimura’s group at Wakayama University in Japan. BMC Zoology is an open-access Springer Nature journal that publishes its reviewer reports alongside each paper.
Xu, Y., Li, L., Chen, Y., Zhang, Y., Niu, T., Huang, P., & Chai, L. (2026). Effects of aquatic plants on water quality, microbial community, and fish behaviors in newly established betta aquaria. Animals, 16(2), 247.
This study from Northeast Forestry University in Harbin, China, set up new betta tanks with and without live plants and measured lower ammonia in every planted tank. Animals is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal indexed in the major scientific databases.
Iwata, E., Masamoto, K., Kuga, H., & Ogino, M. (2021). Timing of isolation from an enriched environment determines the level of aggressive behavior and sexual maturity in Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). BMC Zoology, 6(1), 15.
Found that the age at which a young betta gets separated from an enriched environment changes how aggressive it becomes. Corresponding author Eri Iwata held appointments at Iwaki Meisei University, the Institute of Osaka Marine Research, and the veterinary faculty of Okayama University of Science when the paper was published.
Larcombe, E., Alexander, M. E., Snellgrove, D., Henriquez, F. L., & Sloman, K. A. (2025). Current disease treatments for the ornamental pet fish trade and their associated problems. Reviews in Aquaculture, 17(1), e12948.
A recent review of the treatments sold to aquarists and what’s wrong with many of them. Senior author Katherine Sloman is a professor at the University of the West of Scotland and a senior editor of the Journal of Fish Biology. One co-author works at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute, the research arm of Mars Petcare (parent company of API and Aquarian), which part-funded the work. Worth knowing, even though the review is explicitly about the problems with the industry’s products, not a defense of them.
Declercq, A. M., Haesebrouck, F., Van den Broeck, W., Bossier, P., & Decostere, A. (2013). Columnaris disease in fish: A review with emphasis on bacterium-host interactions. Veterinary Research, 44(1), 27.
A scientific review of how columnaris actually attacks fish tissue. Senior author Annemie Decostere works in the veterinary faculty at Ghent University. Veterinary Research is an open-access journal co-published with INRAE, France’s national agricultural research institute.
Goldstein, S. R. (1975). Observations on the establishment of a stable community of adult male and female Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). Animal Behaviour, 23, 179–185.
An older study of what happens when adult bettas share space, from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The author is almost certainly the same Stephen R. Goldstein who was publishing betta conditioning experiments from the University of Alberta in the late 1960s. Animal Behaviour itself dates to 1953.
Leggatt, R. A., Graham, Y., Laqua, E., Biagi, C. A., Devlin, R. H., & Wellband, K. W. (2025). Lower chronic temperature limits in three common tropical aquarium fish. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 103, 1–7.
Measured cold-tolerance limits for common tropical aquarium fish. Lead author Rosalind Leggatt is a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Pacific Science Enterprise Centre in West Vancouver. Canadian Science Publishing, a not-for-profit that grew out of Canada’s National Research Council, has published the Canadian Journal of Zoology since 1951.
Ramos, A., & Gonçalves, D. (2019). Artificial selection for male winners in the Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens correlates with high female aggression. Frontiers in Zoology, 16(1), 34.
Found that in betta strains bred for male fighting, the females are also highly aggressive. The title is careful to say this is a correlation with the breeding, not a proven mechanism. Both authors work at the Institute of Science and Environment at the University of Saint Joseph in Macau. Frontiers in Zoology is the official journal of the German Zoological Society (no relation to the commercial “Frontiers” publisher, despite the name).
Samara, S. H., Samtika, A. W., Prayogo, & Amran, R. H. (2025). The effect of different natural feeds on the color brightness of ornamental betta fish (Betta splendens). Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, 29(4), 1129–1138.
A feeding trial measuring what different live and natural foods do to betta coloration, from the aquaculture department at Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia. The journal is the peer-reviewed publication of the Egyptian Society for the Development of Fisheries and Human Health.
Snekser, J. L., McRobert, S. P., & Clotfelter, E. D. (2006). Social partner preferences of male and female fighting fish (Betta splendens). Behavioural Processes, 72(1), 38–41.
Bettas are famously antisocial, so this study asked: given the choice, what company do they actually prefer? Senior author Ethan Clotfelter is a biology professor at Amherst College. Behavioural Processes is an Elsevier animal-behavior journal publishing since 1976.
Academic & Veterinary References
Wildgoose, W. H. & British Small Animal Veterinary Association (Eds.). (2001). BSAVA Manual of Ornamental Fish (2nd ed.). British Small Animal Veterinary Association.
The British Small Animal Veterinary Association is the UK’s professional body for small-animal vets, founded in 1957 and now over 10,000 members strong. Its ornamental fish manual, written by 29 contributors from the UK and USA primarily for veterinarians, describes fish disease the way a clinician sees it, not the way a product label does. Editor William H. Wildgoose is a London veterinarian who qualified in 1977, earned the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons certificate in fish health, edited the Fish Veterinary Journal, and has advised the UK’s Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association since 1996.
Merck Veterinary Manual, fish sections (merckvetmanual.com)
The Merck Veterinary Manual has been in continuous publication for over 70 years, written and reviewed exclusively by veterinarians: more than 400 independent expert authors, with editorial board peer review on top. Its fish pages carry named review credits from the same University of Florida aquatic veterinarians whose extension publications appear below.
Roberts, H. (Ed.). (2010). Fundamentals of Ornamental Fish Health. Wiley-Blackwell.
A veterinary textbook devoted entirely to ornamental fish, edited by Helen E. Roberts, a veterinarian trained at the University of Georgia. She’s a founding member of the World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association and a past chair of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s aquatic medicine committee.
Urdes, L., Walster, C., & Tepper, J. (Eds.). (2022). Fundamentals of Aquatic Veterinary Medicine. Wiley-Blackwell.
A veterinary reference structured around the World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association’s certification program for aquatic veterinarians. All three editors are veterinarians and past presidents of that association: Laura Urdes (an assistant professor of veterinary medicine in Bucharest), Chris Walster (a UK veterinary surgeon), and Julius Tepper (a veterinarian at the Long Island Fish Hospital).
Yanong, R. P. E. (with Lewbart, G. A.). (2024). The Aquarium Fish Medicine Handbook. CRC Press.
By Roy Yanong (see the extension publications below) and Gregory Lewbart, Professor of Aquatic, Wildlife, and Zoological Medicine at North Carolina State’s veterinary college, who worked as a corporate veterinarian for ornamental fish wholesalers before academia.
Kristiansen, T., Fernö, A., Pavlidis, M. A., & van de Vis, J. W. (Eds.). (2020). The Welfare of Fish. Springer.
An academic volume on fish welfare science from Springer’s Animal Welfare series, edited by four European researchers, with the lead editor at Norway’s Institute of Marine Research. Its chapters include one devoted to ornamental fish and aquaria: welfare science applied to fish in home aquariums as well as farms.
Tillberg, C. V. (2010). Betta splendens. In M. D. Breed & J. Moore (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior (pp. 200–204). Elsevier Academic Press.
An entry on betta behavior from Elsevier’s Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, an academic reference spanning roughly 2,700 pages, edited by biologists Michael D. Breed and Janice Moore.
University Extension Publications
Watson, C. A., DiMaggio, M., Hill, J. E., Tuckett, Q. M., & Yanong, R. P. E. (2019). Evolution, culture, and care for Betta splendens (FA212). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
One of the few institutional documents written about betta care specifically, by five aquaculture scientists and veterinarians. It comes from UF/IFAS Extension, the University of Florida’s numbered, peer-reviewed public education publications. Like everything in this section, it’s the work of faculty at the university’s Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin. Florida is the center of American ornamental fish farming, and this lab exists to serve it. Lead author Craig A. Watson ran the laboratory from its founding until his retirement in 2023.
Francis-Floyd, R., Watson, C., Petty, D., & Pouder, D. (2022). Ammonia in aquatic systems (FA16). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
A clear explanation of ammonia in aquatic systems. Lead author Ruth Francis-Floyd is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, board-certified in zoological medicine, and Professor and Extension Specialist for Aquatic Medicine at Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where she coordinates the residency program in aquatic animal health. You’ll find her name on several of the publications in this section.
Francis-Floyd, R., Yanong, R. P. E., & Pouder, D. (2016). Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (white spot) infections in fish (CIR920). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
The ich parasite’s biology, life cycle, and management, written for fish producers and keepers.
Francis-Floyd, R. (2018). Stress: its role in fish disease (Circular 919). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
Covers the link between stress and disease: how poor conditions and handling lower a fish’s immune defenses.
Francis-Floyd, R. (2018). Introduction to fish health management (CIR921/FA004). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
A general primer on preventing and managing disease in captive fish.
Yanong, R. (2004). Fish health management considerations in recirculating aquaculture systems, part 3 (FA101). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
Health management in recirculating systems: the same biological filtration that runs a home aquarium, at farm scale. Author Roy P. E. Yanong is a veterinarian trained at the University of Pennsylvania who spent four and a half years as staff veterinarian on a commercial ornamental fish farm before joining the university in 1996, and co-founded the American Association of Fish Veterinarians.
Yanong, R. P. E. (2025). Use of antibiotics in ornamental fish aquaculture (CIR 84). UF/IFAS Extension, University of Florida.
Guidance on when antibiotics are appropriate in ornamental fish and how to use them responsibly.
Books
Brammah, M. (2015). The Betta Bible: The Art and Science of Keeping Bettas. Blurb, Incorporated.
Martin Brammah is a professional ecologist with a PhD in zoology from the University of Cambridge; his doctoral research, a lizard population-genetics study, was published in The Herpetological Journal in 2010. By his own description, he lives with “a room full of bettas.” The book is self-published: what’s on the page came straight from him.
Goldstein, R. J. (2012). Bettas (2nd ed.). Barron’s. and Goldstein, R. J. (2015). The Betta Handbook. Sourcebooks.
Robert Jay Goldstein (1937–2021) was one of the hobby’s long-serving writers: an aquarium author with a PhD in microbiology and parasitology who ran his own environmental consulting firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, and held memberships in the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and the American Fisheries Society. His shelf runs from Cichlids of the World and Anabantoids: Gouramis and Related Fishes (the betta’s own family) to Diseases of Aquarium Fishes and American Aquarium Fishes, a natural history he wrote for Texas A&M University Press. These two betta titles are the practical end of that career: keeper’s guides to selection, care, and behavior.
Where to buy Bettas · Where to buy The Betta Handbook
Alderton, D. (2019). Encyclopedia of Aquarium & Pond Fish (3rd ed.). DK.
David Alderton trained as a veterinary surgeon before an allergy forced a career change into writing; his pet and natural-history books have sold over five million copies. This one is a photographic, species-by-species guide to aquarium and pond fish from DK, the visual-reference publisher.
Websites
Aquarium Co-Op (aquariumcoop.com)
A specialty freshwater aquarium retailer in Edmonds, Washington, founded by Cory McElroy in 2012, known for its care guides and YouTube channel. Its authority is practical, not scientific: a store that keeps, breeds, and ships the fish it writes about.
SeriouslyFish (seriouslyfish.com)
A species-profile database run by Matt Ford, a conservation biologist and member of the IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group, who works on Red List assessments of European freshwater fishes.