#we were at petsmart today bc we were bored and i ended up looking at the bettas again

[thevastnessof]

my housemate has an old 20 gallon tank + most of the equipment that she has been trying to get rid of but said I could have if I wanted it and ngl I am considering getting a fish

[ranbydoghair]

Partially a rant, partially looking for advice.

So we have two fish at my house, my betta in a tank and my sisters in a 2 gallon bowl. She honestly does not care if her fish lives or dies. The bowl only gets changed every few weeks, whenever it gets super cloudy and gross. She thinks I was crazy when I got a tank for my betta and I explained that it's extremely unhealthy for them to live in a bowl, and it's just plain tiny and boring as well, but "it's just a fish, they don't care". Whatever. I can't make her take care of it.

Last night apparently we left the fish food out and Leo got ahold of it and ate it. Well I had just bought food a few days ago bc we were out, and I asked my sister if she could buy it today since I bought it last time. She said "well you work in a pet store can't you just buy it?" (which also pisses me off bc since I work at petsmart I end up buying twice as much of the pet supplies as she does, but that's another story).

I told her I wouldn't be at work until Thursday, and she asked "well will you just get it then?" I told her I didn't want the fish to go almost three days without eating and she said "they'll be fine, I only feed the fish ever other day anyway". When I said that they needed to be fed twice a day, she said "well he (the fish) has lived this long so it's fine".

All of this is TERRIBLY irritating of course, but my question is how do I convince her that keeping your fish alive doesn't make you a good owner, and that fish aren't just dispensable decorations that don't need to be properly cared for?