A Bit About Me

​My name is Sarah, also known as @bettasandfriends. I have a Masters in Chemical Engineering, which is where my love for water chemistry came from. I have been in the aquarium hobby for 6 years. I started off with a small tropical fish tank and of course I did everything wrong in the beginning. With the help of some fellow hobbiests and a ton of research, I learnt about the nitrogen cycle, how to properly create a healthy ecosystem and moved from plastic plants to real ones. I set up a 500L planted community tank which was a huge success and expanded my knowledge to proper plant care. Shortly afterwards I set up a much smaller tank and got my first betta. I fell in love with bettas after than and quickly expanded to multiple betta tanks. I joined the the South African Betta Association group, learnt a lot and eventually took over the group and began helpin others. During covid my hobby expanded even further until my family were bored of me constantly talking about fish so I started @bettasandfriends. I started the account just to share footage of my fish but as it grew I started getting questions and requests for help from other fishkeepers. Years later, I have helped more people than I can count from beginners to experienced hobbiests, I learned that I have a knack for teaching, and I absolutely love paying forward the help that I got from the community back when I started. I have subsequently moved to the UK, joined some new groups, progressed to high tech planted tanks, entered aquascaping competitions, secured various product sponsorships for my tanks and now have a huge amount of knowledge that I strive to share with as many people as possible. Remember, it’s ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. Everyone has to start somewhere.