Ok, I've had such an ordeal with my bettas that I had to share it!

In January I got a beautiful, healthy betta (Shushi). He lived in a 5 gallon bowl which I cleaned regularly. He was a very active fish who would swim to the glass to meet me whenever I came into the room and would put on a great show at feeding time, flaring and 'stalking' his food. Now, you'll notice I'm using the past tense .

I was cleaning his tank a few weeks ago in the bathroom. I had him in a measuring cup on the counter and he jumped into the sink!!! STUPID me hadn't covered the cup and the plug was out of the sink and my poor baby went down the drain! The worst part is he was stuck there while I tried in vein to get him with a pair of tweezers, before he fell all the way down. Despite dismantling the pipes below the sink, I lost my little guy! Soooooo..the moral of the story is...be CAREFUL with your bettas, they can jump very high and fast. I always kept his bowl covered but in those few minutes that he was in an open container look at what happened!

To end on a happier note, I got a new betta not long after. He turned out to be pretty sick, laying on the bottom all day and not eating. After two weeks of meds and trying various different foods, he's healthy and happy in his very secure bowl!!!

Christina

Aw poor Sushi! (I love the name by the way) Very good point to point out. I'm so sorry to hear that happened to you.
Congrats on the new betta boy though, it's always an adventure to bring a sickly fish back to health.

I can so relate to your situation because a couple of weeks ago my betta, Donkey, also jumped into the sink. Luckily he didn't get close to the drain. I got him back into his tank asap, but I was worried about if his skin got burned by toothpaste residue or anything. He is fine though. I apologized to him every time I walked by his tank for days.
I can only imagine how you felt watching him going down the drain . I'm so sorry!
Well, now we both know to be EXTRA careful during those water changes, huh?
Glad to hear your new betta is doing good!

I feel for you. I had an incident like that too.

Me and my best friend both had bettas. Mine also lived in a 5 gallon bowl, hers lived in a 0.5 gallon I cleaned my bettas bowl every week, and one day I was over at my friends house and I noticed her bowl was filthy and missing half it's water. So I told her we should clean it. We were in the bathroom cleaning away when her little red betta jumped out and into the sink! He almost went down the drain and My friend quickly pulled the lever to plug it. But he was going down tain first and she cought the base of his tail and cut it off! The poor thing was tailless and was gasping for air. I quickly reached down and put him back in his "cleaning Container." I felt so bad. He lives for another month and died of her not cleaning his tank. Poor thing! Mine died a year later because while I was at school my dad decided to "test the water" in his aqarium and it killed my baby within an hour. I came home to a dead betta, a dead friend I had for a year and a half.

I'm sorry about Sushi.

Something like that happened to me before too. While I was cleaning his tank out in the kitchen he jumped out of his bowl and landed right down the drain hole. We have a garbage disposal so he didn't go right down the drain though. I was umm fishing around in there for like 5 minutes and couldn't find him. I was actually starting to think about turning on the garbage disposal to end his life real quick so he didn't have to die a painful death of being stuck in whatever else was down the drain. Well I decided to feel around one more time and I couldn't believe I found him. I put him back in his tank after that and he seems kinda scared of things but went on to live another 2ish years.