Do betas need special food i have seen things like "beta bites" and "beta chemicals&q

in the pet stores, are these just gimmicky items geared towards the ignorent consumer or do betas actually need to be eating special "beta bites" and be doused in chemicals in order to maintain health. i keep my beta in a 10 gallon tank with a couple crabs and a snail, the tank has some conditioning salt added at water changes about a table spoon for the 5 gallons of water in the tank, i dont mind buying special food and chemicals for the beta because i want its living conditions to be as good as possable but i dont want to be a sucker and buy things i dont need either.

Your betta does need special "betta food", mainly because he is a carnivore and requires a high-protein diet unlike that of most other tropical fish. Some bettas will tolerate regular tropical fish flakes, but only the real betta foods (like bloodworms, or Betta Bites/Hikari Bio-Gold pellets) provide him with the nutritional value he needs.

However, you are completely right in saying that most of the "betta medication", "betta housing" and "betta water conditioner" products out there are complete gimmicks. Bettas have been increasing in popularity as pets, but the individual fish are very cheap, so pet stores try to reap a profit off the associated items instead.

For betta medication, it's usually just regular medication that has been heavily diluted. Melafix and Bettafix are great examples - Bettafix is just Melafix, watered down, and I do believe it's quite a bit more expensive.