Ideal betta diet/ What do you feed?

[Lennie]

Hey guys,

Can you please share what you feed your betta. What do you feed and how many times a day/week?

 

I have frozen baby brine and daphnia, freeze dried tubifex and daphnia. Omega 1 Freshwater flakes, Dainichi Tropic micro, NLS small community fish formula on hand. Dainichi and NLS sinks fairly fast tho.

 

Should I buy betta specific food or these are just good to go with? Can they eat frozen daphnia and baby brine or do I need something bigger? 

If betta specific food is needed I can buy one of the following:  Ocean Nutrition Atison's betta food, omega1 betta flakes/pellets, Sera Bettagran, JBL Pro Novo Betta Flakes, Tetra Betta granules and Tropical soft line Betta. No other betta specific food is available here.

We don't have xtreme or bug bites sadly.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

P.S: please feel free to tag betta keepers you know.

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea @Cinnebuns

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Frozen bloodworms

Xtreme betta pellets

Top Fin betta pellets (these were given to me, so they are in the rotation)

Daphnia (dry)

Frozen brine shrimp

Live bbs 

i feed him the frozen food with tongs because he doesn’t always see it right away and it will fall to the ground. He is always at the top when I’m there.

He loves tunnels, and plants to swim through. ❤️

@xXInkedPhoenixX is great w/ betta advice. So is

@Goldie Blue

@Odd Duck

Edited April 17, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[BeeGryphon]

I have a betta in a community tank. I feed one day frozen bloodworms, one day frozen daphnia, have a fast day, and other days feed a 2-3 xtreme betta pellets in the morning and a crushed xtreme community flake in the evening (day to day schedule is not this exactly). He prefers the pellets but will eat the flakes. He doesn't seem to like the daphnia much and I don't know how much he really eats vs how much he kinda just pokes at. I have no idea if that's a betta thing in general or just my guy particularly. I think daphnia might be a bit small though, because I noticed he doesn't ever go for any in the water and only goes after any clumps. I feed both frozen foods with a cone. I'm still pretty new so I can't say this is the ideal betta diet, and I haven't tried any other food yet, but he seems to like them (well, jury's still out on daphnia, I'm hoping it will grow on him).

[Goldie Blue]

I fed all three (now two) bettas Northfin Betta Bits. They were a little too big for a new girl I got a few months ago, so she was enjoying the Hikari Betta-Bio Gold until she got a bit bigger. This is their daily food.

I feed frozen brine shrimp 2-3 times a week, and I pick up live brine shrimp from my LFS a few times a month. Once in a while frozen bloodworms. One of my tanks has a snail, and I make homemade snello that the betta in that tank loves lol. He eats more of it than the snail!

I've tried daphnia and bug bites and none of my guys really seemed jazzed about it. Same with any flake food I have ever tried. Seems like across the board their favorite thing they all go NUTS for is the brine shrimp (frozen or live). 

I feed my frozen foods with a pipette to reduce how much food gets wasted. I just let the frozen food sit in a small amount of water for a few minutes and squeeze a small bit up in the pipette. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

My guy likes daphnia.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@Lennie, I've used Ocean Nutrition and my Bettas have loved it. I say variety is good but I think in your case getting at least one specific food is beneficial. Then throw in the other foods as you have been.

Mine are by themselves or in community tanks, they get different flakes, fry or nano foods, frozen and freeze dried foods and I have 2 or 3  different Betta pellets on hand typically. I rotate all my foods for all my fish. 

Edited April 18, 2023 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[Lennie]

Thanks everyone for the help. I really appreciate all those helpful comments.

On the internet it says keep them between 6.5 and 7.5 ideally. I currently have around 6.0  ph, 3gh, and I guess between 0-3 kh in this tank, using RO. Otherwise my tap has  high kh of 20 and ph of ~8.0. 
 

Tetra read like this:

 

Sera liquid tests read 3 gh (I dose equilibrium, otherwise it is 0) and 6.0 ph.

Is 6.0 low? Should I mix in some tap water? The guy I got my betta from said he keeps his at 6.3 ph.

Also do I need something like a hammock or is anubians leaves enough? I have two anubias nanas. 
 

Keeping the tank at 26 C currently

[Lennie]

The dainichi and NLS I have seem to have much better ingredients than anything I can find betta specific it seems. Dainichi sinks fast but NLS floats for a good amount of time. 
 

This is the NLS ingredients:

 

 

[Sora]

I like feeding my betta vibra bites and frozen brine shrimp 🙂

[Birdsnstuff]

Hi - I'm feeding my current betta Betty a variety of things. 

Omega Betta Buffet Pellets - the goto unless I'm feeding something else.

As the mood hits me with all my tanks....

Xtreme micro pellets

Small Bug Bites

Vibra Bites

Tiny bits of any of the San Francisco frozen Freshwater Multi-pack 

Omega flakes 

frozen BBS

dried brine shrimp

The cardinal/habrosus Cory tank gets more of the sinking small pellets, the Black Phantom tank gets more floating food (with sinking things for the ottos), and the betta gets her betta pellets as her primary food. But being a believer of variety is one of the keys to good nutrition, I mix it up.

As Cory said in a video once - you Will buy too much food. Guilty! 

 

[Odd Duck]

I think as long as you are feeding a couple different kinds of betta specific pellets from reputable companies, as well as offering some frozen and live foods, you should be fine.  Make sure the prepared dry foods don’t get stale.  If you have a few bettas you’re fine, or you can feed the same food to other fish, too, so you use up the container within 6 months or less.  Food I’ve had open longer than that gets fed to my white worms and Grindal worms.  Speaking of which, I need to “decommission” some food.  😝 

[Lennie]

On 4/19/2023 at 7:22 PM, Odd Duck said:

my white worms and Grindal worms.

I have still time to yeet some from @Guppysnail. So no wormies yet! 😄 

I have frozen daphnia, bbs, freeze dried daphnia and tubifex in terms of those foods. Frozen bloodworms and bs got melted due to being left outside by a mistake. :')) 

Do you think ph of 6 is fine? I got him today. Mixed in some tap water so it read something between 6.0-6.5. But I'd rather use full RO which reads 6.0

[Odd Duck]

You could probably get away with a pH of 6 but the water chemistry tends to be a bit more stable when it’s a little higher.  A pH of 6.0 is considered a bit below optimal for bettas, so I would probably try to buffer it a bit by adding some crushed coral to the tank.  I prefer to put the coral in a mesh bag and add it to the filter since I don’t prefer it as a substrate, but that’s my personal choice.  You may light the appearance and by all means, you can mix some into your substrate if you like the look.  If you have a light colored sand, you could get coral sand and mix some in and you probably wouldn’t even notice it.  The contrast with black sand might also look nice if that’s your preference.  Some people like that black and white effect and use it as a theme.

Using crushed coral is much easier than using pH up type products.  The crushed coral usually doesn’t overshoot and go too high, it’s a once and done unless you notice it completely disappearing (usually would take years with a water pH of 6.0).  The most important aspect of pH is keeping it stable since fish can absolutely tolerate pH out of their normal range as long as the pH is stable.  The crushed coral is going to help it stay stable.  As long as your tank pH doesn’t go up so high that every water change drops it dramatically, you should be fine with this simple solution.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

How come we don't have a betta pic to look at @Lennie, hmmmmmmmmmmm????

[Lennie]

On 4/19/2023 at 8:13 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

How come we don't have a betta pic to look at @Lennie, hmmmmmmmmmmm????

Ask me if I can see him. 

I stretch film-ed the whole tank until my lid order comes.  LOL 😄 

[FLFishChik]

Ok, I may be a tad ridiculous when it comes to my Bettas... don't judge me... but here goes

Monday -Freeze Dried Daphnia

Tuesday - Bug Bites Flakes

Wednesday- Xtreme Betta Pellets

Thursday - Frozen Brine Shrimp

Friday - Bug Bites Pellets

Saturday - Vibrabites

Sunday - Frozen Blood Worms

 

IDK why I feel so fanatical about giving them such a varied diet, I think it's because they seem so prone to digestive issues... and I've dealt with my share of nursing several through bloat, constipation and the like. But, I'm kind of the same way with my other fish ( Cardinal Tetra and Panda Corydoras), they get a varied diet as well, even though they have had any issues.

 

[MoonMom]

@FLFishChik @Lennie and others, how do you feed freeze dried daphnia? Does it need to be soaked first? 

[Lennie]

On 4/20/2023 at 7:45 AM, MoonMom said:

@FLFishChik @Lennie and others, how do you feed freeze dried daphnia? Does it need to be soaked first? 

Well, I have never been able to successfully soak it. It always kept floating and my fish usually don't like surface feeding. Planning to feed betta directly on the surface

On 4/20/2023 at 6:16 AM, FLFishChik said:

Ok, I may be a tad ridiculous when it comes to my Bettas... don't judge me... but here goes

Monday -Freeze Dried Daphnia

Tuesday - Bug Bites Flakes

Wednesday- Xtreme Betta Pellets

Thursday - Frozen Brine Shrimp

Friday - Bug Bites Pellets

Saturday - Vibrabites

Sunday - Frozen Blood Worms

 

IDK why I feel so fanatical about giving them such a varied diet, I think it's because they seem so prone to digestive issues... and I've dealt with my share of nursing several through bloat, constipation and the like. But, I'm kind of the same way with my other fish ( Cardinal Tetra and Panda Corydoras), they get a varied diet as well, even though they have had any issues.

 

That's looking great. I always feed my fish like this too 😄 Sounds great

[FLFishChik]

On 4/20/2023 at 12:45 AM, MoonMom said:

@FLFishChik @Lennie and others, how do you feed freeze dried daphnia? Does it need to be soaked first? 

It doesn’t really want to soak well… it almost seems hydrophobic 😂, but all of my Bettas are OK with eating from the surface (one seems to ONLY eat from the surface. If it starts to sink then he loses interest), so it isn’t a issue. If yours doesn’t , you could try taking a pinch of daphnia and kind of roll it between your fingers just under the surface and see if that helps to keep it from floating 

[Daydre]

Admittedly I'm a little lazy and my betta gets Hikari Betta Bio Gold most of the time, occasionally supplemented with bloodworms.

I need to get him more variety but he's my only fish right now so I'm worried about extra food going to waste if I don't feed it before it goes bad 😭

[Lennie]

On 4/20/2023 at 6:58 PM, Daydre said:

Admittedly I'm a little lazy and my betta gets Hikari Betta Bio Gold most of the time, occasionally supplemented with bloodworms.

I need to get him more variety but he's my only fish right now so I'm worried about extra food going to waste if I don't feed it before it goes bad 😭

Understandable! I usually keep most of my freshly opened food in the freezer and never touch those packs. Maybe u can try it! 
 

Having two food at least can be a good idea.

 

as an update: I’ve tried NLS, He loved it! 
Also in my lfs there was Omega one betta pellets, it was pretty cheap so I got it. He struggles eating it directly, spits out, when it soaks for a min or two, he eats it. 
So he liked both for now.

 

What makes betta food special for bettas? 

[Daydre]

On 4/20/2023 at 12:10 PM, Lennie said:

Understandable! I usually keep most of my freshly opened food in the freezer and never touch those packs. Maybe u can try it! 
 

Having two food at least can be a good idea.

 

What makes betta food special for bettas? 

This will probably sound silly but my brain has this "out of sight, out of mind" thing going on where if something isn't in a place where I'll pass by it all the time I just kinda ignore it. It's not that I'm doing it intentionally, it's just how my brain works.

So unfortunately I don't pass by the fridge in my house when it's feeding time for the boy, and I'm worried about just forgetting to use the food that requires refrigeration and falling back on the pellets anyway. It's why the bloodworms are only a once in a while thing- well, aside from them also being kinda fatty.

As far as I'm aware, food specially formulated for bettas is mostly just high in protein and (ideally) low in stuff like carbs and plant matter. (I say ideally because not all food brands follow this lol) I assume it also has specific minerals and nutrients that bettas would need, but I haven't really researched that so take my assumption with a grain of salt.

 

[FLFishChik]

Ok… hear me out…

buy those individuals pill containers, fill them with a month or two worth of food and then put the rest into the freezer. Refill as needed.

OR

 

Fill ALL of containers up with each food.. store all the same food in a ziplock of their own (all the pellets in one bag, all the flakes in one bag and so on) in the freezer. when 1 container runs out, then ya just reach into the freezer and pull out a ready to go container.

Edited April 20, 2023 by FLFishChik

[Lennie]

On 4/20/2023 at 8:11 PM, FLFishChik said:

Ok… hear me out…

buy those individuals pill containers, fill them with a month or two worth of food and then put the rest into the freezer. Refill as needed.

OR

 

Fill ALL of containers up with each food.. store all the same food in a ziplock of their own (all the pellets in one bag, all the flakes in one bag and so on) in the freezer. when 1 container runs out, then ya just reach into the freezer and pull out a ready to go container.

Is it okay for jars to be clear or they have to be dark colored? 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Lennie

[FLFishChik]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:26 PM, Lennie said:

Is it okay for jars to be clear or they have to be dark colored? 

I guess it depends on how they are being stored. If you’re keeping them (the ones in use) inside a tank stand or a container where they aren’t exposed to light much , then it wouldn’t matter. If they are going to be sitting out on a shelf, then maybe consider putting them in dark colored containers?

Edited April 20, 2023 by FLFishChik