Betta with small mouth

[Elisabeth83]

I noticed that one of my female bettas has the smallest mouth. It's tiny It doesn't open up like the other girls either. She can't even fit a Hikari betta pellet in her mouth. The only thing that she can get in there are bloodworms. Is a diet of only bloodworms ok?

 

[The_Gilly]

i wouldn't feed blood worms only. Try and find some betta specific flake food. You could always cut up the pellets for her.

Some would say deformed, i'd just say she's special

 

[tekknocolor]

I have a female that is the same exact way. If I'm strapped for time, she gets flakes, but usually I'll try crushing the Hikari pellets so she can eat them. Works great...

 

[RandomWiktor]

I had a betta with that problem. Fed him fancy guppy (they're tiny lil micropellets), blood worms, brine shrimp, and mosquito larvae.

You could try a carnivore-specific fry food I suppose? Or flakes.

 

[Elisabeth83]

Oh I didn't think there would be so many others with a "Special" betta

Gee I never even thought about crushing the pellets ) But I do know one of the pet shops around here sell the tiny guppy pellets are they basically the same thing as betta pellets?? I'd assume so

I'll have to pick up some next time I'm there. In the mean time I'll crush up the pellets

When I first got her I thought her mouth looked small compared to the others but didnt think much of it..thought maybe it was the angle I was seeing it or something but then today I fed them pellets and watched her try and get it and all she'd do was push it along the surface Poor little thing. I think shes lucky she got me most likely if someone else bought her they might not even notice and she'd starve

Thanks everyone for the advice

 

[fishlover2005]

i woulden't say that your fish are deformed i would say that they are special.. very special

 

[AlexsDaddy]

One of my females is the same way. She would swim around the tank for a half hour holding a pellet in her mouth. It was pretty comical. I now feed her TetraMin Tropical Granules. It's 46% crude protein. Hakari boi gold is 38% so the tetramin is pretty good for bettas. The only problem is that they sink after a couple seconds so if you have her in a tank with gravel and don't want that uneaten food on the bottom to rot away and give you a nice boost of ammonia you'll be gravel vacing every couple days. I also give her Nutrafin Max flakes. That has 45% Crude Protein and are betta specific. She loves them both, but the nutrafin flakes are pretty big so I break them up a little before I put them in. HTH!

 

[tekknocolor]

Mine's not deformed, but doesn't appear to like to eat stuff larger than the size of a grain of salt. Also, I found that my females like to eat Hikari Micro Pellets. They're actually for fish with tiny mouths like tiger barbs, but the females gobble them up like they've been starved. Hikari micro pellets and flakes should keep them well nourished.