Feedings

[smarch93]

I've come across yet another care no-no I've been doing.  I was reading the care sheet on here and the food part.  Are the round pellet foods ok as a primary diet? all the bettas my family ever owned when I grew up lived off them, and one lived almost 6 years! So I get how frozen/live food can be better but i'm a bit skeptical.  I'll get some if its right for my boy, but i'll need some convincing on that due to the 6 year betta we owned living off the pellets.  I'd only get frozen, since I have issues with the live food thing, I wont buy them and keep them until feeding and since getting live things outside isn't advisable the live idea isn't happening, but frozen I can do if what's needed. 
 
I've been trying to vary my bettas diet by adding tropic flakes every other day to his diet.  But I also just got a "treat wheel" from zoo-med with the freeze dried blood worms and 2 other freeze dried foods.  I read freeze dried is not recommended and a poor decision as causes bloating and problems.  Pain since I literally bought it yesterday but I read in an older post here that you can just pre-soak the freeze dried treats to feed, would anyone recommend that? and should those be fed very seldom as the aren't very nutritious or could I switch daily between each of the 3 treats the pellets and the flakes every weekday and fast the weekend? Will having fast days effect the waste production and my (not yet established) nitrogen cycle? since he's the only fish in the tank. 
 
I mean I've successfully kept bettas before but I feel like I didn't give them the ideal conditions and happiness I could have and i'm trying to work on that (sorry i'm new and posting so much... so many new questions keep popping into my head!)
 
~regards, Sarah
 

 

[GuppyGirl20]

Bettas need a varried diet. It is recomended that you have at least three different types of good food sources for them to eat. I was told that flakes aren't good for bettas so idk about keeping that in his diet. You could keep the pellets and get frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp or daphina (one of these two) and then just mix it up during the week but the majority should be the frozen food and not the pellets. You can keep the treats you bought but they should be fed only seldomly (as in it shouldn't be his main diet source. I made that mistake becasue my little betta seems so uninterested in pellets at the top of his tank and the freeze dried food sank easier (I didn't know about the soaking method at the time)) As to the nutriousness of the freeze dried food I don't understand how it's bad becasue the ingredience in the kind that I used were all good things *shrug*.
I would suggest soaking the pellets and freeze dried food at least ten minutes before feeding it to your betta.
If pellets are working really well for you then don't sweat it

I would just suggest getting some frozen food to give him also and it should be fine. 
Fasting the betta is all around good for their health as it helps prevent constipation and swim bladdar issues. Somebody else will have to comment on the cycling bit becasue I don't really know how that works. Hope I've been helpful, cheers!
 
(P.s. Sorry if there are spelling mistakes. For some reason my spellcheck has stopped working for my internet)

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Tropical flakes tend not to have enough nutrients for bettas so really aren't worth using.
 
A good quality pellet can provide your betta with all the nutrients it needs.  I feed mine pellets that I pre-soak.  He only rarely gets other bits and he doesn't really care for anything else other than blood worms.

 

[smarch93]

Bettas need a varried diet. It is recomended that you have at least three different types of good food sources for them to eat. I was told that flakes aren't good for bettas so idk about keeping that in his diet. You could keep the pellets and get frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp or daphina (one of these two) and then just mix it up during the week but the majority should be the frozen food and not the pellets. You can keep the treats you bought but they should be fed only seldomly (as in it shouldn't be his main diet source. I made that mistake becasue my little betta seems so uninterested in pellets at the top of his tank and the freeze dried food sank easier (I didn't know about the soaking method at the time)) As to the nutriousness of the freeze dried food I don't understand how it's bad becasue the ingredience in the kind that I used were all good things *shrug*.
I would suggest soaking the pellets and freeze dried food at least ten minutes before feeding it to your betta.
If pellets are working really well for you then don't sweat it

I would just suggest getting some frozen food to give him also and it should be fine. 
Fasting the betta is all around good for their health as it helps prevent constipation and swim bladdar issues. Somebody else will have to comment on the cycling bit becasue I don't really know how that works. Hope I've been helpful, cheers!
 
(P.s. Sorry if there are spelling mistakes. For some reason my spellcheck has stopped working for my internet)

This does help, I'll look for some frozens next week while I'm near a pet store.  Pellets pre soaked will sink right? my betta seems to have trouble when the pellets start sinking because he looses them in the gravel, are there ways to prevent this, and would I soak them in a little water then pour the little water and pellets all in? Are frozen feeding instructions on the containers? I mean I assume I have to let it thaw considering a betta eating cold in a warm environment can't be good... sounds like one heck of a brain freeze! but does frozen need soaking too? I'm new to the frozen concept but i'll get it for him if its good to compliment pellets, i'll just only get one frozen thing at a time and switch what type each time, still variety just over more time, like grilled cheese for a month then mac and cheese the next still boring  but a change up and variety.  I've only ever had one betta with swim bladder/constipation issues and it ended up working itself out before needing treatment, I didn't feed him for a while and kinda made sence of feeding more to compensate.... yeah no that doesn't work, I just wasn't thinking. 
 
I think the freeze dried foods aren't nutritious as a staple probably because something in the process takes away a lot of nutrients, which I get, I mean I picture those astronaut ice cream packets you can buy that are freeze dried but nowhere near as "nutritious" as ice cream (not that it is, but some stuff is lost). 

Tropical flakes tend not to have enough nutrients for bettas so really aren't worth using.
 
A good quality pellet can provide your betta with all the nutrients it needs.  I feed mine pellets that I pre-soak.  He only rarely gets other bits and he doesn't really care for anything else other than blood worms.

 I just remembered that I think the flakes I have are specifically betta flakes, because I got them when I tried to raise a baby because they were easy to crush up nice and tiny, does that make a difference?

 

[GuppyGirl20]

Here's what I did for my betta. I kept the top of my freeze dried food so I would have something to soak the food in. You just suck out a little bit of water from the tank with the pipette (and obvious squirt that water into your a container lol) and then drop how ever many pellts in there to soak. After about ten minues just use the pipette to suck up all the water including the pelets and then just squirt that back into your tank (You can do this slowly and squirt one pellet at a time so your betta can get them all).
For frozen food: Your right it does need to be thawed before you feed it to your betta. Again put a little bit of tank water into a container. I only have one betta, so I use a knife to pick enough off of the block of frozen food for him to eat and I put the frozen food package back in the frezer. Let the pieces of food sit in there for 10ish minutes and you can tell when it's thawed. (idk how to describe it other than it just looks mushier).
 
Another note: All bettas are different but they all are prone to constipation which leads to swim bladdar problems. Some rarely ever have problems and some have problems all the time. I have to feed my betta once a day and I fast him twice a week becasue he seemed to be bloated a lot

Also if you have pic of your guy I'd love to see it ^-^ mine is my signature picture.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I am using Hikari Bio Gold Pellets and pre-soak them for about 5 minutes and they don't sink before he eats them.  He eats them within about 2 minutes (I feed him about 5 pellets)... it is rare one stays in the tank long enough to sink.  I have a tiny container and scoop some tank water, put the pellets in then dump it back after 5 minutes.
 
Betta flakes are better than tropical.  I do also have betta flakes but nearly never use them... they are a lot hard to portion out and disperse quickly plus can't be pre-soaked.

 

[smarch93]

Here's my little man Svyatoslav (Boris). He's a crowntail I've had about 9 months now

 

[GuppyGirl20]

He's beautiful!

 

[smarch93]

He sure is and I'd like to keep him that way one of the most beautiful I've ever kept.

 

[eduller]

I just wanted to add that most pellet food manufacturers advise to NOT pre-soak the pellets, as it leaches out some of the nutrients.

 

[majerah1]

Flakes are notorious for bloating bettas which is one reason those and freeze dried foods are not suggested. Frozen and live will give your boy the best nutrition but adding pellets is ok too. 
 
 
For what its worth, I feed mine this:
 
Frozen foods consisting of Brine shrimp, blood worms, glass worms, daphnia and beefheart. These being SFB brand, refuse Hikari frozen )
 
Pellets consisting of Attisons betta Pro, Almost natural, Hikari, and Ocean nutrition
 
Live foods consisting of Grindal worms, BBS and scuds.