Nemo has arrived.

[bigfish]

Hi

I took the plunge and decided to get a male betta, he is stunning coral red fighter with beautiful finnage, he has found his new home very interesting, at the moment he's inspecting the plants for hiding places, checking out his looks in the reflection of the tank glass..........lol

The bloke in the petshop said that they would eat normal flake food, but i tried to give him some Nutrafin max tropical flake but just spit it out as much to say 'i aint eating that, do you have bloodworms by any chance!!!!!'

Do i need to buy him special betta food?

 

[juliethegr8t]

A lot of people have found that their bettas won't eat flake food of any kind and need betta pellets - Hikari seems to be a popular brand of food from what I've heard. However, I'm one of the lucky ones who takes Tetra BettaMin flakes.

 

[shimanocono]

Congrats! On fighter do you meen he is a plakat? Also what size tank is he in? Most bettas don't eat flake although some do. My betta came with some betta flake food but he doesn't eat it, he takes it in his mouth then spits it out. So I feed him betta bites and occasionly frozen bloodworms! He really seems to like the bloodworms!

 

[wuvmybetta]

awww,he sounds lovely
hikari pellets are the best, also try frozen bloodworms & live brine, I've never attempted to feed flakes so I dunno about those

 

[freshmike]

My bettas started out on flakes, then I got them Hikari betta bio gold pellets and now they won't even look at flakes! Snobby lil guys!

 

[bigfish]

Yeah he's so colourful, he likes to flare up his fins when he looks at his reflection......lol

Just keeps taking the flake in his mouth and spits it out, maybe he's testing it out or something

I will try bloodworms see if that perks him up. He's in a 60 litre hexangle tank with 3 large amazon swords to hid behind.

awwwww i love him.

 

[shimanocono]

He's got a nice big tank all to himself! He should be happy there!

 

[cassandra]

i got a male betta about a month ago, i found he wouldn't eat the flake food either, he would spit it out as well. by a few days later i went to feed the fish and he started to eat the flake food. tahnk god i didn't have any money at that time to get betta food much cheeper this way

 

[SneakBetta]

I still can't believe so many bettas won't eat flakes. All the bettas I've had ate flakes. WEIRD!! I use the Tetra BettaMin.

 

[D347H]

It all depends on what they were fed before you bought them. Maybe they were fed on betta pellets, maybe they were fed on live or frozen bloodworms, etc.
Best thing to do is ask the person you bought the betta from what they fed their betta's. I bought all of mine from Wal-Mart and they told me they all fed them pellets. So that is their diet of choice. However, I never tried bloodworms yet. Wish I would of knew about mesquito larva before fall decided to hit, i can't find any bloodworms around here at all for sale so I have to order them online.

But they are some picky ass fish. I used to have quite a lot of tropical fish as a kid. I had an electric cat, an oscar, and bunches of others including soft shell spiked turtles.

But Betta's, i've had trouble getting them to eat. Especially now since I am trying to breed my 2 males with a bunch of females. My larger male tries to blow bubbles for the nest, but they keep popping, and he's getting really frusterated and then chases the female, pecks at her, then tries again.

 

[bigfish]

Nemo has settled in well in his new surrounds, he likes to play hide and seek with amazon swords. Gave me a fright this afternoon, went up to check on him and he had disappeared and

"i thought oh no he's jumped out and laying on the condensation tray"

Then he comes swimming out of the amazon swords as much to say 'here i am bigfish' .......lol

He ate his flake all up this morning which is a relief as i don't have much dosh for getting him beta food.

i just love him to bits

 

[bigfish]

Hi just a quick question Nemo has black curly bits on the edge of his fins, should i be worried? i checked water chemistry and it's all zero (ammonia and nitrite) nitrate is 5mg and ph is 7.6

 

[SneakBetta]

it could possibly be fin rot

 

[SneakBetta]

Yah! He'll become his best friend. Pretty soon you'll want more and more LOL