Trouble Getting Your Betta to Eat?

[jkun17]

I noticed that whenever I get new Betta, for the first few days he won't eat the Betta pellets. After a few days I would grow worried that my Betta would not be eating, so I know how strange it can be waiting for your fish to stop being annorexic

It's called classical conditioning. It's a technique I learned in my psychology class where where you teach an animal to associate a neutral stimuli with a desired stimuli.

For example: you teach a dog to come at the ring of a bell by feeding your dog and rining a bell while it eats. After a few trials it will begin to associate the bell with food. Later on it will respond to just the bell.

I applied the same theory to my fish. What I did was I noticed that they would ignore the pellets but would immediately go after the bloodworms. So what I would do is feed my betta a worm and as soon as it would eat the worm I put a pellet in the bowl. If my betta would not eat the pellet after a few minutes, I pulled the pellet out and repeated the same experiment a few times until it ate the pellets.

My new plakat responded to the pellet on the first time I tried the experiment. My Crown-fin responded after about three tries. My marble responded on the second day of my experiment.

I suggest you try the exercise maybe three or four times per day. If it still doesn't respond by the fourth time then halt the exercise and begin again on the next day.

I hope this helps

 

[GuppyDude]

when i first got all my fish wether it was from walmart, over seas or within the county via ups, the first thing i did was float a few pellets for them to eat if they were hungry, and they ate em right away. never had the problem but i c alot of posts about it. thats interesting how u included a lilo phycology in there, iv got phycology at school next semester and im eager to starte and not all bettas like bloodworms, my male hate blood worms, he eats one and then wont eat anymore, he loves his betta bites but my females prefer the bloodworms.

 

[mandi]

Ahhh... Pavlov's theory. Takes me back to my freshman psychology & sociology classes haha.

Neat experiment. Glad it works for ya -- darn picky eaters.

 

[clutterydrawer]

What an ingenious idea! well done, I will remember that for future use...

 

[Sorrell]

Thanks for sharing that Another idea for picky eaters is to put them next to a fish you know is a good eater. When they see that fish eating, they almost always do the same

 

[shrks1fan]

Too much work...I just wait till they're hungry, then they'll eat anything, hahaha. J/K Nice idea

Linda