Live food for Betta

[philipwaldram]

I would really like to do the best for my betta and feed it live food. What would be the best to keep and what will I need to keep it in. Would it be best to feed mainly live food or live and some frozen/flaked?

 

[SRC]

All live is a preferred diet..as that's how they live in the wild, although it can be time consuming and tedious..not really all that expensive though (as you buy a culture then breed your own).

Frozen is the next best thing, although extremely messy and expensive.

Freeze Dried isn't really all that great for bettas, as sometimes it causes constipation..I guess because they have taken all the mosture out.

Pellets are your basic staple diet, most bettas don't really dig flakes (*eww those are for goldfish* **turns up nose** lol).

Here are a few good sites for obtaining a live culture

www.maggotville.com and http/www.flyculture.com
You can also go to www.aquabid.com and go to the LIVE FOOD section and get good deals sometimes (but you may or may not have problems...and sometimes they charge more for shipping).

Fruit flies are VERY easy, as are Flour Bettles (imo..some peopel of course will disagree). But for what you pay you can try a few and see which works best for you.

 

[trisha1972]

WHat about brine shrimp? Do they like those?

 

[wuvmybetta]

WHat about brine shrimp? Do they like those?

[snapback]876031[/snapback]​

They love those but they're a pain to raise (imo)
Try something simple like grindal or white worm cultures. Those are awesome

 

[trisha1972]

I was asking about the brine shrimp because my lfs gets a shipment of them in every Tuesday. They aren't very expensive either. I thought about going and getting about $2 worth (a ton!) for my gouramis and my betta.

 

[wuvmybetta]

Oh, in that case buy them by all means! Your fish will love ya for it.

I thought you meant culturing them )

 

[abstract]

only thing is, brine shrimp generally carry little nutritional value...you'd be best off culturing your own worms...ask your lfs if they get blackworms or bloodworms in...

 

[rdd1952]

They love brine shrimp but as already stated, they aren't very high in nutritional value. They also love blood worms but those ARE very high in protein so they can be hard to digest and cause constipation. Frozen works ok but if you only have a betta, that won't work very well. I just give my bettas a few shrimp or blood worms when I thaw out a cube for my other tanks.

 

[GSD]

i get brine shrimp as a treat for my fishies.they love it and you can but a small bag for about 35p (not sure in dollars what that is)but i also get frozen bloodworm which might be worth looking into.You can keep it in the freezer so you dont have to go to your lfs to buy live food(ideal for me as the only lfs near me is a 40 min drive)and you just drop a cube in every so often.They love it live too.
i feed pellets twice a day then the frozen or live as a treat afew times a week

 

[SRC]

Um..if you feed frozen or live bloodworms it won't constipate them..only the Freeze Dried ones will do that.

 

[abstract]

anything high in protein can lead to constipation....the freeze dried mostly leads to bloating (i don't know if you consider that the same as constipation) since they expand so much when they get wet in the fishes belly

 

[SRC]

Well Frozen Bloodworms makes mine "loosen" up..if you know what I mean lol.

I buy mine is the flat pack, then while they are frozen cut them into small pieces, then keep them in a ziplock bag in the freezer...they'll kinda clump back together (since they thaw quick) but they break off alot easier.

I would imagine people do refer to them as constipated when they are bloated..because that's how you know they are constipated.. when they are swollen .

 

[wuvmybetta]

Well, I'm not stirring the pot or anything but I feed all of mine bloodworms several times a week and no one is constipated here They're actually forever pooping

I believe they need a high protein diet anyway, so...

 

[abstract]

and i'm sure you're careful not to overfeed..it is very easy to overfed a betta on a diet consisting strictly of worms

EDIT: and notice in my post i said that feeding foods high in protein CAN lead to constipation..there is no doubt about that