Transitioning from live-feed raised to dry-feed

[OlWolf]

I had this problem several years in the past, and wondered if anyone knows what I could have done differently.
Instead of buying a box-store questionable betta - I threw in to purchase a red-dragon rose-tail off Aquabid from Thailand, and have it shipped to me in the Virginia hills. I fell in love when I opened the box! He was large, spunky, and beautiful - a living jewel! Once settled in his new home, I discovered he rejected any dry feed I offered. Purchased several “pro” betta diets and he IDed every one as inedible. I took to taking a net, a jar of fresh water, and a filtered-funnel on another jar - and skimming mosquito and midge larvae out of my livestocks’ water-trough. I’d wait for them to surface, scoop them with the net, filter them out if the trough-water, and dump them in the fresh-water jar. Feeding these he ate voraciously. I kept trying to trick him with the dry-food - but he still refused. This kept on until cold weather set in. I’d had him 9 months by then. In Thailand one can scoop water-larvae all year round - but not up here when the bugs quit for Winter. Even when it came to where there was nothing else to eat but dry - he starved himself instead of caving to what was available. By 11 months he expired. I had maybe 5 weeks before it warmed up outside.
We used to have a wonderful aquatics store in the city, and I could have got live feed there - but the owner passed away and the store closed. The box-store was no help - everything is dry or dead & frozen - and if it wasn’t animated he’d reject it.

Has anyone transitioned a stubborn live-only eater - to dry feed?? The Thailanders grow some awesome bettas - but has any of the farmers raised fry to learn to eat either/or? Weaned them from one to the other? I don’t know how to ask any of them.
I’ve been looking for about 2 years now - get attracted to a fish that’s awesome - find out he’s hatched in his native country and hesitate, afraid I’ll end up with another “live only” eater. I hate to get emotionally captivated and then lose ‘em.

Footnote: Live-only ball python infant I got, switched to thawed-frozen rats without a hitch. Seemed to be just the betta that was lethally stubborn.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I know that for many fish live foods are the best. I also know that for many of us live is story of a bridge too far.

My first experienc with live was when I had angels that spawned. They basically need live BBS which began am adventure with hatching and feeding BBS. I knew this could not last on my end and this was my solution. After about a week of feeding tthe live BBS and watch the feeding frenzy, I began to mix the now defunct frozen Cyclop-eeze. I reduce the amount of live brine and replaced it with the cyclops. They did not notice the difference as evrything was moving in the water and they just ate it all. Over the next week I increased the amount of cylops while I reduce the amount of live BBS and in the end they were all eating 100% cyclops.

These days I am breeding Hypancstrus plecos and I use no live foods. I do use a lot of frozen and Repashy. But when it comes to dried foods I am switching from the inexpensive ones to the more expensive. Ingredients matter. I am doing that after 22 years and just when I am about to retire from the hobby.

I have never had any of my fish. that was not actually sick. refuse to eat anything I fed. I could never understand when people would report, as you have, a fish was refusing to eat. What I do nkow is most fish will not strave themselves to death. Sooner of later they give in an try whatever the new food introduce is. This does assume that the food is intended for that species of fish.

Hunger usually overcomes reluctance. As a psych major in college I had to take an experimental psych class. There we replicated the old Pavlovian response thing by training rats to push a button to get food. The end ot the experiment was to untrain them. In both cases time was a factor, once no more food came from pressing the button they did it less and less. The challenge was how to motivate the rat to get around to pressing the button and learning it meant food at the start of the experiment. The motivation was simple, the rats were not fed at all for a while prior to the start of the experiment so that they were hungry at the outset of each experimental session.

I have to connfess that in one session I was teasing my rat with the eraser end of a pencil. The rat aparrently believe the eraser was food and every tine it went for the eraser i pulledthe pencil away. This was not a happy rat. And it showed me the lst time I offered th eraser and ot chose to leap up and bute my finger. I had to get a tetanus shot. I was young and stupid in those days and I got reminded of that by a rat.

Your betta may be stubborn. But, if you keep offering a decent betta meal to it, sooner or later he should give in. It may take a while. Bear in mind that in the wild nobody feed the fish. They do not always find food all the time. My pleco dad raise their you in a cave. Ity is about 4 week from spawning that they babies are ready to leave. In that time the dad will eat infrequently as he is almost always protecting and caring for the kids. Most fish can go for some time without eating and not suffer from that. Also, until it begins eating the new food you need to remove it from the tank after abit so it doesn't foul the water.

So my advice is to be sure you have the right non-live foods for the fish. I say foods because some variety is a good thing for most fish. And then only offer these and nothing else for a week or even two. If at that time it is still refusing them, then you are stuck with you being the fish and the betta keeping you in this relationship.

Also, if you are a bit of a science nerd this link should get you to a list of papers on the dietary issues and Betta splendens
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=betta+splendens+different+diets&btnG=

 

[OlWolf]

Yes, I home raise the rats my python eats, cause I live rural - and driving into the city to get $40+ of frozen rats is a pain if I don’t have to. They get scraps from the garden, scraps from me cooking, and dry food - they’re pretty much miniature hogs. I’ve been bit once - and didn’t realize it until I saw the blood. Razors for teeth.
The betta was about 10 years ago. I’d had them before, often, since the 1960s, but they were always mom n’ pop store US spawned fish - and I never had a problem with them eating. The previous one before the Thai, lived to 9 years old - which I hear is quite rare for them to live that long. This was a whole new thing for me. I tried raising brine shrimp, but wasn’t successful with a hatch here - when I had hatched them easily when I was a kid. This last one never showed signs of sickness, was alert to the last day. After mosquito-season ended, anything I tried was refused, and he gradually got thinner till I found him deceased a couple months later. I just always figured he’d cave and swap over because he wasn’t a wild-caught fish, but bred to be the extra showy type that takes generations in captivity to produce. The Cyclop-ese I’d gotten from that aquatics shop that closed - the two fish before the Thai got that a few times a week.

I know that for many fish live foods are the best. I also know that for many of us live is story of a bridge too far.

My first experienc with live was when I had angels that spawned. They basically need live BBS which began am adventure with hatching and feeding BBS. I knew this could not last on my end and this was my solution. After about a week of feeding tthe live BBS and watch the feeding frenzy, I began to mix the now defunct frozen Cyclop-eeze. I reduce the amount of live brine and replaced it with the cyclops. They did not notice the difference as evrything was moving in the water and they just ate it all. Over the next week I increased the amount of cylops while I reduce the amount of live BBS and in the end they were all eating 100% cyclops.

These days I am breeding Hypancstrus plecos and I use no live foods. I do use a lot of frozen and Repashy. But when it comes to dried foods I am switching from the inexpensive ones to the more expensive. Ingredients matter. I am doing that after 22 years and just when I am about to retire from the hobby.

I have never had any of my fish. that was not actually sick. refuse to eat anything I fed. I could never understand when people would report, as you have, a fish was refusing to eat. What I do nkow is most fish will not strave themselves to death. Sooner of later they give in an try whatever the new food introduce is. This does assume that the food is intended for that species of fish.

Hunger usually overcomes reluctance. As a psych major in college I had to take an experimental psych class. There we replicated the old Pavlovian response thing by training rats to push a button to get food. The end ot the experiment was to untrain them. In both cases time was a factor, once no more food came from pressing the button they did it less and less. The challenge was how to motivate the rat to get around to pressing the button and learning it meant food at the start of the experiment. The motivation was simple, the rats were not fed at all for a while prior to the start of the experiment so that they were hungry at the outset of each experimental session.

I have to connfess that in one session I was teasing my rat with the eraser end of a pencil. The rat aparrently believe the eraser was food and every tine it went for the eraser i pulledthe pencil away. This was not a happy rat. And it showed me the lst time I offered th eraser and ot chose to leap up and bute my finger. I had to get a tetanus shot. I was young and stupid in those days and I got reminded of that by a rat.

Your betta may be stubborn. But, if you keep offering a decent betta meal to it, sooner or later he should give in. It may take a while. Bear in mind that in the wild nobody feed the fish. They do not always find food all the time. My pleco dad raise their you in a cave. Ity is about 4 week from spawning that they babies are ready to leave. In that time the dad will eat infrequently as he is almost always protecting and caring for the kids. Most fish can go for some time without eating and not suffer from that. Also, until it begins eating the new food you need to remove it from the tank after abit so it doesn't foul the water.

So my advice is to be sure you have the right non-live foods for the fish. I say foods because some variety is a good thing for most fish. And then only offer these and nothing else for a week or even two. If at that time it is still refusing them, then you are stuck with you being the fish and the betta keeping you in this relationship.

Also, if you are a bit of a science nerd this link should get you to a list of papers on the dietary issues and Betta splendens
https/scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=betta+splendens+different+diets&bt

 

[GaryE]

Get hold of a whiteworm culture, or some wingless fruit flies. Both can be bought online, depending on how cold where you are is.

A lot of fish won't eat pellets but some can be coaxed onto flake. Some. It doesn't mean they'll like it, but. My killifish will eat bug bites, but the pellets sink very fast for surface feeders like a Betta.

You can also freeze mosquito larvae collected in the warmer months. I once found a pond that gave me 2 pounds of it. That would go a long way with a Betta. The big thing is whether he would recognize dead larvae as food. Cyclop-eze has become rare, but you might want to visit brineshrimpdirect and have a look at their foods.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You can still find cyclops, just not the cyclop=ezze ones as the population in the lake unvolved crashed a number of years back.

I get my frozen cyclops in bulk, but you can find them in cubes fromb SF Bay.