AggieYen

Champion really, really, really likes bloodworms. Felt great seeing him actually EAT!! Now begins the delicate balance of bloat control. Waiting for my Hikari pellets to arrive in the mail. Yay!

Now I've got a thin film of... something... on the surface of my water. Never had that with my UGF. Grr.

Lucy

I'm so glad to hear he's eating Thats great news.

janoue

Even if you buy regular Garlic Oil that will do the trick too. You should be able to get it at any health food store etc. My guy W doesn't eat pelets because he looks like he's choking, and I figured out that they were too big for him. So I started crushing them ( I used a stapler on my desk but whatever you have) and then sprinkleing them in his tank and he ate them then. You could try that.

Narcicius

Fish food hacks, yeah.

chickadee

If you can find garlic powder and mix it with a bit of water and let it make garlic juice and soak the food in it that will do but better yet is minced garlic (fresh) in the jars in the stores that is surrounded with juice. The juice is a natural appetite enhancer for fish of all kinds including bettas. just soak the pellets or bloodworms up to 10 minutes and they will get the message.

Rose

ANY garlic product will do as fish just love garlic.

AggieYen

Ooooo I have the minced garlic in jars with the juice right in my fridge!!! Excellent! Thanks, Rose!!!

Agnes

COBettaCouple

Feeding him thawed frozen bloodworms will make the chances of constipation much less. We also feed them small pellet size pieces of thawed frozen peeled peas one day a week to aid in the digestion system working well.

Congrats on the new Betta (s)

AggieYen

Thanks Dave Took me a while to get the tank prepared and move him in, but the wait was worthwhile.

Another question about feeding him.. he's still not quite warming up to pellets - and I did the whole garlic soak thing - my problem is... after i'd soaked it, the pellets sank right to the bottom where Champion couldn't get to it. Then I tried smooshing the pellet a little bit to break it up in case it was too big, but that was even worse, the bits all floated right to the bottom.

Argh! I think of the 6 pellets that I tried to feed him, he only ate ... one? Bits of one? *sigh* Now I have to do a gravel vacuum. Maybe I should just stick to bloodworms?

Narcicius

Just find what he likes and stick to it, don't get frustrated you can't possible know what your fish is thinking because he can't talk to you. Just take it slow, It'll work out. Hope he startzs eating soon.

COBettaCouple

Some Betta can be rather picky, but we've only had 1 that refused to eat pellets. What type of pellets are they? We feed ours the Betta Pro pellets.

If he won't eat them, he could do well on a bloodworm and peas diet. Our Sora did. I'd just recommend Hikari brand for the frozen bloodworms.

Narcicius

Why Hikari?

COBettaCouple

Frozen food can have parasites or other buggers in it and Hikari is the brand that I'd trust most to be free of those nasties.

LuvaBetta

Try the tweezers with the garlic-soaked pellets also, so he gets a chance to see/smell it before it sinks.

I won't swear to it, but I think the film on the top might be from the bubbles he blows. There's a little something to keep the bubbles from popping right away. Both my males have it, my female tank doesn't. One of the things Atison's Betta Spa additive says is that it helps "make bubble nests stickier".

AggieYen

Hmmm... Hikari is tough enough to track down here... much less frozen bloodworms... I think until I find Hikari frozen bloodworms, i'll just feed him the freeze dried ones, to minimize chances of parasites.

I'm trying to think of what kind of mesh i can use to cover the opening of my gravel vacuum.... any recommendations?

finmama

fish net?

AggieYen

Fish net is too fine - the gunk won't go through the mesh of a fish net :/

LuvaBetta

How about tulle fabric?

chickadee

Tulle is even finer and would not let anything through. Why do you want to cover the end? Are you having trouble with the fish going up inside of it? Try getting a hairnet? The holes in a hairnet are about 1/4" in size and will cover and then use a rubber band around the end of the gravel vac to hold it in place. You can probably find them in the pharmacy section of the places like Walmart or similar stores. Don't cut them or they unravel like crazy usually and use a single thickness and see how it works. They are not very expensive and should be usable for at least a couple of vacuumings.

Rose