Can bettas be safely fed a mostly "live" diet?

As I've added more fresh frozen foods to the treat lineup, the dry pellets are getting less interesting to my bettas. As long as I give a variety (shrimp, bloodworms, brine shrimp so far, looking at others) can I feed them exclusively on fresh? Or do I need to worry about them getting complete nutrition and are prepared foods (pellets) the better way to go?

Also, can I give flightless fruit flies from the pet store? One of my bettas used to really enjoy the flying ones that landed in his tank after crashing into the light and just thought it would be a good live (not frozen) option.

 

HI Aquaphobia:

Bettas are carnivores, so they would probably do well on the frozen food diet you described. I've had several over the years that I've fed largely on frozen bloodworms and they were quite healthy and content. The virtue of the brine shrimp is that they have a lot of roughage that can help with avoiding constipation.

The great thing about the pellets is that they've been formulated for optimal nutrition. If you're concerned about that then you might want to consider soaking the frozen foods in one of those liquid vitamin/nutrient mixes while thawing them out.

For me, the toughest part of feeding bettas frozen bloodworms and so on was avoiding overfeeding. When you're giving them the single food items it's easier to give them too much than too little. When you've gone through the trouble of thawing the food out there's a natural tendency to want to use it all!

I haven't had any experience with the fruit flies, but they sure sound like something that might be a nice occasional treat for a betta.

-Yorg

As I've added more fresh frozen foods to the treat lineup, the dry pellets are getting less interesting to my bettas. As long as I give a variety (shrimp, bloodworms, brine shrimp so far, looking at others) can I feed them exclusively on fresh? Or do I need to worry about them getting complete nutrition and are prepared foods (pellets) the better way to go?

Also, can I give flightless fruit flies from the pet store? One of my bettas used to really enjoy the flying ones that landed in his tank after crashing into the light and just thought it would be a good live (not frozen) option.

 

It might be possible to make the pellets more interesting by dripping a little garlic juice or Garlic Guard onto them before feeding. My first betta was completely uninterested in pellets until I started doing that. I eventually weaned him off of the garlic and just kept feeding dry pellets.

 

Bettas do quite well on frozen food. Make sure you get plenty of high protein foods in their diet, though.

Larger bettas can safely eat fruit flies, but bettas 1.5" or smaller can get pretty serious constipation from them.

 

Yorg: I think I've been fairly well behaved in the amount I feed though it has been more difficult with the frozen. What I do now is use a very sharp knife to chop or shave pieces off the frozen cube and then keep what's left in a tiny plastic container in the freezer. Then I use tweezers to feed them. My girl will actually come right up to the tweezers and try to rip the food out of them before I've let go. She's surprisingly strong!

Aylad: I've heard of this garlic guard stuff on this forum but haven't seen it in store. Fresh garlic juice is easy enough to come by though. I never would have thought that garlic would appeal to a fish!

Junebug: Thanks, that's useful information. I'll be careful!

 

Be sure not to use garlic packed in oil or with preservatives.

Check this post out; it includes a recipe for doing DIY garlic extract:



Garlic is a HUUUGE appetizer for fish -- they'll swarm over any food that has been soaked in it. It also boosts their immune system and has other benefits. It's kind of a fishy miracle vitamin.

 

Is that stuff safe to use even with shrimp in the tank?

 

Garlic won't hurt anybody.

 

My LPS doesn't carry anything garlic for fish. Going to have to call around to the smaller private stores to see if they have it or just make my own.