There are two major betta fish care mistakes that cause many problems, they are food and water. Many new owners will overfeed their Betta, which in turn dirties the water more quickly and causes many other problems. Believe it or not your Betta can actually become constipated or eat themselves into a myriad of other digestion problems.
Determining if you are overfeeding or not will depend on your fish, it can vary. You can tell most of the time by how long it takes your fish to eat the food and how swollen their belly looks when they are finished.
A Betta will normally eat all the food it wants within 1-2 minutes. Give your fish a few minutes and then begin siphoning off the extra food. Your net is a good tool for this job but the important thing is to remove the food. If you let it set, your bowl will become dirty faster.
Many times your Betta will not eat much in that time frame and that is because it may take them a few minutes to find the food in the first place. The best plan is to start timing their feeding from the moment they take the first nibble.
If you are concerned that your Betta is overeating, you can watch for a swollen belly. Each fish will be slightly different, however you can find images that will give you a good idea of what to watch for.
One way to be sure you are not overfeeding your Betta is to skip a feeding day once a week. Your fish will not be hurt at all; in fact, it is possible to go on vacation for as long as a week without feeding your fish. Fasting for one day will clear the Betta's system and restore their digestion to normal, kind of like a one day cleanse that you might engage in.
What Wild Bettas Eat
When left to their own devices in the wild a Betta will eat mostly insects. These fish are carnivores and prefer bugs and worms to the carbohydrate ladened fish food that is so popular. You want to keep your Betta in good health and this requires proper nutrition. The key ingredient in the Betta diet is protein and more protein.
You can offer your fish several varieties of freeze-dried foods, such as bloodworms and brine shrimp. They also like live food such as brine shrimp, mosquito larvae and daphnia. Of course, if live varieties are not available you can look for frozen specimens.
If your betta is rejecting flake food, which is quite common, you can try offering live brine shrimp occasionally. You can then alternate between flakes or pellets and the more expensive live feed.
There are many different flake and pellet foods made just for bettas. If your betta will eat them, that's great. Even if one of these foods is working for you and your Betta, do vary their diet at least once a week. Varying it two or three times a week is even better. Different foods have different nutritional strengths, so switching between them is a good idea. If you could pick only one addition beyond the standard Betta food, go with freeze dried brine shrimp.
Protein is a critical part of the Betta diet but vegetables do not hurt anything once in awhile. In fact, the inside of a pea is a perfect remedy for constipation in Bettas. The downside is your fish may have to go without food for several days before it will even consider eating a pea. That is fine because remember fish can go up to a week without food with no harmful side effects.
Author Resource:-
Pam Neely writes about betta fish and betta fish bowls.
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