Betta Fish Diet
What do Betta Fish Eat?
Betta Fish are insectivores so it’s important that you ensure to feed your Betta a meat based diet. The key to your Betta fish’s optimal health is to feed your Betta a variety of foods.
Betta Fish foods come in 4 categories:
Dry Foods: These are Flake and Pellet Foods.
These foods are the staple foods – meaning the main foods you should feed your Betta fish. It’s important to understand there are many different brands of dry foods and a lot of them are terrible with a lot of filler material like wheat.
You should look at the ingredients on the packages of the foods to ensure that they contain high quality ingredients. Even the most popular brands contain ingredients that aren’t very good.
The dry foods my Betta Fish eat are from Omega One. The Omega One flakes and pellets contain the best ingredients as a staple food for your Betta Fish. The first four ingredients of the flake food are salmon, herring, shrimp and halibut. Yeah really! These are better foods than I eat.
One thing to know is that the pellets are sinking pellets so when you feed your Betta the pellets, make sure to gently place them one at a time on top of the water so they float for a while before they sink.
Freeze Dried: Freeze Dried Blood Worms
Blood worms are the a favorite treat for Betta Fish. Freeze Dried foods are a great alternative to live foods. The thing to remember is to soak the food in dechlorinated water before you feed your Betta so the food doesn’t expand in your Betta’s belly. My Betta loves the freeze dried blood worms.
Also, as long as you just give a few worms, you can also break up the worms with your fingers and sprinkle them on top of the water. This is for your convenience, but the best way is to soak them first.
I feed my Betta both the San Francisco Bay brand of Blood worms as well as the Omega One brand. The San Francisco Bay seems to be more red. It just looks a little better but I switch off so it really doesn’t matter.
Whenever I can find it, I go with the San Francisco Bay brand but the Omega One seems more available in my area.
Frozen: Frozen Blood Worms and Brine Shrimp
My Betta absolutely Loves Frozen Blood Worms. If you can go to your pet shop and get some San Francisco Bay brand of Blood worms, your Betta will love you for it!
If you are going to use frozen foods, make sure they are thawed and at room temperature before using them. I don’t have a link for you since no company ships frozen blood worms but I would suggest any Petco or PetSmart or probably your local aquarium shop.
Live: Live Blood Worms and Brine Shrimp
I can’t really find any place locally I can get live blood worms. It’s really a snack that you will feed your Betta once in a while. But if you do find a place that sells them in your area, make sure they look alive and fresh. If they are not moving they are probably dead and about to rot. Another thing to consider is that live foods have the potential to carry disease but give it a try if you can because Betta Fish freak out and love to eat live blood worms.
As a general rule, you want to feed your Betta mostly a diet of the flake and pellets and then feed them either frozen or freeze-dried worms as a special treat. I would recommend that you feed treats about 1-3 times a week. The flake and pellet foods I have recommended above have all the nutritional value that the fish will need to be happy and healthy.
If you feed your high-quality fish food and occasionally give him or her a special treat, this will no doubt improve the quality of your fishes’ life and keep them vibrant, colorful and happy.
Now discover how long do betta fish live.