What Do Betta Fish Eat? Everything You Need to Know About this Awesome Aquatic Pet

Betta fish are small but very cute fish. They are also one of the most commonly kept freshwater fish in the world. In addition to being cute, Bettas are also intelligent. They can easily learn to recognize certain colors, patterns, and sounds. Like all other freshwater fish, Bettas should be fed a varied diet in order to thrive. Everything you need to learn more about Betta fish and their dietary requirements.

What Do Betta Fish Eat?

Betta fish are omnivores, which means they eat both meat and vegetables. A varied diet is important to ensure your Betta fish thrives. They enjoy eating a mixture of live insects, freeze-dried bloodworms, shrimp, frozen brine shrimp, live brine shrimp, and boiled eggs.

Betta Food

Betta fish have a high protein requirement, so you should make sure that around 50% of their diet consists of meaty foods. You can add shrimp, chopped earthworms, or bloodworms to their food once a week. They also require live plants and vegetables as part of their diet. You can feed them spinach or lettuce leaves, peas, zucchini, cucumber, dandelion greens, or kale. Betta fish should always be fed three times a day to ensure that they get the nutrition they need.

Types of Betta Food

As previously mentioned, Bettas should be fed a varied diet to thrive. This is because they are omnivores and will eat both meat and plant-based foods. That being said, there are two types of food Bettas can eat: live foods and prepared foods.

Live Foods

Bettas should be fed live food every day or two so that they do not become sick from constipation or a lack of nutrients. Live food can include anything from earthworms to feeder fish to newly hatched brine shrimp. There are also freeze-dried and preserved feeder fish that can be purchased online or at your local pet store. These can last for up to six months after opening the bag, which is great if you are unable to feed your Betta live food on a regular basis.

Prepared Foods

Bettas also need prepared foods in their diet as well. Prepared foods include freeze-dried bloodworms, frozen bloodworms, mosquito larvae (also known as blackworms), tubifex worms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, and cyclops eggs. These foods provide more protein and fat than live foods do but should still only be used once or twice a week in order to avoid overfeeding your Betta fish.

Betta Fish Food Mixes

One of the most popular ways to feed Betta fish is with a food mix. Food mixes are easy to use and offer a variety of different fish food, which is beneficial for your Betta fish. A good food mix should contain shrimp, bloodworms, daphnia, and white worms. You can also find many pre-packaged food mixes at local pet stores or online.

Some people prefer feeding their Betta fish live foods as opposed to processed foods. Live foods can be found at many grocery stores and come in the form of insects like crickets or worms. Live foods are a great way to give your Betta fresh veggies too. But if you want to feed your Betta some fresh veggies without using live animals, you can buy frozen or dried versions that you chop up yourself.

How Often Should You Feed Your Betta?

How often should you feed your Betta fish? Bettas like to eat a lot, so it’s important to make sure that they are getting enough. You should change the water in their tank daily and feed them at least once a day. If your Betta does not seem hungry, try feeding it a different type of food or hiding the food in something more natural for the betta to find.

Of course, how often you feed your betta will largely depend on the type of food you are giving him/her. For example, Bettas need more protein than they do vegetable matter. That’s why it’s important to balance out their diet with both types of foods every time you give them a meal.

If your betta is eating pellets, then this usually means that you should feed them once or twice a day. If they’re eating flakes and freeze-dried bloodworms, then you can probably go as long as 3-4 days without feeding them (but make sure to change their water).

Betta Fish Habitat and Environment

Betta fish can be kept in a tank that is as large as 20 gallons per Betta. The tank must have a filter and an air pump, but the water doesn’t need to be filtered or treated. Bettas should never be put in a tank with other fish because they are very territorial.

 

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