Yep. You can also get them with wings and just shake em right onto the water. They usually can't take off, but I use flightless purely because of preference.
Gk
Variety foods for my Betta?
- Thread starter Aquaticfrog32
- Start date
Gk
With congo tetras I would use small crickets but they have teeth and bigger mouths so I'm not sure if the crickets go small enough for a betta. The wingless fruit flies are considerably smaller. Plenty of stuff in the reptile food section can be useful to fish. I buy mealworms and calci-worms (technically maggots of the soldier fly but calling them maggots wouldn't sell as well) for fishing bait and throw the extras to my tank fish before they start to die or change to their adult form. I've also gotten BIG crayfish for fishing and ended up with extras that I killed and fed the tails to the fish. The rest I threw to the snails cause the front half of the shell and claws have good calcium and nutrients for snail shell growth too.
Think outside the box. Fish food does not have to come in little containers from the fish section of the petstore. Aside from reptile food and bait shops many also use grocery store items. Chicken livers are a little fatty for frequent feeding but beef heart and liver is better. You can slice it small and freeze it in ice cube trays. If a fish gets damaged while I am fishing and probably won't live because of how it took the hook I make sure it goes to use no matter how small. I slice it up for feeding out. Fish don't care if they eat fish. Even the same species.
You can buy cultures of various sizes of water critters from nematodes (vinegar eels and microworms are the main part of many betta breeders fry foods) to daphnia (water flea), copepods or amphipods (there is fresh and salt species), and up to scuds and small shrimp. Tasty baby ghost shrimp
Think outside the box. Fish food does not have to come in little containers from the fish section of the petstore. Aside from reptile food and bait shops many also use grocery store items. Chicken livers are a little fatty for frequent feeding but beef heart and liver is better. You can slice it small and freeze it in ice cube trays. If a fish gets damaged while I am fishing and probably won't live because of how it took the hook I make sure it goes to use no matter how small. I slice it up for feeding out. Fish don't care if they eat fish. Even the same species.
You can buy cultures of various sizes of water critters from nematodes (vinegar eels and microworms are the main part of many betta breeders fry foods) to daphnia (water flea), copepods or amphipods (there is fresh and salt species), and up to scuds and small shrimp. Tasty baby ghost shrimp
Thanks guys! I will look into the fruit fly thing, live foods have more nutritional value, right? Anyway, I was also wondering about getting some more vegetable foods for my fish! What good vegetable foods are they're other than Hikari mini algae wafers*?
*Already have those.
*Already have those.
Most algae wafers aren't even very herbivorous. They often rely on a lot of shrimp and fish meal with some recognizable plants thrown in. I like new life spectrum formulas for that reason. My 2mm sinking NLS algae pellets are "Algae; chlorella, ulva seaweed, red seaweed, kelp, spirullina, wakame seaweed, whole antarctic krill, whole fish..." and on to some flours, plants like alfalfa, and a vitamins and minerals.
versus hikari sinking wafers " fish meal, shrimp meal, wheat germ meal, wheat, flour, soybean meal...."
and Hikari algae wafers which specifically say ideal for algea eaters "fish meal, wheat flour, wheat germ meal, starch, dried seaweed meal, dried bakery product, dehydrated alfalfa, brewers yeast, soybean meal, fish oil, krill meal, spirullina, garlic..."
Take a good look at your algae wafers/pellets if you truly want to add more herbivorous options to any tank. Many are krill, fish, or shrimp first with some plant matter and maybe one algae thrown in.
versus hikari sinking wafers " fish meal, shrimp meal, wheat germ meal, wheat, flour, soybean meal...."
and Hikari algae wafers which specifically say ideal for algea eaters "fish meal, wheat flour, wheat germ meal, starch, dried seaweed meal, dried bakery product, dehydrated alfalfa, brewers yeast, soybean meal, fish oil, krill meal, spirullina, garlic..."
Take a good look at your algae wafers/pellets if you truly want to add more herbivorous options to any tank. Many are krill, fish, or shrimp first with some plant matter and maybe one algae thrown in.
Live food is much better overall. You can chop up some peas, carrots, and lettuce for your betta, and peas help with constipation as well. Given the choice though, they always go for meaty items. They aren't herbivores.
Gk
An easy way to get some live food is to set a bucket of water out on your patio. Mosquitos will lay eggs, which will then hatch, and you can use a fine net to net out live wiggles/larvae for your fish. I have a 5 gallon bucket on my patio for my dog's water when he's outside, and I have to dump it on a weekly basis because the mosquitos constantly laying eggs in it.
You can also make your own food for herbivores by boiling and blending veggies and mixing them with some plain gelatin (the stuff for cooking). You can spread it thin on some baking paper and you've got veggie wafers. You can also buy sushi nori (seaweed wraps) in most grocery stores and feed some of this as well.
You can also use baby food too, for any fish, and include what you want (Mix single ingredient packs, rather than using their mixtures) and instead of baking paper, you can cut into cubes, or spear on decor, and freeze or put in the tank to allow grazing for most any fish... and it won't soil the water as much as lots of foods will.
Um........isn't just feeding random mosquito larvae to fish kind of risky and not recommended? Could that make my fish sick? Thanks for veggie suggestions, BTW.
