flakes vs. pellets

[OrangeAugust]

Hello,
I went to Petco to get better betta food (I was feeding them Wardley and Aqueon brands). In the store they had New Life Spectrum and Omega One Betta Buffet. The Omega One had more fish/meat ingredients as the first ingredients and more protein than NLS, so I got that one. But I didn't realize until I got home that they were flakes and not pellets. -_-
I decided to see if Fishie would eat them anyway. When I first dropped it in, he didn't know what it was. He stared at it a little, swam up to it and looked at it, went back to swimming for a minute, then went back to the flake. Then it looked like he was tasting the water around it. lol. He opened and closed his mouth a bunch of times- then he went at it, chomping furiously and he sucked the whole thing in his mouth at once! I laughed because I expected him to nibble on it. It was a really large flake. I gave him another medium sized flake, and he ate that too after investigating it for a minute. He ate two this morning also, so I guess I'll keep feeding them to him since he seems to like it.
I have questions though. How much should I feed him? Some of the flakes are really big for flakes- like bigger than the size of a nickel. But there are small pieces, too. I'm used to giving him 2 pellets in the morning and two at night. But I'm not sure how many flakes that equals.
Also, why do most people prefer pellets over flakes?
Thanks!

[lelei]

There is more nutrition in pellets specifically made for bettas, but you can vary your fishy's diet with both, the main reason why pellets are better because bettas like to chew,and pellets give them that option, flakes make more mess as well, and harder to proportion, so you don't know what is enough, and so much harder to clean as they break down and cause the mess..

[OrangeAugust]

Originally Posted by lelei

There is more nutrition in pellets specifically made for bettas,

These flakes are specifically for bettas too, though...

[lelei]

It sounds like they might be fine, it's hard to say how many would be sufficient, and if there is leftover how much mess would be in the tank..That is why I don't want to use flakes, the mess, and the problem with cleaning, if you don't clean quickly it will cause an ammonia spike.

[crowntaillove]

I give them 2 medium sized flakes at each feeding. They are messy though.

[OrangeAugust]

Ok, thanks. I'll watch for how much is left over. He literally sucks the entire thing into his mouth, though. So there aren't a lot of pieces left floating when he's done. The first one he ate, he did spit a little out, but generally there wasn't anything left of the flakes in the tank.