best food for betta

[Ajones108]

No problem!

[RandomFish]

You're very welcome & have fun picking out your betta!

[Lion Mom]

Personally, I feed:

Omega One Betta Buffet Pellets
New Life Spectrum Surface Feeder Pellets (already has garlic in it, so why is the one poster soaking it in garlic juice?)
Brine Shrimp Plus Flakes by Ocean Nutrition
Fast on Sunday

Seems to work for me! :)

[Adastra]

Hikari betta bio gold pellets used to be acceptable because the first ingredient was meat in the form of fish meal. When feeding carnivores it is essential to have meat as the first ingredient, but after a recent formula change, the first ingredient was changed to wheat something or other (wheat germ, I believe). In no way do bettas need wheat in their diet--they can't really absorb nutrients from plant matter. These pellets are more like fish flavored biscuits than actual food. Their food also has MSG in it, which is really odd to me--I don't want to eat MSG, and I don't want my fish to have to eat it either.

I feed my fish OmegaOne Betta Buffet pellets along with frozen brine shrimp, frozen blood worms, and frozen daphnia--occasionally live blackworms. I don't advocate freeze dried foods at all because they aren't as nutritious as frozen and cause digestive problems. I recommend OmegaOne, New Life Spectrum, Atison's betta pellets, and Ken's betta crumbles.

Personally, I think garlic is a little over hyped--it is an extremely weak antimicrobial that I don't imagine could kill much of anything. The fact that garlic does have antimicrobial properties means that it inherently has toxic properties--I don't really see the necessity in exposing my fish to toxins they would never see in their natural environment for no medical reason. Simply because garlic is more "natural" than say, malachite green, does not mean that it's not very mildly poisonous. Of course, when I say very mildly, I mean VERY mildly--it would take something like 90x the amount of garlic extract to come close to malachite green, but in my mind it seems like longterm exposure to toxins the fish would not naturally be exposed to can't have good longterm results.. those are just my thoughts on the matter. I have simply rinsed live foods in tank water and paid a lot of attention to the quality of the food and have had no issues.

[maxima423]

mmhmmm adastra, you are correct, i looked into it and found out wheat is the first ingredient

INGREDIENTS
Wheat flour, fish meal, soybean meal, gluten meal, krill meal, wheat germ meal, cuttlefish oil, brewers dried yeast, dried a. niger fermentation extract, astaxanthin, garlic, monosodium glutamate, DL-methionine, dried seaweed meal, vitamins (including stabilized vitamin C) and minerals.

so wheat aint good mmhmm


i really want to stick with two different kinds of food, if possible pellets + frozen or pellets and pellets? does that sound good?

[Lion Mom]

"Personally, I think garlic is a little over hyped--"

All I know is what I have experienced. A few years ago a large, full grown green severum (female) was given to me with her tank with a case of HTH (Hole in the Head) with some God-awful scaring. As you can imagine, she had been SEVERELY neglected - cheap food, non-existent water changes, tank cleanings, etc. I put her on 2mm size New Life Spectrum Thera A (it has extra garlic in it) & while the scars remain, she has not had a new episode of eruptions in YEARS!!! Of course, her tank maintenance is vastly improved as well. :)

Is it the food with extra garlic in it? Is it improved tank maintenance? Is it a combination of both? Don't know - all I know is it works.

[Adastra]

I don't really think it's fair to give the garlic a lot of credit in that particular situation, lol, that would be doing yourself a disservice since you are obviously devoted to taking good care of your fish. :)

I just haven't seen enough evidence to suggest that it should be added to a fish's diet every day, and I have done a bit of looking. I don't have a problem with people wanting to add it when the fish is sick or the fish has been in some way immuno-compromised, but just like aquarium salt, allicin (one of the active ingredients in garlic) is not something these fish would normally be exposed to and could have long term effects that we can't really anticipate. I just wanted to assert that there are two sides to the garlic coin. :)

[Lion Mom]

Thanks for your vote of confidence, Adastra, but it seemed when I first got her she was still having "episodes" no matter HOW much clean water I was giving her.

All I know is the NLS Thera A seems to work with this fish so I will keep using it. Despite the originator's claims, though, I do NOT feed only NLS - I just don't think that's right.

[maxima423]

i came across this, you guys think its a good one?

KENS PREMIUM FLOATING/SINKING BETTA PELLETS 1.5MM:
THIS IS A SPECIAL BETTA DIET IN A 1.5MM MINI BITE,CONTAINS SPIRULINA, KRILL AND NATURAL COLOR ENHANCERS!
INGREDIENTS: WHEAT, FISH MEAL, SOYBEAN MEAL, BLOOD PORK MEAL, STABILIZED FISH OIL, CAPSANTHIN, SPIRULINA, XANTHOPHYLL, KRILL MEAL, DI CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, VITAMIN A ACETATE, D-ACTIVATED ANIMAL-STEROL (D-3), VITAMIN B12 SUPPLEMENT, RIBOFLAVIN SUPPLEMENT, NIACIN, FOLIC ACID, CALCIUM PANTOTHHENATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE, THIAMINE, BIOTIN, DL ALPHATOCOPHEROL (E), L-ASCORBYL-2-POLYPHOSPHATE (C), COLOR ENHANCERS WITH RED, YELLOW, AND BLUE/GREEN PIGMENTS.
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS: CRUDE PROTEIN 45.0% MIN., CRUDE FAT 9.0% MIN., CRUDE FIBER 5.0% MAX., MOISTURE 10.0% MAX., ASH 10.0%.

at kensfish.com

[Ajones108]

No no no. It has wheat as the first ingredient. You want something with salmon or all meat for the first ingredient. Bettas have a hard time digesting wheat and it also has soybean meal in it, which screams vegetables to me, and bettas don't do well with veggies either.

Try something like Atison's Betta Pellets or Omega One Betta Buffet Pellets. :)