is beef heart good food for betta fry?

[Mohan85]

so my fry are pretty big now and i was thinking of giving them something other than bbs to add to their diet i was wondering if i should give them frozen beef heart from my LFS? and if i do how do i prepare it?

[Amphibianite]

IF you did use it (because I honestly have NO idea if ti is good or not. Though I can not see why it would not be.) I would dice it up into very small bit sized chunks and try a little bit at first see if they are interested in it.

[Oldfishlady]

Although beef heart is often fed especially with Discus-its not always a good choice for Bettas-mainly due to water temp...its too low and to keep Bettas at the needed water temp (85+F) to fed beef heart.... can shorten their life span....occasional feeding in small amounts probably wouldn't cause too much trouble in a fry tank if you are keeping the water temp at/over 85F-however, I wouldn't recommend keeping Betta fry at that temp long term....

I would do some research on how fish metabolize Beef heart to get a better understanding of the risk-vs-benefits.....

I would make a shrimp based food for them-I make a pretty good homemade food for my Bettas and other species of fish I keep that has worked well for me.....

[Mohan85]

I gave them some beef heart earlier, I tried to break into real small chunks.. they ate some of it.. the bits were still kinda big but the larger fry were able to eat it.. a bad thing apparently because when I went to go check on them a few hours later to find my BIGGEST fry dead ;( i guess he was the biggest and was able to eat the most of it and ate too much, saw him upside down at the bottom dead :(.. i guess he may have eaten a little too much being the biggest one and all.. errr so sad ;( he was a giant among the others.. ahhh im stickin' to bbs from now on!

[Mohan85]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

Although beef heart is often fed especially with Discus-its not always a good choice for Bettas-mainly due to water temp...its too low and to keep Bettas at the needed water temp (85+F) to fed beef heart.... can shorten their life span....occasional feeding in small amounts probably wouldn't cause too much trouble in a fry tank if you are keeping the water temp at/over 85F-however, I wouldn't recommend keeping Betta fry at that temp long term....

I would do some research on how fish metabolize Beef heart to get a better understanding of the risk-vs-benefits.....

I would make a shrimp based food for them-I make a pretty good homemade food for my Bettas and other species of fish I keep that has worked well for me.....

When you say shorten their lifespan do you mean the the beefheart will do that or keeping the water at 85F?

[cajunamy]

I'm confused by your post OFL .. admittedly not hard to do, but I don't understand what the water temp has to do with feeding it to them?

[Mohan85]

Originally Posted by cajunamy

I'm confused by your post OFL .. admittedly not hard to do, but I don't understand what the water temp has to do with feeding it to them?

i'm not sure but i think it has something to do with their metabolism.. the higher the heat the faster their digestive system works and they will poop and grow faster from what i've read..

[cajunamy]

Ok - but what does it have to do with the beef heart exactly?j

eta: ok I see what she's saying now, but why does beef heart need to be fed at a lower temp?

[Pataflafla]

She said beef heart needs to be fed at a higher temperature (85+ degrees) but that it isn't good to keep bettas or fry in that temperature range for too long since it's too warm for their comfort.

[Oldfishlady]

Beef heart is fairly low in fat, however, since it comes from a warm blooded animal-this type of fat is hard for fish to digest/process- especially at lower water temps....high water temps needed for the Betta to properly digest/process mammal fats also can shorten the Betta life span......

The type of fats and long term high water temps-both can adversely affect longevity.....

Long term high temp-speed metabolism and this in turn can shorten longevity in fish...water temp, metabolism, fats, digestion go hand in hand...if the temp is too low to properly digest the fat-it can adversely effect the fish-fatty liver disease, obesity, immunity, weakness, poor growth...etc.....fish(cold blooded) generally process/digest their foods in the 70-80F ranges-warm blooded animals process/digest food in the 85-100F range

Feed very, very small amounts by making a paste out of it and make a water change after feeding it since it will foul the water really fast.....

Personally, I wouldn't recommend feeding beef heart to Bettas.....