Sweetheart does your family bathe your dogs? If so them when they bathe your dogs they either use flea shampoo (which is a pesticide which means it's a strong poison), or they use regular shampoo.
Either way there are chemicals in both that are toxic to small animals like fish. The way fleas live is that they bite the skin of the host that they are preying on and suck their blood. All of the toxins on your dogs fur and skin and in its blood are present within the fleas.
When your betta eats a flea or two it gets all of the chemicals from your dog's shampoo along with all of that protein.
It's the same as the principle of not washing your betta's tank with soap or putting your hand in the tank after you've washed your own hands with soap.
It's poisonous.
Flea shampoo is even poisonous to your dog. It says so on most bottles. You're not supposed to bathe them with it more than once or twice a month because the chemicals are absorbed by the skin and they build up in the animal. It takes a while for the dog to get rid of all of those chemicals. It's even harder and more dangerous for cats.
In smaller animals toxins become concentrated more easily and begin to shut down organs.
We're not saying that you can't feed your betta bugs in general. If you raise some bugs specifically for the purpose of feeding to your bettas and you do so in an environment where you don't use any chemicals then yeah knock yourself out. Your boy will have a great diet.
What we're saying is that in your home there are more chemicals at use than you could imagine and all of those chemicals end up inside you, me, and all of the critters that live with us. This includes bugs. Unless we keep them in a closed system (like we do with fish).
So yes we do have a point and no I personally don't think that you should be feeding your betta fleas because I have animals infested with fleas back home and I know for a fact that whenever they get their monthly bath it's with flea shampoo.
Again even if it's not flea shampoo, regular animal shampoo has chemicals in it that are harmful to bettas and are present withing the fleas that prey upon your animals.
If you wanna feed your fish bugs make sure you know what the bugs are eating, therefore what all is present within the bug.
If you really wanna give your boy a treat I recommend starting a brine shrimp hatchery or if he really preys upon snails, why don't you start up a 2 or 5 gallon with a few ghost shrimp and mate them? You'd have a great live food supply right there.
There are many ways to get good protein for your boys and great ways to feed live so as to give them a little adventure!
Snails, shrimp, brine shrimp, and farm bugs are some of them.
Fleas are not.
That's my dollar's worth. Take it as you will.
As a side note I absolutely ADORE your avatar! <3
XXXHolic right?
I might have something from Yu Yu Hakusho if MTR wasn't such an important cause to me.
Ehhh since last february but I only do it once in a blue moon
