How to Switch to Different Food

1278 Views 9 Replies 5 Participants Last post by jase, May 19, 2012

Alicat22

Discussion Starter · May 19, 2012

Hi,

My Betta was raised on frozen bloodworms, so the pet store told me he would probably not recognize anything else as food (it seems they were quite right!). I found out I'm allergic to the bloodworms though, they cause bad eczema on my fingertips. Plus I can't buy more bloodworms in the new town I moved to, and I don't have a car, so I really want to teach my fish to eat regular dry food! Someone at the pet store told me I could train my fish to eat a different food by giving them both at once. I can't hold them both together at once so he might accidentally eat the dry food along with the bloodworms and learn it's okay that way, because the bloodworms I have are really small and the new food is small and round (the only kind available other than dried bloodworms which would probably be even worse for my allergies), and I have to wear gloves while feeding, so it's pretty much impossible to hold them together. I've been putting in a bit of dry food and holding the bloodworms right beside it hoping he might try it but to no avail. He only put a piece of dry food in his mouth only once and spit it back out. I've been trying this for over 2 weeks. Does anyone have any suggestions I can try?

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Enkil

· #2 · May 19, 2012

I've switched foods a couple of times with different bettas. I'll tell you about my experiences...

Our combtail hannibal would only eat freeze dried blood worms when we first got him. This continued for several months. He refused the two types of pellets I offered him and the flakes. I bout these really teeny tiny pellets made by New Life Spectrum. He now eats those with freeze dried/frozen blood worms as as a treat. He has also taken to frozen daphnia.

I have a halfmoon male named Odin. He's a dragon scale and the dragon scales have partially covered his eyes. This makes him partially blind. He was on the tiny NLS pellets that I have Hannibal on. As the dragon scales partially covered his eyes, they became too hard for him to see. I now feed him a bigger bright orange pellet. All I did was started dropping 1-2 in at each feeding. I made sure to clean out any that went uneaten. He quickly switched to the new pellet.

Hannibal took months to start eating a variety of foods where as my Odin took a matter of days. Some fish are more stubborn than others. Just keep offering the new food and making the blood worms more scare. He'll start eating.

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jase

· #3 · May 19, 2012

Are there any things like beef heart / liver and seafood in your local supermarket. You can mix them up together in a sludge and feed them to your betta with some betta pellets

would be a better alternative to blood worm+ pellet

first time i heard any body being allergic to blood worm.............

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Enkil

· #4 · May 19, 2012

Another thing that works is soaking pellets in garlic water before feeding them to your betta.

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Bombalurina

· #5 · May 19, 2012

I'm allergic to bloodworms too, so I feel your pain. It hits me in the eyes (swolllen eyes, blisters on the whites...icky).

Try fasting him for up to a week. Try a pellet every night to see if he will take it. Remove it if he isn't interested. Eventually, hunger should win out. As Enkil suggests, garlic may also help.

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Alicat22

Discussion Starter · #6 · May 19, 2012

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone. Garlic water? Interesting, so do I make this by putting garlic powder in water?

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Alicat22

Discussion Starter · #7 · May 19, 2012

jase said:
Are there any things like beef heart / liver and seafood in your local supermarket. You can mix them up together in a sludge and feed them to your betta with some betta pellets

would be a better alternative to blood worm+ pellet

first time i heard any body being allergic to blood worm.............

I'm sure there is seafood at the grocery store. Would the sludge make the water pretty unclean? Yeah, actually when I googled it, I found a forum where tons of people were saying they were allergic to bloodworms. Mostly the dried ones. They were saying their food even contained an allergy alert on the package, although I've never seen that on mine. I'd had eczema on my fingers for a year, which is how long I've had my fish. I stopped having it when I started wearing gloves to feed him.

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Hopeseeker

· #8 · May 19, 2012 (Edited)

I don't know if garlic powder mixed with water is safe, might be too concetrated.....I've heard to use garlic juice.....I also know that Seachem brand sells a garlic liquid for fish....That's all that I know....Sorry, that I can't be anymore help.

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Hopeseeker

· #9 · May 19, 2012

Also, I've hear that OldFishLady makes her own food.....shrimp, garlic, blanched spinach.....here's the thread:
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=100891
Recipe is the first post from OldFishLady.

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jase

· #10 · May 19, 2012

Alicat22 said:
I'm sure there is seafood at the grocery store. Would the sludge make the water pretty unclean? Yeah, actually when I googled it, I found a forum where tons of people were saying they were allergic to bloodworms. Mostly the dried ones. They were saying their food even contained an allergy alert on the package, although I've never seen that on mine. I'd had eczema on my fingers for a year, which is how long I've had my fish. I stopped having it when I started wearing gloves to feed him.

......well yes, the downside is that you would need to do more water change if feeding seafood. the adv is that your fish is more likely to eat it.

probably can decrease the food wast, if the seafood was just sliced up instead of being sludge.

You can make your own garlic mix, by chopping some up and squeezing the juice out through a fish net/ any small holed net.

Or option 2: get a chem/bio hazard safety suit and wear that when handling blood worm

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