[KlutzyGal]

So the other night I brought home my new DT, Zephyr. I've given him a couple of the Omega One pellets that I've been feeding Loki and Pippin with no problem, they love them. Zephyr, however, takes a chew or two and spits them right back out. I figured last night he just wasn't hungry since maybe he'd been fed at my store and just got moved to a brand new home. Put one pellet in there for him tonight, nope! Same thing. Though he did happily chow down on the freeze dried bloodworm I then offered him, go figure. :roll: I know he can't live off those, anything I should try to get him to eat, or is he just being stubborn and eventually he'll get used to the pellets once he realizes that's all he's getting?

 

[KafkaDream]

Try garlic juice! Bettas love that stuff. If you soak a few pellets in it and give them to him, hopefully he will eat them and maybe learn to like them on their own. It could also be that he is adjusting to his new home, and will need a few days to settle in.

I do strongly recommend frozen bloodworms though. Freeze dried ones will cause bloating and constipation. I also think that (at least my bettas) they like them better.
^w^

 

[tankman12]

+1. Soak them in some garlic guard. Also frozen bloodworms are my bettas favorite non live food. No freshwater fish can resist them.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Bikeridinguckgirl14]

I've always been taught "they'll learn to eat what you give them or they'll go hungry" so try not to cave and give him a bloodworm with every meal "because I don't want him to starve" or else he'll learn that if he refuses dinner he gets dessert

 

[KlutzyGal]

Oh yeah, I definitely don't plan on giving him the bloodworm every day - I only give them to my boys once, maybe twice a week as a dinner treat. I just wanted to see if the little bugger truly wasn't hungry or if he was just being picky, I found out the latter! I'll give him a couple more days before I bring in garlic juice. I have no idea what his old owners were feeding him, so I'm guessing he just isn't used to these.

 

[freeflow246]

The betta I have now came to me from lilnaugrim. He hadn't eaten for two weeks before she got him, and didn't eat for the week she had him. I got him and he refused pellets, even soaked in garlic juice. I tried for several days and he would maybe chew a few times and spit the pellet out if I was lucky; mostly he wouldn't even glance at it. Since I had passed three weeks and possibly more since who knows how long he was at the store before lil noticed him, I caved and tried frozen bloodworms. He immediately stuffed himself.

I went back and forth a few times, fasting him for a few days to try to get him to eat pellets, but he never did. So I bought some frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp and I rotate those with the bloodworms. And that's all he eats. He's happy and healthy and he started marbling as soon as I put him on the all-frozen diet. I don't think I'll feed pellets to any future bettas. The diet I'm feeding now is closer to their actual diet in the wild.

Just my picky eater experience.

 

[VivianKJean]

+1 to freeflow246

My EE HMPK Perry was a very picky eater when I got him. What I did was offered him one Omega One pellet at night. If he ate it then I offered another. For the first week he kept spitting out the first pellet I gave him. So I just removed the pellet from the tank (you should also remove uneaten food) and just tried again the next day. Eventually he learned that they are his only food and now he goes crazy for them.

 

[KlutzyGal]

Well, Zeph may be hungry, but at least apparently he's happy! Woke up this morning, gave him a pellet - which he spit out still ( :roll: ), and then I saw a bubble nest in his plant!

 

[Pippin]

Well, if he's strong enough to build a bubble nest, he's strong enough to go with out feeding. (Silly bettas.) I have a female who wouldn't eat the food we gave her for a month. I had read that I could set up a tank with about two females to one male, and I had gotten her for that. (Id didn't know it was a bad idea.) Long stories short, she tore up my males fins, but she learned that the other bettas ate that food. Maybe you could divide his tank, or move another betta really close to it so he might learn that it was acceptable fish food, and that his owner isn't trying to poison him with evil pellets.

 

[KlutzyGal]

EUREKA! He ate ONE, maybe two pellets tonight! Apparently he's deciding they're not so bad after all. :lol:

He's a very moody boy! Loki and Pip only flare up if I stick a mirror in front of them. Zephyr buzzed over to me and flared right up at me and also at my finger when I held it up by the tank. Snarky little thing!

 

[Bikeridinguckgirl14]

That is an excellent picture, and I've always loved the word snarky