[glitchsniffer]

Housing
What size is your tank? 2.5g
What temperature is your tank? 80F
Does your tank have a filter? Tetra Whispur 3i
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? Nope
Is your tank heated? Yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? None

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Initially Tryed NLS Betta, then Beta Min Flakes, Omega One freeze dried Bloodworms (soaking them first), API Betta pellets, Hikari Betta Bio Gold, and Omega One Betta pellets. I have tryed soaking all the above pellets and leaving them in the water for longer than I normally would.
How often do you feed your betta fish? I attempt to feed it once a day.

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? At least 50% on Thursday and 100% on Sunday.
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? See Above
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Seachem Prime

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0
pH:7.2
Hardness:?
Alkalinity: ?

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Nope
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? Nope
When did you start noticing the symptoms? Since I have owned him.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Nope
Does your fish have any history of being ill? Unknown
How old is your fish (approximately)? No idea.

So with all that out of the way I cannot get this betta to eat. I have had him for about 4 weeks and so far I can honestly say I have never seen him eat. He spits out everything that I give him or he just doesn't seem interested in eating. I have tryed everything I listed above in that order over the course since I have had him.

He has an Anubias looking silk plant, a Betta hammock (which he loves), a few tall stalks of Anacharis, a submerged hallow log, a baby whisteria, and a Java fern in his tank.

When I got him home I acclimated him by floating the bag in the tank and then over the course of a 40 or so minutes adding about 2mL of water to the bag until it was almost full and then emptying it halfway and continuing to add till full again. Then letting him go in the tank.

He seems surprisingly perky when I hold my hand on the tank and always swims away from my hand. I'm just worried he will die soon if he doesn't eat and I am running out of foods to try to feed him. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have never seen a Betta this picky. I was reading about garlic and will be heading to the store tomorrow to pick up some fresh garlic, but if he doesn't react to that, I'm about out of options. He doesn't look sick or anything, he just won't eat.

 

[Twilight Storm]

I don't know if this will help you at all.

One option is to ask the store you got him from what they feed and try that. If that doesn't work, see if a manager would call their supplier and find out what their supplier was feeding.

My newest betta was not eating. I came across a post that said one of their bettas would only eat flakes. I borrowed a pinch of flakes from a neighbor and he tried a few flakes then once he finally tried some flakes he decided to go pell mell and eat pellets I had dropped in there seconds after he tried a flake. He now loves pellets. I feed Aqueon Betta Food pellets, and New Life Spectrum Betta Formula. (I can't find NLS Growth by me.)

I think my biggest problem was building trust with that particular fish. I think he thought I was trying to kill him or something. He was the most skittish betta I ever saw and wouldn't eat going on 3 weeks. He was acting curious about the pellets and would get very close to them. He would pause and then swim away. Now he jumps at my fingers. The transformation with him was very sudden.

Another option is to crush a pellet into crumbs (try not to powder it too much) Maybe he will eat the smaller crunchy bits if he has been spitting out the soaked pellets and regular unsoaked pellets.

Sorry if this didn't help. I hope your new guy decides to eat for you soon.

Best wishes to you and your family including your Betta

 

[Olympia]

Try squeezing some garlic juice and soaking pellets in that. Betta seem to have trouble resisting that.
Otherwise, brine shrimp. If it's warm out start a mosquito larvae culture.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[glitchsniffer]

Update: Tryed garlic and still the same issue. He sees the food and just when you think he's going to eat it he grabs a gulp of air next to it and swims off. So the other night while playing in the yard the other night my son discovered a bucket that had water and some plants in it and asked if there was fish swimming around in there. I looked and found a bunch of mosquito larvae in there. I promptly pulled out a small critter keeper and added some water and conditioner to it and proceeded to use a medicine dropper to suck up a few of them. Needless to say, for the first time I actually got to see that betta eat. He seems to only like live food. Is there anyway I can use this to my advantage to get him to eat non living food? He really seems to love the larvae and the hunt to get them. Can I just feed him these or does anyone else have any suggestions?

 

[Olympia]

I do wonder if mosquito larvae are safe for a full diet, it's what they eat in the wild.
But for now, maybe feed him some larvae, and then throw in a pellet to try and trick him. Let's see if that helps.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[lelei]

Hello, I would say when I feed our sammy, he hates soggy pellets, and even tho Haikari Gold is is favorite, if they are soggy..(like my daughter with her cereal) he won't eat them..they are micro pellets, and he eats them one at a time, when I drop em in the water, (grabs em immediately) so they don't have time to get soggy..lol..so try em fresh out of the pkg..and if you are using reg size pellets, try Micro Pellets..they seem to be the preferred pellets for most bettas Good Luck

 

[lelei]

Also I noticed you feed once a day..try again at night..if you are only trying in the day..or the opposite..sometimes their appetite is different..at least ours is..(betta's are very picky, and sometimes hard to figure out) I feed our Sammy actually 3x a day..(micro pellets) and he is doing quite well