# Help with weening betta fry off live food



## CliffAce (Dec 7, 2019)

The fry I have are over 3 weeks old now. I get the live food from my campus wet lab (baby brine shrimp), they have been fed these for weeks now. Within a few weeks I will not have access to these food stock due to break. I have been crushing up flake dust and sprinkling it into the fry enclosure, some curiously eat it then spit it out. I wait 10 minutes before putting in any live food. Any tips on how to ween betta fry off live food?


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

I usually feed both foods at the same time, slowly reducing live. They should eventually accept the "new" food.

Some may starve before accepting the new food, stunting their growth. And you may even lose some


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## CliffAce (Dec 7, 2019)

I sometimes feed them dead brine shrimp babies, and they eat them sometimes. I am thinking this is a good first step in having them eat non living/moving food.


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

I find it easier to shift to frozen than man made foods. Even adults may never accept man made food. There was a time when my bettas would rather die than take pellets.

Now I mix live and manmade since day one.. I find it easier to introduce new food types.


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## Brian Immekus (Feb 26, 2020)

Are you not able to purchase Brine Shrimp eggs in your area? That is the easiest fix... hatch them yourself. 

If you are not able to get them, or just don't want to mess with it, then you will still have to do more than crush up flakes. Unless the flakes aren't just your basic OTC fish food. IF you are able to go on aquabid.com you can do a search there for Fry Crack. Once you locate that just look at all of the sellers items and you will see that he has all kinds of food for baby fish. His Fry Crack and I think it is his stage one fry food are both easy to get fish to eat. 

I have yet to find a fish (adults included) that will not tear up the water when I drop the Fry Crack in. I do not start bettas out with BBS, I start them out with the Stage One fry food, green water, and boiled egg yolk if I do not have any green water. Their mouths are a bit small for the BBS on day one feeding but the Algae bloom water and since I use indian almond leaves in my spawning tanks there is also infusoria present. I rarely start them on BBS anymore until week two and they only get them for one or two of their feedings. The other feedings I use fry crack mixed with stage one fry food. 

I do grind up Earthworm, Brine Shrimp, and Blackworm flakes using a mortar and pestle and start mixing it in with the fry crack by the 3rd week but I feed live BBS or frozen Brine, or frozen cyclops to my bettas into adulthood. Among other things. 

They are spot on though about sometimes they will starve to death before they eat something they don't want. My last brood refused BBS... I didn't even notice until I had 20 or so of them dead in the tank. I was sick with the flu so not having to hatch BBS would have made me very happy, but that was the first time that has ever happened. They will still not eat anything but the stage one fry food.


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