# Overfeeding a betta?



## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

I have had a very hard time determining if I am overfeeding my betta. What concerned me was the size of his stomach and people saying how small their stomach is. Even when I am very conservative about feeding and skip feeding, he seems to be bloated. I'm starting to think I am just misreading the way they should look. I tried searching for pics of an overfed betta, and mostly got ones with other problems but seeing some that were unbelievably huge compared to mine, I started to wonder if he is as he should be. 

Normally I always feed the fish but my wife feed them yesterday morning under my direction as I was late for work. The betta got a shelled pea (might have got most of one pea). I feed them that night and the betta got maybe 3 bloodworms (realized then how big his stomach was). This is what I am interpreting as very over feed. I feed him once to twice a day and just a few/couple pellets. 

On a side note. I threw a few small snails in there to try and work on the algae. Not sure if he ate any but I just saw 2 that had not gotten eaten. If he doesn't eat them I plan on adding more.


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## DragonFish (Mar 31, 2009)

Hmm.....he doesn't look too too bloated, but he does appear to be just a tad on the large side. 
It would be helpful to know his exact feeding schedule in order to determine if you're feeding him or not. What brand of pellets are you feeding? How many exactly is a few/couple of pellets? Are you feeding frozen or Freeze dried bloodworms and how often?

Its best to avoid feeding peas with bettas. Its a bit of a controversial issue, but most agree and will tell you that because bettas are insectivores/carnivores they have a difficult time digesting plant/vegetable matter and the pea treatment can often do more harm then good. 
Frozen Daphnia is a good substitute for the pea treatment I've been told, though fasting and a little Epsom salt is also helpful.

Hes a lovely little guy by the way.


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

agreed on the pea controversy... Bettas get their veggies through pray. Using live or frozen daphnia, works the same as a pea however is better for the betta!

He looks to be more constipated...which can happen with a weak diet or overfeeding. Use 3 teaspoons of epsoms salt (non fragrance, 100% pure) and allow him to be in it for about 2-3 days. My boyfriend's sister's betta had the same problem and he passed a small pea sized poo! :/ 

Do you feed pellets? flakes? I avoid freeze dried except as treats. I have a mixed pallet of freeze dried, which I bought from a small store here (forget what is in it)... as for staplesw I use frozen (thawed), pellets, and mealworm meat (decapitated and deshelled...yuck lol) then a day of fasting every week.

He is pretty ^^

I WILL tell you every betta is different even in shape. From spoonheads to more submarine streamlined fellas. I had a crowntail male who had a belly on him, but that was just his shape.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

At the most he gets 6 pellets in a day (3 pellets twice). If he gets fed once in a day he gets 4-5 pellets. I fast him a day maybe once a week. He gets pellets at l4-6 days a week. I have feed him a pea as his only mean a couple of times, and as 1 of 2 meals a couple of times. Maybe every week and a half or two weeks for the pea. I say 4-6 days a week for pellets as there have been some instances of trying diffident foods. Pellets are hbh betta bites and are pretty small pellets. Other foods he may have gotten 1-3 days a week though in general I try for only 1-2) might have been, frozen blood worms, hikari frozen krill (chopped and formed, fortified, no shells), tetra freeze dried baby shrimp treats once (I don't like this food, too big and mostly shell), sanfrancisco bay freeze dried mysis shrimp (I really like this stuff, small peices, seems to have no shells etc), dried tubifex worms. 

He doesn't get all this every week. I have been trying different foods so some he may have had once or twice ever. His main diet is the hbh pellets, maybe 6 every other day (3 twice) and 4 every other day (4 once). While I have feed dried food in the past, all dried food including pellets now gets soaked for at least a minute or two. I have been soaking for a few weeks. I also feed him new life spectrum flakes once (thinking of trying soaking it and trying again). That is the one exception to soaking has been flakes (he would never eat flakes but seemed to like the new life spectrum). When I was talking about soaking, I meant with all my fish, not just him. I forgot another not that it matters. I do not soak tetra granules but he doesn't get feed those anyway. 

I hope that wasn't too confusing.


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## NyaNyanNaa (Oct 2, 2012)

6 is way too much from my opinion.

I use NLS and they have small pellets and I feed my boy three pellets at 7 in the morning and 7 at night and use freeze dried bloodworms as treats but I only fed him those once.

If he gets bloodworms as a treat then he only gets one pellet at the night time feeding hour. So you may want to cut down on the pellets.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

NyaNyanNaa said:


> 6 is way too much from my opinion.
> 
> I use NLS and they have small pellets and I feed my boy three pellets at 7 in the morning and 7 at night and use freeze dried bloodworms as treats but I only fed him those once.
> 
> If he gets bloodworms as a treat then he only gets one pellet at the night time feeding hour. So you may want to cut down on the pellets.


Are you saying you feed 3 in the morning and 3 at night for a total of 6 in a day? If yes, that is what I feed and its the only way he gets 6 pellets in a day. If he gets fed once in a day, he gets 4-5 (been sticking with 4 lately). He probably gets fed twice a day every other day and once a day every other day. I also try to not feed him at all once a week. If I feed treats (any of the other foods) he doesn't get pellets for that feeding. I can not find nls locally. I had to mail order the flakes and they are pretty expensive, much more so with shipping. I may eventually get some of their pellets (the place I ordered the flakes from didn't carry their betta food).


I was going to make a separate reply but might as well include it in this reply. I just got some seachem betta banquet. The ingredients were supposed to be 

Fish meal, blood meal, krill meal, fish oil, beta carotene, vitamin A acetate and several other vitamins and additive but no other bulk ingredients. 

They wound up being 

fish meal, wheat flour, shrimp meal, fish oil and then other non bulk ingredients. I am contacting the manufacture about the discrepancy. I have so many betta foods trying to find a good one I'm going to start feeding some to my other fish to use it up. 


I also just got hikari micro pellets (semi floating) and micro wafers (slowly sinking). I'm not sure if either would be a suitable food to provide variety for the betta or not but was considering trying.


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## DragonFish (Mar 31, 2009)

Depending on the size of pellet, 6 pellets per day provided they're spread out between a couple of feedings is just fine.

It sounds like you've got a nice variety of food on hand there actually, thats fantastic! Variety is always good. 

I used to feed HBH, and to be honest the pellets really aren't all that small....or at least the ones I always had weren't. My smaller boys always had trouble with them, and I found that generally 2 per feeding was plenty. If I fed any more then that, I noticed I ended up with a little bloating.
I stopped feeding HBH though because a couple of my boys stopped eating it(I also suspect now that the not-so-fantastic quality may have been the cause of some SBD issues I had a while back), and after comparing ingredients and whatnot I made the switch over to New Life Spectrum Betta Formula(I tried Omega One first, though none of my boys liked it at all strangely enough). If only for the quality and better nutritional value, I highly suggest switching over to Omega One or NLS for a staple pellet. 

Also, its best not to soak your food(except maybe in a little garlic juice to entice the appetite for a picky betta who doesn't want its pellets)....that takes out all the nutritional value.

Hmm.....I wouldn't feed that Seachem stuff then. Thats pretty high up on the list for a filler(wheat flour).

Take a look at the ingredients of the wafers. What you want to see is some kind of meat/fish as the first couple of ingredients and fillers like wheat and soy as far down on the list as possible. 
To be honest, I'm a little iffy about feeding commercial pellets/flakes and such not made for bettas as they can have a bit more plant matter/fillers in them. If you feel like the ingredients check out though, won't hurt to try a couple.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

Were the hbh pellets you used soft or hard? I bought them as hbh frog and tadpole bites were highly recommended. I later found out the formula had been changed on both of them to lower quality ingredients. I think the older were soft/large and the newer are hard/small. I contacted seachem again. If what I got is an older version (could be as they changed the name), I'm going to see if they will replace it with the new one. I would just buy it but I have not even seen anyone online selling it under the new name (plenty have the old and list the better ingredients). 

I have issues with omega one. I have only had the nls flakes for a couple of days but so far so good. I may try to get other nls products including betta pellets. The hikari seem the normal main stream so so stuff. 

Micro wafers are fish meal, krill meal, wheat flour, flaked corn, yeast ...

Micro pellets are fish meal, wheat flour, flaked corn, yeast ...

So is there not any issue with it absorbing water in their stomach causing bloating if you do not soak (with pellets or freeze dried foods)?

I'm also tempted to make some of my own food including dried flakes (not sure if any of it would go to the betta).


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

Pellets I find don't expand as badly as flakes (flakes are low protein and ntrition anywho). My bettas like to chew and spit out their food it o edible bites, or I use a smaller pellet. I give 3 per feeding twice a day so 6 is just fine... Again depending on the size of pellet. I use tetramin, brand (Walmart) with no problems however I have heard hikari is good.


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## DragonFish (Mar 31, 2009)

The HBH Betta Bites I always bought were your standard hard little betta pellet. They did vary in size a little bit, but for the most part they were fairly on the large side in comparison to just about every other pellet brand(NLS, Aqueon, Omega, and Hikari)that I had ever gotten a good look at. 

I had issues with Omega One Betta Buffet myself actually....though it was more of a my fish hated it sort of issue. I have no clue what was in it or if maybe it was just getting old(though I've had it less then a year...), but every single one of my boys were not at all enthusiastic about the switch over to Omega. 
However, lots of members here use it and say their bettas love it....and it is a better quality pellet then most, so I still recommend it.

Hikari used to be one of the best brands out there, though recently they've changed their formula(I know in betta pellets at least, but I expect they made some changes in their other foods as well, though I can't be certian)to a much lower-quality then they used to be. 

Hmm...the Micro wafers sound okay, though I wouldn't feed them as a staple of course....the micro pellets I wouldn't use.

That used to be what I was told as well when I first started keeping, but I've read and been told that it turns out thats not necessarily true. After all, if you pay attention to your betta eating, they don't swallow the pellets whole...they 'chew' it and crush it a little. And a good quality pellet like NLS doesn't really take on much water anyway even when soaked, but soaking in tank water actually takes out the nutritional value of the food anyway. Once it takes on water, its kinda useless. 
There is still the risk of bloating with freeze-dried, but most keepers feed it sparing in small pieces and tend to not have many issues. I personally don't bother with freeze-dried myself, I prefer frozen. 

I do believe OldFishLady might have a recipe for homemade betta food. You could shoot her a PM if you're interested in making your own.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

Thanks everybody for all the information. As far as hikari use to be good but changed their formula, there seems to be a lot of that going around. I think its the same story with hbh products and there is at least one other but I can not recall right now. While omega one seems good I have heard of lots of problems (bone chunks and shards, food that molds/grows fungus in the container fast and or in the tank if you do not get every little bit out). Omega one gets a government grant for food waste recycling meaning they use a lot of the scraps that might get thrown away. While its not uncommon for fish foods to use such things, it means their advertising may be deceptive and they are vague and or non responsive when questioned about it. I have personally had problems with mold and bones so I won't use it. 

That kind of leaves new life spectrum. Unfortunately no one carries it around here (I even contacted the manufacture and the distributor they recommended and no one carries it). Its expensive and with shipping on top, its really expensive. I'm still looking around for someone that carries it that has good prices, reasonable shipping, and or a good selection where I can get other things to spread out the shipping cost. Many places seem to only carry a small selection of their food too.


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## DragonFish (Mar 31, 2009)

o.o Oh wow, I've NEVER heard of anything like that at all about Omega One, I've always seen it as highly recommended and quite widely used. Do you have any resources on the subject? I'm really interested in looking into this now....

Hmm, I assume you don't have a Petco anywhere around you? As far as I know, thats the only place that carries NLS betta formula(I've heard small fish formula is also pretty good actually, if that might be easier to find....). I had a heck of a time finding NLS online too....
Have you asked your LPS if they could maybe specially order a container of the betta formula for you? Some local stores might be willing to do that...


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## finnfinnfriend (Feb 3, 2012)

NyaNyanNaa said:


> 6 is way too much from my opinion.
> 
> I use NLS and they have small pellets and I feed my boy three pellets at 7 in the morning and 7 at night and use freeze dried bloodworms as treats but I only fed him those once.
> 
> If he gets bloodworms as a treat then he only gets one pellet at the night time feeding hour. So you may want to cut down on the pellets.


LOL you just said 6 is way to much and then said you feed 6 XD


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## Sena Hansler (Aug 24, 2011)

Try Ebay. Sometimes you can find free shipping items, which is what I seem to find a lot of. Remember a thing of pellets lasts a LOT longer than expected :lol:

Or, perhaps one of our awesome members can send you some in the mail  I have had a lovely person do that with Hikari first bites baby fish food for my tadpole (severely small ADULT female betta) rescue and her sister.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

Petco is a ways away (maybe 35 minutes, more if I want to skip the tolls), and did not have any betta food or flake (I think they only had 3 kinds of pellets). Maybe they were out of stock on some. I may check there again next time I'm down that way if the flake food works out well which it seems to be doing. My local pet store could order the flake but only the smallest, least cost effective size. I guess it is a new supplier or the product is new to that supplier or something so maybe things will change. 

On the omega one problems, it seems like it might very with good batches and bad ones with some users having reported getting both at times. It was a little while ago I looked into it but I'll see what info I can dig up. The first problem I personally had was their shrimp pellets. The fish didn't really seem to like them (though in one tank the corries did). I my 55 gal without the corries, I let them sit for a while to see if they fish would eat them. I then tried to remove them but they mostly just broke apart into tiny pieces. I tried a few times and they never seemed to get eaten. One time I neglected to try remove the pellets, and withing part of a day, they had fungus on them (tons of it). I did my best to remove them. Within a couple of days, fungus was showing up all over the tank. I cleaned the gravel and found endless numbers of tiny particles of the food with huge blooms of fungus on them. The tiniest of particles would have a huge amount on it. It would seem the fish never touched it. I cleaned the gravel and filled with water many times and eventually got most of it out. The tank had a huge fungus outbreak and I lost several fish. 

The first bottle of flake I got was super color flakes. It had gritty particles like sharp sand in it. The fish would spit a lot of it out a lot more than with normal flake and a lot of it would wind up on the bottom uneaten. When trying to powder it between my fingers for small fish (just bigger than fry), there were sharp pieces. Most were not much bigger than sand but much sharper and checking it out more, there were some bigger pieces. One person on a forum reported a fish getting impaled and killed trying to eat a bone shard in it (he cut to fish open to see what that was sticking out the side of it that killed it). 


I'm going to have to dig around to find more about the omega one. Somewhere online there is a document or some such concerning the grant. Here is just a little info I dug up quick 

The grant mentioned in post 15 but its just a poster mentioning it
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?452831-Peacock-Bass-Pellet-Food/page2

This thread shows better with a response from omega one admitting they use heads and caucuses and explain it away saying they are high quality and state that lunch meat, hotdogs and sausage use chicken and turkey heads, frames and scraps as the main ingredient so it ok. Fyi that is wrong. These kind of things must legally be listed as by products if used in human food (used to actually be more commonly used but not so much after that law was made).

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?49439

Somewhere you can view some of the documents concerning the grant but I can not find it right now.

I think this is the one about the fish bone impaling the fish but I was wrong about him cutting it open (unless this is a different report than the one I read).

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/bone-in-omega-one-claims-one-76089.html

This thread just mentions in a post about bones in it being annoying. 

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?266317-Best-food

I can try and dig up more if you like but I'm just googleing it. Many people are happy with omega one. I think the bones may be a quality control issue that is occasionally found, but if you search, you can find plenty of reports of it. 

A few things to remember. Most fish foods probably have fish bones. Its not a problem (in fact a high ash content probably means a lot of bones). Big and or sharp pieces of bone are a problem. Many fish foods use heads and caucuses. Omega one is deceptive about doing it and their ingredient list is deceptive. If I understand right the first several ingredients in their food is technically a single ingredient (a mixture of seafoods). That is how they get away with whole ingredients when most is byproducts (which again, many use but they try to pretend they do not). 

I based my not using it on my personal bad experiences (the info like above I found after the fact when trying to figure out what was going on). 

A report of mold in the tank (I think it was fungus)
http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/freshwater-beginners/128416-ok-so-i-am-head-out-lps-fish-food.html

A report of a new can molding in the can in a couple of weeks

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55613

Again, if you google there are more reports. I was searching things like omega one bone, omega one grit, omega one food bones, omega one food mold, omega one fungus.


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## ripit (Sep 6, 2012)

Sena Hansler said:


> Try Ebay. Sometimes you can find free shipping items, which is what I seem to find a lot of. Remember a thing of pellets lasts a LOT longer than expected :lol:
> 
> Or, perhaps one of our awesome members can send you some in the mail  I have had a lovely person do that with Hikari first bites baby fish food for my tadpole (severely small ADULT female betta) rescue and her sister.


After a little more use with the flakes, if I like it I'll just order some. With any luck I'll find someone that carries a few variety to spread shipping out and or other things I need. I'll check ebay and I think there are some on amazon. I wouldn't mind getting some of their regular freshwater fish pellets too.


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## DragonFish (Mar 31, 2009)

Oh wow, thank you for all the resources!! I really appreciate you taking the time to go snag those for me, I've been going though them, and I'll definitely go google for more. It seems a lot of the trouble is with he flakes and shrimp pellets though, which I thankfully don't use....xD

Seems like you really know you're foods though. Best of luck finding the NLS!


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