# Saved a baby betta :)



## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

so i broke my rule of never shopping at Petco and bought what they had labeled as a "baby betta". Im pretty sure i cant feed him pellets but whats the best thing to feed them? and do they need any other special care? ill post a picture up as soon as i can


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

How big is he? You can try crushing and soaking the pellets, he may take them.


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

baby bettas need more care then they let you think. Baby brine shrimp are good for them, combined with crushed pellets, should be okay. make sure you keep up with the water changes, i changed Chappy's every single day, and they NEED a heater.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Yea, it's kind of hit and miss. The really tiny ones usually don't make it :/
Would they still be producing that stunting hormone? If so he'd need lots of WCs.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

hes about half an inch maybe? i dont think he can be more than 2 or 3 months old. Just took pictures ill upload them now. He doesnt seem to have any color yet


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

here he/she is in his/her big betta cup


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

I'd head off and try to find some brine shrimp eggs. o.o


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

can i buy eggs at petsmart? are normal brine shrimp too big? ive never bought live food before. how old do you think he/she is? also do you think it would be ok to wait till tomorrow morning to feed him/her? im not sure if they need to be fed every day. petsmart closed 2 hours ago and petco didnt have any live food what so ever :/ and theyre closed now too. i do have flakes and pellets right now that i feed my other betta Antione.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Do you have a fish store? I don't know if chain stores carry eggs. 
He should be fine for tonight, keep him warm. I have no clue how old he'd be. 
Also, you'll need aquarium salt to hatch your brine shrimp. 
I'd try crushing and soaking pellet food tonight though, just in case.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

yes, im not sure how good they are though. ive never been in there. Ill check tomorrow. right now i only have access to walmart since its easter. what about blood worms? i know walmart carries those. would they be ok for him/her?


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## lvandert (Feb 23, 2012)

I know my branch has daphnia and frozen baby brine shrimp.


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

i'd stay away from freeze-dried foods for now. x: baby brine shrimp aren't hard to hatch, imo. i did it in an unused tea pitcher with the light from my one-gallon tank and an air stone.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

thats just all i could get tonight. i have pellets but theyre at my moms house. i can most likely get brine shrimp tomorrow. assuming petsmart or the non chain fish store has them


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

I think frozen (thawed) would be fine as long as it's small enough for the baby.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

it isnt :/ i tried cutting it but it didnt want to be cut. i can loopk around and see if anywhere around here has baby brine shrimp tomoro though


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

I always stab my frozen cubes with a knife and end up with lot's of tiny pieces. Lol.


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

I have a female betta around that size I picked up from my LFS. I just feed her frozen brine shrimp/bloodworms and NLS small fish formula pellets. She has no issues eating any of these foods and she will even take the large 1mm pellets I feed the others. 

At that age, you could really wean off BBS. At least live BBS. I doubt that's what it was getting fed in the store/wholesaler. My wild fry are smaller at two months old, and I only give them BBS as a treat. The rest of the time it's grindal worms or pellets. 

I hate hatching BBS so it could colour my opinion a bit haha. But I have seen spectacular growth on my fry with just the grindals and NLS .5mm pellets.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

well he made it through the night so thats good 

dramaqueen: is freeze dried ok or should i stick with frozen?

LBF: whats NLS? do they make pellets small enough or do you just crush them? My older betta Antione could barely eat his pellets at first. he is kind of small though


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

It's New Life Spectrum. One of the best brands of dry fish food on the market in my opinion. 

The .5mm pellets are tiny. Some of my strohi fry (type of betta) are maybe half an inch to an inch and they can easily take them without crushing.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

i got some brine shrimp and fed that (didnt realize how tiny they were!) they kept getting coughed up but i think some of them were eaten. he looks kind of chubby so he must not be starving haha he/she still wont eat the blood worms though


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

Yeah they can be fussy. I cannot for the life of me get one batch of fry to eat pellets. Would make life _that_ much easier but even when I had a fish in there to show them what to do they still looked at me like I was crazy.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

lol i dont know what im going to do when hes in the 5.5 gallon. wont be as easy to fish out any remaining food :/


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## Tikibirds (May 26, 2011)

I floated my guy in his cup in a heated tank and used a syringe to change water. That way I could easily find him and keep an eye on him. He was small but he was able to eat crushed pellets and frozen blood worms. I dethawed them in hot water and then stabed them with a tweezer to make them smaller

Have you tried flakes?

I secretly was hoping the petco that just opened here had babies. They don't which is probably for the best, but I want one.


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## OMGemily (Feb 28, 2012)

i havent tried flakes yet. i dont know why i didnt think of that... haha but hes eating pellets quite nicely  i plit them in half and he takes a while to realize he needs a bit of force to suck them in but once he does he chews and swallows just fine. no spitting up  ill try flakes and see if hes interested. Antione never really cared for them. ill post another update after school


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