Sunday, August 2, 2009

I have a betta fish and it will not eat any food what do I do?

My beautiful betta will not eat it's food and I want it to live and be healthy but how can I when he won't even eat is it normal for fish not to eat?
Answers:
Betta fish are very picky; however, like all other animals, when they are hungry they will eat what they can get. Everytime I get a new betta fish it won't eat for the first week or so, and then it eats like a pig everyday. All you can do is feed him a little bit everyday and he will eat on his own. Just be patient.

:-)
If it's a new fish, it may be stressed from the move to a new home. If it's in a small bowl with no filter, water quality could be an issue. You should check pH and ammonia levels at least once a week in a small bowl. Ammonia will poison your fish and will cause him to stop eating. A water change with a water conditioner that removes chlorine and ammonia (chloramines) will take care of that.

As far as eating, bettas don't eat much. 2-3 pellets a day is about all they need. Their stomachs are only about as big as their eye, so more food than that will be ignored, fall to the bottom, and start to break down and drive up the ammonia levels.
Betta fish can be very picky about their food. They may spit out their food either because they don't like it or because it is too hard for them to take in. I hope you are not over feeding him. Just feed him a little once in 2 days ( Once a day ). You can try feeding him other kinds of fish food.
Bettas tend not to like flake foods (of course there are exceptions). As stated before, if you just got it, it might be stressed, and so not eating right away, would be normal. Bettas tend to get overfed though by well meaning owners. They originally lived in ricepatty puddles, and so they'd just get a mosquito larvae every now and then, and that was good. Really, they only need to eat every other day, or even every third day. If you're using pellets (which I personally prefer using) then just drop one in there every couple of days. If he snaps it up then great! give him a couple more. If not, then come back a couple minutes later, and if it's still floating around, take it out so it doesn't foul the water. Also, make sure that you're using declorinated water (either bottled water, or using water conditioner). Chlorine is bad for fish, and if you were to manage to end up with water that had diluted enough chlorine content to keep from killing the fish, that could be a major source of stress. Also, make sure that when you change his water, that you let it sit and get to room temperature (the room that he's in) before you put him in his freshly cleaned tank.

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