What To Feed Betta Fish: A Quick Guide For Beginners

The difference between a bony, colorless betta and a healthy, bright-colored betta with beautiful fins is the difference in diet. If you want your betta fish to not only survive but thrive, you need to feed them the right food.

To know what makes up a balanced, healthy diet for bettas, read the following article – a complete betta fish feeding guide for beginners. It includes Betta’s nutritional requirements, the healthiest food options available, the right amount of food to feed, and some proven ways to make your picky betta eat.

Table of Contents

What Should You Feed To Betta Fish?

As a staple food, you can feed your betta high-quality pellets or flakes high in crude protein. Live, frozen or freeze-dried food such as brine shrimp, bloodworms, or daphnia should be offered as a treat (1-2 times a week) or used in daily feeding routine.

Offering a varied diet or rotating between at least two to three food items will keep your fish happy.

Betta Fish Dietary Requirement

Also known as, Siamese fighting fish, bettas are carnivores (technically insectivores) and should be fed a high-protein meaty diet.

what to feed betta fish — A Betta Fish Searching For Food

In the wild, betta fish mainly eat insects and small invertebrates. In captivity, you can feed them a variety of commercially available betta food, such as pellets, flakes, and frozen or freeze-dried foods.

If you have access to live food, there is nothing better than that because this is what fish eats in nature and is tremendously beneficial.

A Varied Diet Is The Key

Although high-quality staple pellets provide complete and balanced nutrition, food variety can improve your betta’s health, coloration, and well-being.

Being a notoriously picky eater, betta prefers a varied diet. It keeps them happy, stimulated, and satisfied.

For example, pellet feeding can be substituted with live or frozen food such as bloodworms, brine shrimp, or other insects for 1-2 days per week.

Healthiest Food Options For Betta Fish

As you may know, there are different types of betta food available in the market. What you choose for your fish should depend on your budget, accessibility, and your betta’s preference.

Betta Pellets Or Flakes

Betta pellets and flakes are the most common and easily available food.

To be nutritionally complete and balanced, you need high-quality pellets/flakes specifically formulated for betta fish with at least 30% crude protein.

NOTE: Avoid cheap brands because they are high in fillers and contain artificial ingredients, which can cause excess bloat and digestive issues.

Pellets are usually larger and heavier and tend to sink to the bottom, while flakes float at the surface.

But do you know most fish keepers prefer pellets over flake food? Here is why:

Pellets contain fewer fillers and are more nutritious than flakes.
Pellets don’t dissolve in water as rapidly as flakes do, which creates a mess causing water quality issues.
Pellets have a longer shelf life enabling you to buy in bulk and save some money.
Pellets are easier to easy to portion. You can count how many of them your fish eat per meal.

How to feed?

Some betta fish pellets expand when exposed to the water. So if a fish eats them instantly, they’ll expand in the fish’s stomach and cause bloating or indigestion. Therefore, such pellets must be presoaked before feeding.

Best betta fish pellets to buy:

Best betta fish flakes to buy:

Tetra BettaMin Flakes

Live Betta Food

Live insects are the most nutritionally rich food you can feed your betta. Your fish can live purely on a live food diet. However, as beneficial as this food source is, it comes with some limitations.

Firstly, live food has a certain time limit before it must be used, or the insect may die or spoil. Secondly, if you are not farming your own supply, it can get quite expensive to outsource live food as your betta’s main diet.

Lastly, live insects may carry parasites or other pathogens, which can cause disease and even risk your fish’s life. To prevent any mishappening, always source your live food from reputable suppliers. Also, never feed your betta anything you have caught outdoors.

Following are the best live food options for betta fish. Some of these can be hand fed, while others are best left in the aquarium for your betta to chase and hunt down.

Live worms – black worms, grindal worms, and white worms
Bloodworms
Mosquito Larvae
Brine Shrimp
Daphnia Fruit Flies
Wingless Fruit Flies
Vinegar eels
Fairy Shrimp
Mysis Shrimp

Frozen Betta Food

After live foods, frozen foods are the next closest thing to what fish would typically eat in the wild. Most live food varieties are often available in the form of frozen food, making it a great alternative food source for bettas.

Frozen foods can be stored for an extended time, which gives them an advantage over live foods.

Never leave frozen food at room temperature for more than 30 minutes, or it may start to spoil and stink. Once it’s been thawed, you should not try to refreeze it because, by this time, the food might have triggered bacteria growth or got contaminated.

To avoid frozen food wastage, always portion out the required amount during routine feeding and put the rest back into the refrigerator.

How to feed frozen food to betta fish?

The most convenient way is to throw a cube (or a piece from it) directly into the tank. The frozen cube will start thawing, allowing the fish to nibble.
For mess-free feeding, you can put the cube into a worm feeder cone. It provides a slow food release, preventing the fastest eaters from gobbling on the whole thing, and also helps you monitor the food intake.
Some people prefer to defrost the cubes in a small jar of tank water, let it thaw for a few minutes, and then feed the liquid from a pipette or turkey baster.

Here are different types of frozen foods you can include in your betta fish diet:

Frozen bloodworms (Hikari brand makes the highest quality bloodworms)
Frozen brine shrimp
Frozen mysis shrimp
Frozen black mosquito larvae

Freeze-Dried Foods

Contrary to the popular claim, freeze-dried foods offer more or less similar nutritional value as frozen foods.

Freeze-dried foods are lightweight and tend to float on the surface. Unlike frozen foods, they are free of bacteria and parasites, relatively inexpensive, don’t require freezing, are easy to portion for right-sized feedings, and can be easily removed from the tank.

Although relatively inexpensive and readily available, freeze-dried foods should not be used as the main food in your betta fish diet, mainly due to indigestible fillers and lack of moisture.

How to feed?

Freeze-dried foods are made by removing 98% of the water content. Therefore, the food must be presoaked in the tank water before feeding.

Rehydrating the freeze-dried food before it reaches your betta’s mouth keeps it from expanding in the fish’s stomach, reducing the chances of bloating and constipation.

Here are some popular freeze-dried foods for betta fish:

How Much To Feed Your Betta Fish (And How Often)?

If you came here expecting us to give you exact numbers for the pellets you should feed your bettas, then we have to disappoint you.

Betta pellets come in different sizes with varied nutritional values; some swell more than others. Therefore, suggesting “a fixed number” of pellets to feed makes no sense.

Another piece of advice you might have heard is to feed your betta whatever food it can eat in 3-5 minutes, which is not useful. Every betta fish is different. Some are fast eaters, while some like to take their time.

Moreover, you will be surprised if you witness how much food a hungry betta can chow down in 2 minutes.

So now, as we have busted the common myths and got them out of our way, here’s the answer you’ve been waiting for:

As a rule of thumb, a betta fish can be fed an amount of food equal to the size of its eyeball, twice a day.

This rule originates from the belief that a betta’s stomach is roughly the size of its eyeball. Now, whether this is scientifically correct is debatable.

Trial and Error With Food Portions

The above rule should serve as a guideline for beginners rather than as the definitive rule which cannot be altered.

You are allowed to test with different food portion sizes and use your judgment to determine your betta’s appetite. You don’t want your fish to be overfed, but you’d also not like to have an underfed and malnourished betta.

The only way you will ever find out the amount of food it actually takes for your betta fish to be completely satiated is by trial and error.

Ideally, betta fish have slightly rounded abdomens. After a meal, if your fish’s stomach looks too swollen and remains the same until the next meal, consider decreasing the portion size. On the other hand, if your betta looks weak and has a sunken belly, you should increase the food quantity.

What To Feed Picky Betta Fish When It’s Not Eating?

Bettas are well-known to be fussy eaters. It’s not uncommon to see a betta swallowing the food and spitting it out or blatantly ignoring it.

There can be various reasons for this behavior, and some of the common ones are given below, alongside the remedies:

Are the pellets small enough for your betta to eat? Spitting out food is usually seen when it’s too big for the fish to eat. Betta’s little mouth can’t snap through the full-size pellets. Try chopping the food into small pieces and then drop it into the aquarium.
You have a spoiled betta. Betta fish can get addicted to a certain type of food (such as bloodworms) and may start rejecting other foods they typically eat. Try mixing the food your betta is eating with the food he’s not, and once he starts showing interest, gradually increase the food portion you want the fish to eat. If that doesn’t work, fast your betta for a day or two (or more if required). Eventually, he will get hungry and start eating whatever you feed.
Try soaking your betta pellets in garlic water or Seachem Garlic Guard to make them more appealing for your fish.
Betta prefers variety in their diet. If you’re feeding your fish the same food for every meal, then it’s probably why he’s not eating. Try offering different food or get Fluval Bug Bites – betta loves it.
Your betta might want a moving target. Possibly, your fish is tired of being fed and wants the fun of chasing and hunting down its prey. Get your pet some brine shrimp.

What To Feed Betta Fry?

Betta fry will feed on anything that is moving and smaller than them.

Infusoria and tiny free-living nematodes such as Vinegar Eels, Microworms, Banana Worms, Walter Worms, baby Brine Shrimp, Daphnia, Fairy Shrimp, and Grindal Worms are all great fry food.

Baby fries should be fed several small meals rather than a few big servings. Feeding the betta fry 4 to 5 times a day will result in optimal growth.

How To Make Betta Fry Grow Faster?

Conclusion

Although extremely finicky, bettas have an appetite for just about anything, making it easy to feed these small freshwater fish.

With the different food options shared above, you should know what to feed your betta fish to assist optimal growth and well-being.