Fat female bettas...

[new2betas]

I don't think this should be in the sick fish forum, but wanted to know if it is common when a female betta is added to a community tank for them to get very fat? I added my two female bettas to my established 29g a couple of weeks ago. They are fine and getting along with everyone....BUT, they are getting obese...probably morbidly obese in fish terms. I will try to capture a picture, but they are hard to capture. I feed flake food most of the time for them and my lamp eye tetras. I feed either shrimp pellets or sinking algae wafers to my cories and pleco. Now, occasionally they will finish what they want of the flake food and go eat floating food coming off of the cory/pleco food. I know I am not overfeeding my other fish because no one else is close to fat....but they are huge. Is this normal or something to worry about??

 

[Purrbox]

I could be that they are constipated. Microwave a frozen pea just enough to thaw it, skin it, and chop it up into small bite sized portions, then feed to your bettas. If it's constipation the pea should help them clear it up.

 

[new2betas]

Thanks Joy. I do usually feed them peas and there is usually spinach in my tank once a week, but with school just started up recently, I kinda back slid on the veggies. Will do that and see if it helps. Thanks!

 

[Alaris]

If you think that they're overeating you could skip the betta food for a couple days and see what happens.

 

[new2betas]

Alaris - that is what is funny about them...they don't just eat their betta food, they eat EVERYTHING that is fed to other fish in the tank as well. They even go down and graze with the cories and eat the food that flies through the air when the cories are tearing into their algae wafers or shrimp pellets. They are just piggies...lol....I did feed them some pea today, which of course they greedily consumed...so I hope I see some improvement tomorrow. I need weight watchers for my fish.

 

[Alaris]

They're just not used to having all that food in their tank! lol