Betta Questions

[cobb12]

I have a few questions about my male betta i hope some of you could answer.

1.My betta is always chasing his shadow, when will he stop this anything i can do to prevent it?

2.I have asked at my LFS but they dont really know what they are talking about. What begginer FW fish will work well with my male betta, my female betta?

3.Will plastic plants hurt my bettas fins?

4.I am currently feeding my bettas frozen brine the cube is 2" long , 1" in width. I feed him a sixth of a cube every day. Is this to much, too little. Is frozen brine good for them or i ssomething better?

5.What is the best kin dof sediment for looks and help with cleaning. Sand or gravel or anything else?

Thanks for the answers!

 

[Sum22]

1. Usually, they lose interest in shadows after a while.

2. I had my bettas with white clouds, Zebra danios, glass catfish and neon tetras. They did fine with all those species. My next plan is to have a betta, african dwarf frogs, and white clouds.

3. Depends on the plastic plants. I had one betta of 2, that would get caught in the plastic grass and the foxtails and I had to remove the plants. I'm planning on using the silk stuff next time to get a more realistic look.

4. I'm not really sure since I feed my betta pellet food and the occassional dried brine shrimp.

5. Dark substrate makes the fish colors pop more. The standard aquarium gravel is pretty easy to clean with a gravel vac in my opinion.

 

[cobb12]

thanks for the info. so those other fish species work well with male and female bettas?

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

bettas like any other fish have there own personallity, meaning that some will not get along with any fish, while others do fine with most other fish.

 

[Sum22]

thanks for the info. so those other fish species work well with male and female bettas?

Probably, you should research any fish you plan on buying ahead of time to make sure that they don't have a tendency to nip fins. Tiger barbs, for instance, would probably tear your betta up.

My brother kept a Betta with a group of glolight tetras and they all lived happily together. You should keep an eye on them when you first add other fish, just to make sure the betta doesn't get too aggressive, or the other fish don't go after their fins.

 

[cobb12]

ok, does anyone know anything about the frozen brine though or should i consider feeding them something different

 

[Sum22]

Does your betta eat all the food you give it? If so, then you shouldn't worry that you are over feeding. If there are leftovers floating in the tank then, you should cut back a little. Also, varied diets are good. So maybe you could add pellet food or flake food instead of brine a couple of times a week.

 

[Taelen]

I have some cories with my betta and they do fine.

 

[cobb12]

the reason i was concerned with how much to feed him is that there is some food floating around but its not necesarrily that i am feeding him too much. when i feed him he never notices he is more concerned chasing his reflection. the only time he eats the food is when he randomly runs into it while fighting his reflection. how do i get him to be more excited at feedin and come to the top of the tank my LFS suggested feedin him everyother day what do you think about that?

 

[haykay]

Don't feed him for a day or 2 , that woke my betta right up! he sees me and comes running now. Yes he will eventually quit chasing his shadow

Vary his diet a bit more, perhaps with omega one betta buffet (best ingredient list)
It can be a good practice to skip a day of feeding every once in a while, adn bettas do well with an occasionaly pea (helps constipation too)

I have ottos with mine.. had shrimp
now I have an angel, pleco, eel, roseybarb, swordtail and cories he does fine but its a big tank, he however is the betta that killed his neon tetras after living with them for more than 2 months in QT.. so it's really up to the fish

My friend keeps endlers, cories, and whit cloud mountain minnows...

 

[cobb12]

Alright ill try that one more question though sorry i just started and dont know much. are freezed dried, or freezed foods more nutricous for them

 

[haykay]

frozen are more nutricious but freeze dried are cheaper.. once I know all my fish will eat flake steadily I give them freezedried as a treat, then affter about a week of that they get frozen wed and sunday, flake monday and thursday, freeze on either tuesday or friday and I whichever one I don't feed freez dried on I don't feed them.. I skip one day a week

 

[JohnPaul]

I would suggest feeding him some sort of commercial "betta bites" type food every other day, and then on the alternating days give him that frozen brine shrimp and the occasional boiled, peeled piece of a pea. That should keep him quite happy.

As for tankmates, virtually anything should be safe with a female betta. With the male, avoid anything that has colorful, flowing fins (like male guppies, for example), avoid male gouramis, and avoid anything that is a notorious fin-nipper like the already-mentioned tiger barbs.

 

[new2betas]

I have three peppered cories with my male betta in a 10g. At first he chased them and picked on them, but now he is okay with them and for the most part they live happily together. Yesterday, I did some gravel vacuuming and had moved some stuff around and my cories didn't have as much cover as they normally do. At meal time my betta decided to bully them since he could get to their food easier. So, I moved all their stuff back in place and then some more plant cover. That fixed his little red wagon! LOL!

 

[haykay]

did you decide on anything?

 

[cobb12]

I decided i would like to get a few cories possibly neon tetras but i have gravel and heard tht it is beter to use sand with them. will this be a problem.

im also fasting my betta right now and im gonna try feedin him betta bites,flakes, and frozen brine shrimp. I know bloodworms are a good thing to feed them but i have bunch of worms in my backyard just the plain old dirt worms i would rather use those and cut them up into tiny pieces then have to go buy blood worms do you think that will work is it healthy. Il make sure i break it into small enuf peices for him to eat

 

[haykay]

Im sure earthworms will be okay, maybe rinse them first?
I have gravel with mine and they are perfectly alright.

 

[saffikeagan]

I've heard that you can feed them caught earthworms as long as the rest of your household doesn't mind sharing the knifes, cutting boards, blender, etc with fish food. Personally, I'm too squeamish to do more to the earthworms than threading them on a hook.