richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/03/88)
Bettas eat primarily insect larvae in the wild, so the best food for
them would be --- insect larvae.
They are pure carnivores, have a very short digestive tract and need
absolutly no vegetable matter (they dont wear womens fox fur coats though)
I would feed them frozen bloodworms (the chronomious midge larvae
you get in fish stores, not the giant earthworms you use as bait
when you go fishing) - thaw some out un a paper towel under cool
running water. Feed the whole, intact larvae to the betta in quastion
with a pair of tweezers. Lots of work, but woth it. Frozen mosquito
larvae arnt accepted as readily. I have had mine eat adult brine shrimp,
but remember, there is actually very little food value to an adult
brine shrimp, they are mostly fibre and shell. Small strips
of beef heart are a good (betta) food also. With bettas usually
being in such small containers, it usually makes sense to hand feed
them, rather than just throw the food in, as even 1 piece of
uneaten food can foul the container.
--
It's too far from Santa Fe to my ignition, or something like that.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
{ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax, philabs!cadovax, codas!ddsw1} gryphon!richardcsg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) (01/04/88)
In article <2019@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >They are pure carnivores... and need absolutly no vegetable matter.... All my books disagree with this. In the wild, it is true that bettas do not eat plants. That's because they get their quota of vegetables in the digestive tracts of the other animals they eat. In captivity, they need a balanced high- protein diet based on meat, with artifically added vegetable matter. I've noticed that many of the freeze-dried products do have added vegetable matter, and that seems to do the job. Of course, if you are the ambitious type that strains live mosquito larvea out of the storm drains, you're all set. >Lots of work, but worth it. Yes! Even though I keep my betta in a filtered tank, he loves the attention of being hand fed. <csg>
todd@uhccux.UUCP (The Perplexed Wiz) (02/19/88)
In article <2466@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >Big books, with lots of text are usually better than the "how and why >wonder book of tropical fishkeeping" or the "Know your bettas" >which for me raised more questions than they answered. Hah...that raised a chuckle from me...After spending various periods of the last 20 years raising a number of different types of fishes in various bowls, bottles, tanks, and ponds, I finally got the bug to buy a Betta or two. So, having decided that I should know a bit more about Bettas before buying one, I read the ETF and Innes Betta entries and then decided to buy a Betta-specific book to learn more. I ended up buying a book(let) called "A Complete Introduction to Bettas" (by Walt Maurus). A hundred and twenty three pages later I'm not sure I know any more than before I started reading that little booklet. [btw...if nothing else, the color photos in the Maurus book are excellent]. Sooo...my question is...are there any good books on Bettas out there? -- Todd Ogasawara, U. of Hawaii Faculty Development Program UUCP: {ihnp4,uunet,ucbvax,dcdwest}!ucsd!nosc!uhccux!todd ARPA: uhccux!todd@nosc.MIL BITNET: todd@uhccux INTERNET: todd@uhccux.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU