Hi! I'm new, and full of the evil noobness that I detest so much.. Read on aother topic here about diversifying food for bettas. Well, I know that much, mine gets flake food, and every wednesday/sunday dried bloodworms..

So question is then, how much diversity should he get? How often should he get fed, specialy if he's gonna be in a big tank. I'm setting up a 5.5 gallon tank for him..

And sine it's kind of a small tank. There any playmates I can get him, that he wont kill, attack, mate with, or any of those bad things? Was thinking a snail, but, was gonna wait to see what algaes I got, and I hear snails can escape easily and I don't know how secure my lid is going to be yet.

I feed mine Tetra crisps, OSI vivid color flake, OSI spirulina flake, OSI freshwater flake and frozen blood worms. I hope that helps you.

It does thanks. But how often though should I feed it? Like a few pinches once a day.. a little several times a day? Confusing things.

If any fish is fed the same food for too long, they may get bloated. If you feed the staple food, like the flakes, and supplement that with the bloodworms and other things the betta should be fine. Get some other freeze dried foods too. You could try plankton, brine shrimp, daphnia, or other freeze dried bugs and whatnot. Our betta fish gets fed twice a day. A little bit in the morning and a bit more at night. In the wild they'd be eating small insects that fall in the water throughout the day, so it may be better for them to get small amounts of food a few times a day.

You should feed what the fish can eat in a few minutes, if you dont overfeed then you can feed a few times a day, such as morning, noon and night. As for tankmates you need to be looking at fish that dont nip fins, so stay away from barbs, you could put tetras in with your betta quite happily

Be careful clunk, does the aforementioned tank have any aeration? With just housing a betta I would assume it didn't. If it doesn't, then adding other fish will be a problem. I feed my fish every other day or so and only once a day. Either in the morning or at night30 minutes before lights out.

Even without aeration a snail would do fine, since they need to breathe air anyways. I've never had any snails escape, and I don't think they would as long there's food in the tank for them. You could feed them fish food and they'll do fine. I've kept snails before with barely any algae and they've been fine. They're good for cleaning up extra food that the betta doesn't eat. 5.5 gallons is quite small for anything but a betta. I wouldn't put any other fish in there. Most other fish, especially small ones are quite active and like a lot of space to swim in, at least 10 gallons. Bettas, living in small puddles in the wild, are slow moving and do well in small tanks. Also, like funky mentioned, most other fish can't breathe air like bettas can, so they need aeration in the tank.

Well I have an air-bubbler, O2 thingy from the 1 gallon that my Bettas currently in. While it's a bit on the small side, I think it be plenty big to help airate a 5gallon. Specialy if only a few other air-needing things where in there.

As for tetras, I've read many places they need minium 6 to be happy and healthy for there schooling needs. So wouldn't 3 be really bad?

I really wouldn't put any other fish in the 5 gallon tank with the betta. If you really wanted to, you could add a female betta or two, but then there's the chance of the male betta harassing the females. If you have enough plants and at least 2 females, it would be more difficult for the male to bother them.

My appologies i mis-read the original post i thought it said 55 gal not 5.5 gal I personaly would not add any more fish to the bowl

Hi mogymog.

i have kept a few betas with varying success so i feel i have enough experience to offer a little advice.

feeding fish is never easy, until u get a feel for it. all the advice given so far is ok. u can feed 2 or 3 times a day or feed on alternate days like funky does. i think the best way to decide is to observe your fish lots and see how it reacts to food, how fat or thin it is and how quickly it grows. a healthy fish should be neither skinny or fat but some where in between. plus in general if its starts to get thin u need to feed it more, if it starts to get fat feed it less. if it gets thin or fat quickly u need to be aware that this could also be the sign of illness.

feeding as much as it can eat in 30 secs to a minute is ok but can be troublesome depending on how greedy or picky the fish is, they all vary in appetite. plus if it leaves food then u have to fish out uneaten food as it will cause a build of bad waste chemicals. when feeding i try to imagine how big the fish is belly is and try to feed it what would be a reasonable sized meal. plus remember a lot of foods swell when wet too.

in general what i do is maybe add a few flakes (say 4 or 5 at most) and see what happens. if the fish eats them very quickly and is looking for more i will offer couple more, and maybe do this for up to a minute. there is no harm in feeding ur fish a flake at a time too. partly as this can be entertaining and betas can learn to eat out of ur hand/fingers.

as for variety. i would say 3 food types is a good start, more if u can afford it. have a basic flake that u can feed most of the time. for betas small pellet foods can be good too as u can feed them one at a time. foods like blood worm can be given as a treat once or twice a week perhaps.

on tank size and tank mates. i would aggree that a 5.5 gal isnt realy big enough for more fish if it already has a beta in it. if u use the inch per gallon rule (2 inch per gallon in a mature and filtered tank) and a beta can be 3 inches then u only really have room for 2 more inch long fish.

from my own observation of betas and their behavior i would say they are relatively intelligent fish and although they do live in 'small' ponds, they love stimulation. one of my male betas for example was 'happiest' when he resided in a planted 40 gal tank (which could easily be the size of a 'small pond' in the wild) he would explore every inch of the tank over the day and looked healthy and happy for all the stimulation.

i would recommend that u make ur 5.5 gallon a happy little home for ur beta by keeping it just for him, putting some furniture in the tank. i.e real or dummy plants, a few small rocks or pebbles perhaps, and if ur inclined to then mabye a little castle or ship etc that u get from fish shops. plus another good form of stimulation is to hang a small mirror on the side or the tank for a day or 2 every week or so. basically ur male will think he has competion and will start to fan his fins and flare his gills at the mirror, 'telling' the other male to stay back or be attacked. this replicates a little bit the kind of stimulation that he might get in the wild, plus it gives u the pleasure of being able to watch him show off his glorious fins etc infront of the mirror.


i wish u luck and happy fish keeping

Where are the texts from ? Just out of curiosity

Off my head, UK or USA.

I'd have to keep my eye open for the actual reference, as I couldn't tell you which of my book(s) it's actually in.

I've read the opposite. Why would you not want to feed in the morning? They get breakfast and can swim it off the rest of the day. In nature they eat when there is food available, whether it be at dawn or at dusk. And after feeding leave the lights on for at least 30 minutes afterwards if feeding at night.