How To Feed Live Worms To Betta?
Are you fond of putting colorful betta in your aquarium? Precisely, their pretty structure with an eye catchy colour and ease at taking care make them favorite pet fish. Though this fish is familiar and marketed as “betta” in the global aquarium trade, it has a different original name. That is Siamese fighting fish.
Many people often get worried about betta food. Even some people are confused thinking if betta fishes eat live food or not. For your concern, do you know that betta fishes are carnivorous!
Thus, there are no issues feeding live food such as small bugs, insects, mosquitoes, worms, larvae, etc to your betta. Aside from live foods, there are also betta pellets, fish flakes, dried foods, and so on. To ensure protein in the foods of betta, you need to focus on live foods.
Hold on. Are you thinking how to feed live worms to betta? Then, you’ve come to the right place, and this article is perfectly for you.
In this article, we’re going to discuss elaborately how to feed live worms to your betta, and other things to concern about. Let’s jump into further information.
What Types Of Live Worms Do Bettas Eat?
Are you getting confused which live worms you should buy for your bettas? Thinking that if they can be healthy and good for your fish or not? Thus, we’re here to reduce your stress.
Firstly, you must know that live foods including live worms are enriched with high protein. They can meet the protein nutrients making bettas perfectly healthy.
Now, you’ve lots of options to choose live worms for your betta. We’ve pointed out a few popular live worms to feed betta here.
Tubifex Worms For Betta
Tubifex worms can be a great choice as live fish food for betta. You can serve it alive, frozen or dried. But, you need to be careful in case of feeding live tubifex worms. Because there are high risks of passing diseases and parasites to bettas.
Thus, you need to make sure that they are cleaned well with freshwater before adding into the tank. To reduce risks, you can breed tubifex worms for your betta on your own. Otherwise, buy them from renowned, hygiene sources.
In this way, you can abate a probability of passing parasites or diseases by the worms. Or, you have to feed frozen tubifex worms instead of live worms.
Bloodworms For Betta
Although blood worms are favourite among betta fish, you should not feed blood worms daily. Because these contain a high level of fats, iron, and protein unlike any other live foods. So, these would be inappropriate as daily diet for your betta.
Many people ask how often they should feed live bloodworms to the betta? We’d like to suggest you that you should feed them only once or twice per week. You can feed bloodworms as a treat to your betta, not regular foods.
Mealworms For Betta
As along with other live foods, mealworms can also be another protein enriched food for the betta. But often people doubt about it and ask us is it alright feeding mealworms to the betta? Well, we can’t simply say yes or no.
The reason behind people’s confusion about mealworm is due to its structure. Firstly, mealworms have robust skin. Again, its skeleton is also hard. Also, mealworms are too large that a betta may not eat them at once.
So, betta fishes find them tough to swallow. Hence, you can choose baby mealworms to feed the betta, or you can cut large mealworms into pieces while feeding.
Mainly these three types of live worms are very popular to feed the betta. There are other kinds of worms such as black worms, grindal worms, white worms, etc which you can try.
How Can You Feed Live Worms To Your Betta?
Are you a newbie taking care of betta? Also, are you a bit unsure of how to feed live worms to your betta? Now, follow our direction step by step. Certainly, this will be worthwhile.
- Firstly, you need to collect live worms. As we’ve mentioned before a few popular live worms for the betta, you can buy or culture them. If you don’t have enough trust on live worms from shops, you can breed them on your home. This will be less gross than others.
- Secondly, you can store them in a refrigerator. They can remain fresh and alive for three weeks in a refrigerator with proper maintenance. For this, put the live worms in a closed container and make sure that their bedding is moist. Also, 10 degrees Celsius seems ideal temperature to put.
- Thirdly, you can use plastic eye dropper, spoon, syringe without a needle, sticks to leave live worms into the tank or aquarium. You must have noticed that betta fishes are visual hunters. So, they closely notice your hands while feeding them. In this way, you can make the best use of it and see how bettas rush up to take them.
- You should soak live worms for a couple of minutes before adding them into the aquarium or tank. Otherwise, these may float at the top of the tank. Soaking live worms soften them too.
- If you think that live worms are too large, you can cut them before feeding betta. This will make betta to swallow live worms easily.
It’s quite easy to feed live worms to the betta, isn’t it?
How Much Live Worm You Should Feed A Betta At Each Feeding?
Many people have this common question that how many live-worms they should feed a betta at each feeding? You must keep in mind that live worms are high in protein and fats. That’s why; live worms can’t be their main food.
Thus, you need to feed live worms to your betta as their treat. Don’t do the mistake of dropping a whole cube at a time in betta’s tank. In the case of blood worms, feed them to your betta 1-2 meals per week as they aren’t too healthy.
Again, it may seem that betta needs to eat more live worms. They tend to eat more when it’s available. Don’t make such a mistake of overfeeding your betta. Because overfeeding live worms end up causing constipation, ammonia spikes, bloating, swim bladder disorders, etc.
What Do You Need To Remember While Feeding Live Worms To Betta?
There are some important things you need to know and remember about live worms. Otherwise, you may neglect proper cautions and maintenance which causes great risk for the betta. Let’s note them here.
- The very first thing you must remember that live worms may contain bacteria and parasites. Thus, you should breed live worms at home or buy from authentic sources. Otherwise, there are high risks of your betta getting sick.
- Secondly, you need to make sure that the live worms you buy are pesticides free. Sometimes live worms are contaminated by chemicals that may work as poison to your betta.
- Most importantly, don’t overfeed live worms to your betta. They tend to eat as much as they can. So, control the portion of live worms in the meal.
Follow these above-mentioned suggestions. This will certainly help to keep your betta healthy and fit.
About Author
Hello, I’m Muntaseer Rahman, the owner of AcuarioPets.com. I’m passionate about aquarium pets like shrimps, snails, crabs, and crayfish. I’ve created this website to share my expertise and help you provide better care for these amazing pets.
Disclaimer
This site is owned and operated by Muntaseer Rahman. AcuarioPets.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This site also participates in other affiliate programs and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.