What do I feed my betta fry?! Fish have already spawned and eggs will hatch within 24hrs.?

Question

I have two half moons I have spawned, but it turns out my infusoria colony is a bacteria colony, that will most likely kill the fry. I have some wardey's baby fry food for egglayers and livebearers that I used for my guppy fry it's a gell and I also have hikari first bites and some other baby fish food. Microworms are not an option at the moment and neither are viniger eels, i might have an infusoria culture from ym guppy fry tank, it's green water with some algae. I also have some baby brine shrip that are frozen and also some that I can hatch but I know I have to wait a few days before they can eat brine shrimp. Please help!

Answer 1

Feeding the fries the proper foods is one of the most important ingredient for success in rearing the fries. Many people don’t plan ahead, and in their impatience, spawn bettas, end up with some fry and don’t even think about what they are going to feed them. They think they can just throw some food in there, some crushed flakes or some powder food and all will be fine.

NOT!!!!!

My very first spawn was about 400 bettas, out of which only 8 lived. Why? I had no clue what the heck I was doing :) and further more I did not have the proper food to feed my fry.

Save yourself from anguish, read this short (but important) page on fry food.


Betta fry are VERY VERY VERY VERY tiny. Imagine them to be so tiny you can hardly even see them. Can you picture it? Yes? Ok. Now reduce that picture by 50% and that is how minuscule they are. Obviously they cannot eat the food you feed your large adults. It’s like trying to fit square pegs into round holes: It just does not work. Get it? OK.

Fry do not eat flakes or dry foods. They will not even look at it. They will more than likely starve to death, or choke on it, or die from bacterial disease. Why bacterial disease? Because all this inadequate food you are dumping in the tank is not being eaten and it is rotting, causing bacterial blooms, raising your ammonia and nitrites levels and stressing the fragile fry.

Fry need live foods. Live food is the only food that will provide the fry with the nutrition they so badly need at this stage of their lives.

And not ANY live food: It has to be a live food that is as minuscule as the fry themselves. So forget your brown worms, they are useless to you right now.

Minuscule live food cannot be purchased ready to use. It cannot be found at pet stores or even at the best fish stores. Live brine shrimp sold at fish stores are for adult fish only and are 10 times bigger than the fry!!! Unsuitable. You will have to generate your own minuscule live food.

Fry need to eat constantly. If you run out of live food, you are TOAST! So planning could save your @##^*. (or your fry‘s , which ever way you want to look at it) :)
The proper foods are: There are a few options, but I’ll stick to the easier and best ones: Microworms (my all time favorite), newly hatched baby brine shrimp (great too but with moderation) and vinegar eels (great as a back up). If you want to get cultures and would like to support this site, you can get your cultures or brine shrimp eggs from me. See the betta supply section.
Infusoria. Some breeders feed infusoria to their fries, but I have stayed away from it. It is easy to mess things up with infusoria since infusoria is a bloom of microorganisms that occurs when an organic matter rots in water. So to start an infusoria culture, you need to let a rabbit food pellet or a lettuce leaf rot in some still water. When water is cloudy, then the infusoria has bloomed. Or is it the bacteria? See, that is the problem, you never know, and might feed your fry putrid water filled with bacteria, thinking it is infusoria… I decided to pass. I have never used infusoria, and as you can tell by seeing the photos of some of the beautiful bettas that my fishroom has produced, I have done quite well without it. I have raise all my many spawns on microworms mainly, with some baby brine shrimp. And they do GREAT.

Plan ahead!!! If you are going to spawn your bettas, the goal (I guess?) is to get some offsprings out of the ordeal. So why not do a little homework ahead of time and be prepared? Setting up a brine shrimp hatchery or starting your own microworm culture will take some time. Brine shrimp may take up to 48 hrs to hatch once set-up. A microworm culture will take about 7 days to bloom after you have initially set it up. That is 7 days without food. Thereafter it will produce enough to harvest daily or twice a day :)). So as you can see, you will need to be prepared, to have your brine shrimp hatchery and your microworm culture set-up ahead of time, even before actually putting your breeding betta pair together to spawn.

Hugh! Wise Buffalo has spoken. If you won’t hear my words of infinite wisdom, then I rest my case, wash my hands, shake my head, shrug my shoulders and make a few funny faces. :P

Answer 2

First, divide your tank ASAP because after spawning the female normally leaves the area but in a tank she has nowhere to go and the male will turn aggressive on her. it's better if you can place her in another tank altogether. Second, look at the bottom of the bubble nest after 48 hours or so. You should see small tails sticking out of the eggs. This means your fry are close to hatching. When they hatch, they will fall out of the nest and into the floor. The male will then pick them up and place them back in the bubble nest. For this purpose, try to gently remove as much gravel from the bottom as possible, without breaking his nest. If they fall in between the rocks the male can't see them to pick them up. The male will repeatedly keep them back in the nest. Once your fry are oriented horizontally, and can swim without falling down to the floor, remove the male from the tank, otherwise he will now start eating them. For feeding the fry, a good home made recipe is the yolk of a hard boiled egg with some water, mixed together. Lettuce in a jar left in the sun is also great. Give them the lettuce water once the water turns green in color. You can also buy fry food from pet shops. Some fry food is universal, and all fish fry can eat it. It's a very fine powder. I'm sure it is sold under a different brand name in the US but where I reside it's called First Bites. Take note that you will have to get rid of fry that have defects. After a few months you should be able to distinguish the males from the females. The males will then have to be separated and kept in individual tanks. The girls can live together.

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Answer 3

The commercial foods most likly won't be accepted by the fry, since at this stage they need movement to trigger a feeding response. Same with the baby brine shrimp - these will need to be hatched and live, not frozen (at least at the time the fry are large enough to start eating this). You may have organisms in the guppy fry's green water, but the betta fry won't eat the algae - they're carnivores.

Have you checked your infusoria under a microscope? As long as there are paramecia, rotifers, and the like, this is about what you want to have for the fry at first. Bacteria will be almost too small to see individually, so if you see "things" swimming in the water, this would be your best bet to use.

Answer 4

The eggs will hatch in 36 to 48 hours, and it will take the fry another 3 days before the are free swimming. You should start feeding them once the are free swimming with the smallest food available, the green water in your guppy fry tank can be used for the first week. But I suggest you start up a new batch of infusoria using some of the guppy fry tank water to innoculate the new batch. After a week, the fry should be able to take larger food like newly hatched brine shrimp (no more than 12 hours old), microworms or vinegar eels, together with infusoria. BBS eggs hatch within 24 hours, so you can easily time this to when you will be needing them.

Answer 5

What did you use to create your infusoria? There will always be bacteria present in Infusoria. Don't give up on your culture. In the mean time, go to a store that sells crocheting and embroidery items and get a really good quality linen handkerchief,it must be tightly woven. Use this as a strainer to force hard boiled egg yolk through the linen. (Put some egg yolk in the middle of the hanky and twist until some of it is forced through) This will be in fine enough particles the the fry can consume some of it. Be careful and clean out the left overs daily,using an air hose as a siphon,(so as not to suck out any fry.) You have some time after the eggs are hatched because the fry live on their "yolk sacs" until they become free swimming.Until they do, their Dad will take care of them by busily blowing them into the bubble nest and cleaning them in his mouth.
You should consider the egg yolk trick as a stop-gap measure only,it will not provide a complete food for your fry,but it will get you through until you can provide something better.

Answer 6

Betta Fry

Answer 7

I know with marine aquariums you have to use planktonic (sp?) food to feed fry.

I would stick with the same wardley's for now and just keep an eye on them.

Just know, that regardless of how well you do at feeding them that raising fish fry to maturity is very difficult.

You can do everything correctly and still end up with no survivors....its the same in the wild, thats why they spawn so much.

Good luck and if you don't mind, could you keep me posted on how they come along? I love watching fish fry progress.

Answer 8

You should feed fry special fry food.
Small Fry Food: fish should be fed several times daily with very small amounts at each feeding. no more than what would be the size of a penny in the palm of your hand will not cloud water when fed properly.
formulated with an optimal blend of ingredients to deliver superior nutrition that helps enhance the natural coloration growth and vitality of all tropical fish. this product is fortified with natural attractants color enhancers
fish meal wheat flour soy protein concentrate wheat gluten meal herring meal brewers dried yeast fish oil rice flour shrimp meal wheat germ meal soy protein isolate spirulina krill digest crab meal ferrous oxide lecithin
http://www.opentip.com/products/Wardley_Small_Fry_Food-510357.html

Answer 9

Go to www.about.com and look up beta fish then scroll down to you see a profile of Siamese fighting fish including habitat care feeding and breeding I hope this helps

Answer 10

use the baby brine shrimp and dont overdose on the liquid fry food if you plan to use it