Could you feed bettas mosquito larvae, the wriggly 1s outdoors, my betta seems to love hunting & eating them??

Question

is there a problem with feeding bettas these little larvae?? thankyouuuuu

Answer 1

Yes you can safely feed your beta mosquito larvae ! The best way to get mosquito larvae is to create standing water near some sort of a light source. It also helps to add some leaves to the mixture. Unless, there has been a frost in your area recently, you should have lots of mosquito larvae in about a week or two. you can catch them with a net meant for fry, or suck them up with a turkey baster (NOT the one you use for cooking, get a new one specifically meant for your fish!!!)

Just be careful that you do not feed it too many, you must supliment it's diet with regular betta food.

Answer 2

Mosquito Larvae are excellent for fish and I use them as often as I can. These are a natural food for bettas that need a high protein diet. In diet they get the majority of their food from insects.

The best way to collect these is is to use your own container and place it in a shady area. You can fill this with aquarium water, let the rain water fill it up or use tap water. With tap water it will take a couple of extra days for the mosquitos to show up due to the clorine in the water needing to dissipate though it isn't a big deal. You can use any type of clean container, a 5 gallon bucket or other plastic type container works great. When you see the larvae on the surface just pull any leaves or other items that have happened to fall into the container out and pour all of the water through a brine shrimp net into another container and you'll have a great meal for the fish. Don't let the water sit too long because you don't want to add mosquitos to the neighborhood though either fully filtering the larvae through a brine shrimp net every other day and starting with new water every 2 harvests or dumping the water and starting over every harvest time will keep the escaped mosquitos to a minimum.

These are an easy to harvest great free food that is excellent for your fish though make sure you aren't adding mosquitos to your neighborhood. I don't know where you live though in the Chicago, Illinois area we have West Nile virus transmitted via Mosquitos and we don't want to add to the problem so if you aren't going to harvest before these become mosquitos then don't help raise them.

Answer 3

I really don't think this is a good idea. As stated before, mosquito larvae (or any insects found in ponds) often contain harmful bacteria which your fish hasn't been conditioned to fight. You don't want to bring any of these diseases into your water. Mosquito larvae are a great choice of live food for bettas since it's what they eat in their natural habitat. Try leaving a fruit out in the open or a cup of water. Don't disturb it and eventually mosquitoes will come and breed. However, make sure you scoop out the larvae before they turn into mosquitoes or else you are gonna have one heck of a problem.

Answer 4

Mosquito larvae are one of the natural foods of the Betta.
Possible problems involve such things as collecting the larvae from polluted sources.(You can side step this one by creating your own clean sources of standing water.)
Another potential source of trouble would be the inadvertent hatching of flying mosquitoes in the house. The way to avoid this problem is to only feed as much as your fish will consume at one time.
Another possible source of live food for your fish might be a small night light (on a timer,perhaps) that will attract small flying insects to the Betta bowl.
You will find that this is a great way to get Bettas into spawning condition.

Answer 5

You can feed your betta any live food (brine shrimp, worms, mosquito larvae, etc.) because they are carnivores. But feeding too much of the same live food can cause constipation, example like feeding mosquito larvae for one whole week. You have to feed them a variety of food to prevent that. Check the web for more info: http://www.healthybetta.com/articles/Illness%20Diagonsis/constipation.html