FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I know they say that spirulina is a must in most freshwater fishes diets, but what about bettas? Do bettas benefit a great deal from having spirulina in there diet? Would it be ok for me to regularly give my bettas a spirulina pellet? I know that HBH Super Soft has a pellet, does anyone else know of a good spirulina based pellet to feed? Just curious!

Justin

Colts Fan For Life
30g platy tank: 2 sunburst wag platys, 2 redtailed white calico platys, 2 red wag platys, 1 fry(not sure who it belongs to), 1 Golden CAE.
Bettas:1 VT male

Bettas eat primarily invertebrates. Spirulina is unnecessary, but probably wouldn't hurt in small amounts. On the other hand, many foods that contain spirulina also contain a lot of protein anyway, ironically making them inappropriate for herbivorous fish that you would want to feed a spirulina-based food.

--------------------------------------------
The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

I feed Tropical Spirulina to all my fish without any problems. I also have a Betta & i feed him Spirulina granules daily.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

My male is a spirulina hog. Yes, he actually tries to steal it from my otos! It's really quite amusing, but I doubt that he actually needs it.

I vote! Do you?

As Shiggy said, many foods have a fish meal base, including so called 'algae wafers' so check your ingredients.

I tend to like feeding aquatic plant matter to bettas as many of the meaty foods we get that come pre-prepared (frozen/FD/pelleted) either have the wrong sort of plant matter or none at all. In the wild, when predators eat smaller animals, they eat the lot INCLUDING gut contents which is important for proper nutritional health. Check your frozen food and see how many of the creatures have full guts, usually it is hardly any. Although feeding the veggies straight is unlikely to provide as much benefit as gut-loaded bugs, I doubt it would cause any harm.

Try wafers. I start mine on them young and they love them! Hikari make a wafter that has a high meat content and a decent amount of algae which might do nicely. They are a fine texture too, which seems to be important.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I have two lots of algae wafers,one with just algae and one with fishmeal included. Mostly I use the fishmeal one but every so often I fee all algae. You want to see the dirty looks I get from the gouramis.
PS: Spirulina didn't go down to well with any of my fish. They must be just spoiled.

algae wafers (with sprinula and fishmeal) are big with all my pets... the oscar eats then on occasion, i feed them to the 29g for the snails mostly, but the mollies and platies and guppies pick at them. the goldies love to pick at them and the ramshorn snails in there finish them off... mr turtle sometimes likes them... and my cat even chewed throught the bag and ate alot of them... (had to switch them into a bottle because the cat kept rediscovering the bag with all the holes so in turn everything in my tanks eat sprinula and algae wafers... (i feed the alga wafers to the betta tank and he picks at them, but doesnt eat them all)...




\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"