Wild Betta Fries...what to feed?

[Mudskipper]

I would like to know what most people feed their wild betta fries. My channoides are now about 2 weeks old and rambunctious. I have been feeding them daphnia but it's a real pain in the behind to keep buying...and they stink. I've frozen some and it works, but apart from daphnia or baby brine shrimp, what can we feed?

I saw someone selling cyclops. Any experience with those?

[lucasjiang]

In my experience rearing cyclops, their culture is the same as daphnia (means they need green water), very troublesome to rear

[Mudskipper]

So in other words...smelly. Hmmm....guess it's still boon for now.

[Emokidz]

Daphnia, Microworms, Chopped Tubifex

For me, I try adding a drop of liquifry every alternate day to keep a healthy stock of infusoria in the tank too.

[Don90]

maybe you can try frozen beef heart? my betta splendens fry used to eat those when i didn't have the time to buy tubifex.

[Emokidz]

Possible, but be very careful in feeding that or egg yolk (as some suggest) as these easily foul the water if uneaten.

[Mudskipper]

Liquid Fry is an interesting concept. I might try that. I used to feed beef hearts during my discus days long, long ago....don't think I wanna do that again. Dirty and smelly...freezing the daphnia right when I buy them is a better option for me.

My channoides fries are still so small, don't think brine shrimp will work, except for baby ones. The thought of hatching again doesn't appeal to me. Stink too...ugh.

Off to the store to get more boon after work today, I guess.

[johannes]

2 weeks old fry are able to accept microworm or tiny tubifex, by 3 -4 weeks should be able to accept tubifex.
hold on for 1-2 more weeks, and you can rely on tubi full time...

[stormhawk]

If your channoides are able to eat tubifex, you might consider culturing grindal worms. That way you can gut-load the grindals with fish foods before you feed them to your fry. I love using Daphnia/Moina. They stay alive for ages in stable fry tanks with a lot of snail poop around.

[Mudskipper]

Do you guys really use tubifex a lot? Not sure if they have managed to improve on the process of cleaning that stuff, but I used to raise discus long ago and those things caused a lot of diseases. I'm very scared of them, maybe because of my history with them...I may try grindal worms. These kids are becoming a chore...LOL!

[Emokidz]

I always use tubi haha. Rinse it about 5 times first with tap water though. My fish love it and no problems so far. I get tubi from NKS near my home.

[lucasjiang]

When i was keeping parosphromenus, i always cleaned my tubi thouroughly (because of the same fear ). When i buy the tubi home, i rinse it once. Then i will separate them (I realise when they clump into a big ball, those in the centre die very quickly, which stinks up the water and cause more to die). Then i will change water and rinse them everyday to clear the dirt. After three days then i dare to feed them to the fishes. Although it is very very troublesome, i rather not risk the lives of my paros (which are quite rare).

[stormhawk]

When you use tap water to rinse them, they die a lot faster. They need to be washed with aged water, as the chloramine present in the tapwater will kill them quickly it seems. I bought a small amount of tubifex yesterday and they're still alive today. Just need to keep them clean. Rinse the tubifex with tank water every few hours and keep the water level low. Some people say they survive longer if you put a small piece of ketapang leaf with them. I never tried it but they are surviving in my dump tank with dead and live Moina and a clump of brown Java Moss. It was an experiment, did not expect them to survive in that mucky tank.

If you fear the usage of tubifex then grindal worms is your next best bet for juvenile fry. Always have a standby tank or plastic tub to raise the fry. I find, the dirtier in it the better. The fry almost always pick at the dirt for infusorians.

[Mudskipper]

Thanks, Sormhawk. That answer another question...dirty bottom. Good to know there's infusorians there. lol. I am going to stick to daphnia until they can do small bloodworms and brine shrimp. Not really keen to risk tubifex. Too scared.

[900801]

Tubifex is good if you want faster growth. For me I just use boon till they are big enough to take pellets and fbw.

[Emokidz]

I have tried ktp with tubifex. It works for me, just very troublesome. More convenient for me to get a new batch daily as the lfs selling them is real near to me (5min walk). Ktp in aged water seems to reduce the stink too. and somehow the tubifex worms at the bottom of my fry tank don't ever seem to die. Same as the daphnia swimming in my small tank next to the window which houses 2 ANN fry. Haha. The tank bottom has mulm and snail poop. Somehow, fry tanks do better being full of mulm, just do water changes without sucking up te poop.

[Mudskipper]

Tubifex is good if you want faster growth. For me I just use boon till they are big enough to take pellets and fbw.

I don't do pellets...so unnatural. I know many people do but I love watching them go nuts when fbw or live brine shrimp enter the tank. I think channoides don't quite adapt to pellets anyways, huh? My fries are too small for tubi anyways...they are about half cm.

[Emokidz]

Oh actually they do go for pellets. And I feed my Bettas pellets as snacks to supplement their diet. I guess it provides more nutrition since good quality pellets are packed with the good stuff. I personally use hikari micropellets. The main staple of my fish's diets are fbw though.

[Mudskipper]

I actually got some tubifex worms today...can't believe it did that. It seems to be a lot cleaner these days.

[stormhawk]

I think this is more due to how the shopkeeper handles them. Those that remove the greyish junk matter the worms produce and regularly add fresh cool water to the tray will have pretty healthy worms.