What to feed a baby betta

Baby Betta Fish: Comprehensive Guide To Proper Care

Japanese Fighting Fish is reader-supported. When you purchase through one of our links we may earn an affiliate commission (at no extra cost to you).

Adult Bettas are a colorful addition to any aquarium, and they’re reasonably easy to take care of, but what about baby Bettas?

Is it challenging?

Baby Bettas are pretty challenging to keep, and they require monitoring more than adults. But, if you’re willing to go through this challenge and raise baby Betta fish, we’ll help you!

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: How To Avoid The Top 5 Mistakes New Betta Owners Make

We’ll tell you all about their diet, breeding, ideal tank conditions, and more. So, without further ado, let’s jump in!

Page Contents

Ideal Tank Conditions
- Water Quality
- Temperature
- Tank Size
- Tank Substrate
- Tank Mates
How to Feed Baby Betta Fish
Where to Get Baby Betta Fish
How to Breed Betta Fish
How to Make Baby Betta Fish Grow Faster
Common Aquatic Diseases
Watch This!
Frequently Asked Questions
- Are baby Betta fish aggressive?
- What are suitable baby Betta tank mates?
- What is an ideal baby Betta fish body size?
Conclusion

Ideal Tank Conditions

The first thing you should know is the ideal tank conditions for baby Betta fish. These are essential for the happiness and well-being of your baby Bettas.

Water Quality

First of all, baby Bettas prefer living in high-quality water, which means it’ll be best if you install a sponge filter. We know there are many other filters you can install, but they might create water currents in the aquarium.

Accordingly, they might cause your young Bettas to get sucked up into the current and get badly injured.

If you choose not to install a filter, you’ll need to maintain regular water changes to clean the tank. Ideally, you should change about 25% of the tank water twice every week. You can also use airline tubing or an aquarium vacuum to remove dirty water from the bottom of the tank.

Temperature

In general, Betta fish are tropical, which means they need high temperatures to thrive. Baby Betta fish even love higher temperatures than adults.

If you raising baby Bettas, you should maintain an aquarium temperature ranging from 76 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit using an aquarium heater.

You should avoid changing the baby Betta tank temperature constantly because this can cause your Bettas to stress, which may hinder their growth.

Tank Size

While adult Betta fish live in large tanks, baby fish get stressed when they have ample space to swim. These are optimal for growth and won’t cause your fish any stress.

Ideally, if you want your baby fish to be comfortable and grow well, you should look for 2.5-5 gallons tanks.

Tank Substrate

Baby Bettas are curious and love exploring around the tank, so adding substrate will benefit them. However, rocks and gems aren’t suitable because newly hatched Betta fish might injure themselves or get trapped under them.

Try settling for small gravel or sand as a baby Betta tank substrate, instead.

Tank Mates

Baby Bettas can live together in one tank until they begin to show colors. Once you notice this, you should separate your Bettas into different tanks. You can either put each one in a small tank or a cup.

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: How To Avoid The Top 5 Mistakes New Betta Owners Make

They often show color once they reach about nine weeks, which is a sign that they’ll start getting more aggressive.

This way, you’ll avoid fights and injuries in your aquarium. But beware that you’ll also need to put more effort into feeding and monitoring all of your fish.

It’s worth mentioning that male Bettas are more aggressive than their female counterparts, and they love fighting, like all Siamese fighting fish. As for female Betta fish, you can keep them together in a sorority tank without an issue.

When breeding, you can keep one male with several females. Accordingly, if one female doesn’t want to mate, the male will have a higher chance of finding one that has no issues. When males don’t find available females to mate with, they get more aggressive than usual.

Fun Fact: It’s not recommended to keep other types of fish with baby Bettas since this might harm and stress your young fish.

How to Feed Baby Betta Fish

In the wild, Betta fish are carnivorous, and they mainly feed on insects and insect larvae. However, in tanks, they feed on live and frozen foods.

Young Bettas can eat live food like Daphnia, tubifex worms, brine shrimp nauplii, white worms, mosquito larvae, and Grindal worms.

If live food isn’t readily available, you can feed your Betta fry (newly-hatched fish) frozen foods or crushed pellet foods. If you feed them pellets, you should monitor them to ensure they eat the food. Sometimes, baby Betta fish ignore pellets and don’t go near them, which means they might starve if you don’t notice.

Ideally, you should feed your Betta fry a minimum of two times per day, preferably even more. And you shouldn’t put too many pellets in the aquarium at once. Instead, you should put small amounts many times a day. This way, the water will stay clean, and your baby Betta fish will have a well-balanced diet that’ll help them grow.

Another meal you can provide for your Bettas is infusoria, which is a liquid fry food that you can add to the aquarium using an eyedropper. You can find it in many pet stores.

As baby Betta fish grow, they’ll be more ready to accept larger foods, so you should adjust their diet accordingly.

Where to Get Baby Betta Fish

Since young Betta fish are so fragile, they often don’t survive in fish stores for long. And although we don’t recommend buying them from such stores, sometimes it’s the only option. If it happens, you should check the conditions that the fish are living in and use your judgment to decide. But how can you do so?

Generally, most stores keep Betta fish in small cups, so you should look at them and make sure the water is clean and the fish is active. If you notice otherwise, look for another store.

Other than stores, you can purchase Betta fry from breeders, but it’ll take some online research to find a good one.

The option we recommend is that you breed your own Betta fish.

This way, you’ll know that they’re healthy and well-fed. And since breeding Betta fish might not be common knowledge, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the process.

How to Breed Betta Fish

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: How To Avoid The Top 5 Mistakes New Betta Owners Make

The first step in breeding Bettas is to buy a breeding tank. Ideally, it should be a 10-gallon tank without any substrate. Then, you should get female and male Betta fish and ensure that your males are healthy and active with brightly colored bodies.

Next, add your females and wait about half an hour before adding the male Betta fish. The male will form a bubble nest at the water’s surface to attract the female, and then she’ll go over to him. After the mating rituals, the female will lay eggs, and the male will take them to care for them in the nest.

After this happens, you should take the female out of the tank and wait for the eggs to hatch. Once they do and the baby Betta fish start swimming, you can remove the male and raise the babies.

How to Make Baby Betta Fish Grow Faster

If you’re growing Betta fry for breeding purposes, you can fasten their growth through a few steps. First of all, Betta babies produce growth-inhibiting hormones (GIH) in the tank, which can slow down the fish’s growth rates. This way, you’ll keep the water clear of the hormones, and your Betta fish will grow faster.

You should change about 50% of the tank water every few days to fix this issue.

Secondly, feeding your Betta babies infusoria through an eyedropper for the first few days after hatching will give them all essential nutrients and help them grow.

After a few days of giving your Bettas infusoria, you can feed them newly hatched brine shrimp that you previously cultured at home or purchased. You can feed your Bettas shrimp multiple times in the same day or stick with two times a day but put larger amounts in the tank.

Bettas often start accepting brine shrimp nauplii at a young age, and it helps them grow quicker.

Thirdly, as your fish grow, it’s essential to upgrade their tank size. Small tanks cause fish stress, so they won’t be able to swim freely. Therefore, they’ll grow slower than average.

To avoid this, you should purchase at least a 10-gallon tank once your Bettas fully grow.

Finally, it’s better to separate Betta fish once they grow. This way, they won’t compete for food and will eat freely. More so, you’ll be able to monitor each one better to know which one is healthy and which isn’t.

Common Aquatic Diseases

Like all fish, baby Bettas are susceptible to getting many aquatic diseases. Most of the time, the diseases come from poor care for the fish.

For instance, if you forget to change the tank water and keep it clean, your fish will be more likely to get a bacterial infection. Likewise, if you feed your fish more or less than they should, they’ll have a higher risk of developing various diseases.

Bettas’ most common aquatic diseases are fin rot, Ich parasite infection, velvet infection, swim bladder disease, and dropsy.

Most of these can easily be treated by adding antibiotics or medicines to the water, but the success of the treatment depends on how early you discovered the disease. It’s easy to avoid these diseases if you maintain a clean aquarium and suitable water parameters for your fish.

Watch This!

Frequently Asked Questions

Are baby Betta fish aggressive?

No, baby Betta fish aren’t aggressive. They shouldn’t cause fights and clash with tank mates until they become adults. That’s why it’s safe to keep many baby Bettas in the same tank.

What are suitable baby Betta tank mates?

Baby Betta fish shouldn’t have any tank mates (except themselves). But once your Bettas fully grow, you can put some other fish in the aquarium like Cory catfish, Malaysian trumpet snails, Tetras, and Platies. Beware that if you put larger fish than Bettas in the tank, they might feed on them.

What is an ideal baby Betta fish body size?

The answer depends on how old your fish is. If your baby Betta fish is only a week old, it should be about 0.2 inches long. Once it reaches the one-month milestone, it should be 0.4. Finally, your Betta should be about two inches long after two months.

Conclusion

Keeping fish is an exciting hobby, but it takes effort and commitment, especially when raising baby fish. Raising baby Betta fish is much more challenging than keeping adults; they’re more fragile, require closer monitoring, and need more frequent tank water changes.

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: How To Avoid The Top 5 Mistakes New Betta Owners Make

Baby Bettas love feeding on live foods like brine shrimp and dried foods. More so, they require high temperatures, clean water, and small gravel in the tank.

Now that you know all about raising baby Bettas, you can maintain a healthy and colorful aquarium!

Last Updated: July 6, 2022

Baby Betta Care — LOVELYBETTAS

- KEEP SEPARATE

- WIDE VARIETY OF FOOD

- PROPERLY HEATED WATER

- MORE FREQUENT WATER CHANGES

- SPONGE FILTER OR NO FILTER

HOUSING: KEEP ALONE IN 1 GALLON OR MORE PER baby betta

Though baby bettas are small, that's not a reason to permanently keep them in a tank smalller than one gallon. They need to grow, and tanks smaller than a gallon may stunt growth and put health in danger. Baby bettas should be kept alone in order to prevent stress and being picked on unless being kept peacefully with siblings. Even a snail could be harmful — the curious betta may be poking around near the snail, hoping to find food, when the snail snaps shut right on the poor baby. Please wait until the baby is full size until adding tank mates.

feeding: WIDE variety of food

A baby betta's diet should be much more diverse than adult size bettas. In order to keep the baby growing and healthy, you'll need to feed it more than just pellets its whole life, especially while it is still growing. Live foods such as grindal worms, tubifex worms, white worms, blackworms, and mosquito larvae are exceptional for young bettas. However, if you cannot get your hands on them, nonliving foods can do well also. My favorite nonliving foods to feed baby bettas. along with crushed pellets, are freeze dried tubifex worms, frozen brine shrimp, and Repashy gel foods. Frozen bloodworms can also be fed but I have found that they make a mess since the babies chew up the insides and spit out the outer shell of the worms. Freeze dried tubifex worms seem to make the least mess, and are available at most fish stores. These can be fed as a treat as freeze dried foods do not hold much nutrients. Frozen brine shrimp is usually accessible at most pet stores, and the babies seem to grow well on them. As a breeder, I like feeding Repashy gel foods, specifically soilent green and meat pie, to all my tanks for the fry to graze on all day. However if you are just keeping one or two bettas as a pet, then the gel foods may not be as suitable for you unless you have many fish to feed and are willing to pay the price/extra effort.

TEMPERATURE: 76-84F/24-29C

Like regular bettas, baby bettas need warm water. I try to keep the temperature at least at 80F/27C. Colder water will especially stress a younger betta, and makes them prone to disease. It also seems to slows down appetite. Information on heaters for bettas and basic betta care can be found here.

CLEANING AND FILTERS: ADDITIONAL WATER CHANGES AND SPONGE FILTERS

Since young bettas need to eat more frequently than adults, they'll need extra water changes. This is especially for if you are keeping siblings together as they seem to stunt each others growth. Add additional water changes to your schedule depending on the size of your tank. If you are going to be using a filter please USE A SPONGE FILTER! Other filters such as power filters may suck up your baby betta or the strong current may injure the betta. A filter is not necessary if you are going to be doing very very frequent water changes.

How to feed the found chick, how many times a day

If you have found a chick, the first thing you need to do is determine its species. Feeding granivorous, insectivorous and predatory chicks have their own differences. But in the early stages of feeding, you can use the same feeding methods, and then, after finding out what kind of bird you found, transfer the chick to the appropriate feeding.

Here is one of the most common feeding options for granivorous and insectivorous chicks. This nutrient mixture is well used for feeding for chicks and fledglings from the passerine family. To prepare our mixture, we need the following products: Boiled egg, low-fat cottage cheese, raw carrots, meat (beef, chicken, turkey), greens (lettuce, dandelion leaves, wood lice), hamarus and daphnia, Calcium gluconate (shell from boiled eggs) glycerophosphate , children's dry dairy-free porridge or boiled millet (without salt and fat on the water).

Action one. Boil the egg, free from the shell. We free the shell from the shell film. Grind the egg as much as possible, you can use a grater with small holes.

Second step. Boiled meat, it is better to take the pulp from the breast of a turkey or chicken and also chop or divide into fibers. The mixture will require meat 40 (for granivorous) and 60 grams (for insectivorous).

Third step. Take washed carrots of a small size, grate them on a fine grater, then squeeze the juice and we will use the remaining pulp.

Fourth step. We take not sour and not fatty cottage cheese. Cottage cheese should have 0% fat content, anything above is considered fat for poultry. We need 90-110 grams of cottage cheese. Sour cottage cheese must be boiled twice changing the water and then it will be suitable.

Step five. You can use greens to add the mixture, but you can do without it for the chicks. And so you can take the greens listed above, chop and add 1.5 teaspoons to the mixture.

Action six. To the above ingredients, add 1.5 -2 tsp. dairy-free porridge or boiled millet (well boiled, without salt and fat in the water).

Step seven. To the mixture we add the shell from the boiled egg, which must first be ground in a coffee grinder, plus one fourth of the crushed tablet of glycerophosphate. If it is not possible to find glycerophosphate, then you can purchase bone meal and add one fourth tsp. in powder form. At the very least, the shells are enough for now.

Step eight. We take chopped hamarus and daphnia and add about 1 tsp to the resulting mixture. Then we mix everything, it turns out a very thick, crumbly porridge, it should not stick to the fingers. If the mixture is sticky, you can add dairy-free porridge or powdered cereals.

From the resulting mixture we roll small balls no larger than a small pea, focus on the size of the chick's beak. You can feed 2-5 balls at a time and after each feeding drink plain water from an insulin syringe with a removable needle (without a needle) 4-6 drops. A week-old chick should be fed every 1-1.5 hours, older than two weeks of age every 2-4 hours, at three and four weeks of age you can feed 3-4 times a day. Do not forget that the chick is growing and, accordingly, one-time portions of food are growing. A very important point, do not forget to warm the chicks, because at their age they themselves cannot maintain normal body temperature. Warming up promotes better assimilation of feed. Don't forget to control your chick's weight. If possible, show the chick to a specialist. To control the work of the intestines, you can take the litter from the chick for a coprogram, this is an analysis of the digestibility of the feed.

Take care and love your feathered friends and they will love you back.

Veterinarian ornithologist
Chuguevsky VV

Bambi veterinary clinic.

You can ask an ornithologist on the forum.

What do fighting fish do during pregnancy?

Betta caviar pregnancy is most commonly referred to as the state of pregnancy. The most common sign that a Betta fish is pregnant will be the presence of white stripes on the sides and a visible white dot on the belly. This white dot is known as the ovipositor and is the organ responsible for laying eggs.

Can a female fighting fish spawn without a male?

Can female bettas lay eggs without the presence of males? Yes, they can. However, the cubs will not hatch from the eggs, as they have not been fertilized by the male. Female fish produce eggs all the time, and as a rule, female fish ingest the eggs rather than throw them away.

Can Betta's baby get pregnant?

The first thing to know is that fighting fish are not actually "pregnant", that is, they do not carry or give birth to live young. This is a spawning species, when the female releases eggs, which are subsequently fertilized by the male. The biological term for female fish that lay eggs is "pregnant".

How do I know if my Betta is pregnant?

If your female fighting fish is already spawning, you may notice a round white spot on her belly. This spot is called the ovipositor, which is an egg-laying organ located between her pelvic fins. The ovipositor is where she will soon release her eggs.

How long does it take for a female betta to produce eggs?

Egg hatching time depends on many factors. On average, eggs take about 2-3 days to hatch. Male cockerel eggs hatch much longer, up to a month. After that, the fry will begin to feed from the yolk sac and are still completely dependent on the father's care.

Where do cock fish lay their eggs?

After mating, female fighting fish lay eggs. The eggs come from what is often referred to as the "egg spot" circled above. The spot looks like a grain of salt and is actually the ovipositor tube from which the eggs emerge.

What to feed newborn betta fry?

Food for betta fry Infusoria and tiny free-living nematodes such as vinegar eels, microworms, banana worms and walter worms, as well as young brine shrimp, daphnia, magic shrimp and grindal worms are all excellent food for fry.

What do baby bettas eat?

Feeding: GREAT variety of foods Live foods such as grinders, pipe worms, white worms, black worms and mosquito larvae are exceptional for young bettas. However, if you can't get them, non-living foods can come in handy too. My favorite non-live foods for baby bettas.

How do I know if there are eggs in my Betta nest?

The nest has small white dots inside the bubbles. The eggs look like little tiny balls that are hard to see unless you are looking for them. There will also be a cluster of eggs in one part of the bubble nest foam, which can be identified by the small yellow spot where the eggs are located.

When can I remove a female cockerel after insemination?

When your female is well, she can help your male lay eggs in the nest. However, some females will eat the eggs, so keep a close eye on them and remove them if this is the case. I recommend taking her out of the tank as soon as she wakes up, because now your male will see her as a threat and may try to kill her.

How many babies does a fighting fish have at the same time?

Most fighting fish lay between 40 and 50 eggs per spawn. However, this number can vary greatly depending on the fish. Some aquarists who are experienced in breeding fighting fish may find that their fish lay up to 500 eggs.

Can betta fry eat egg yolk?

Is egg yolk good for french fries? Egg yolk is beneficial for Betta fry during the first few days of their life. However, you won't want to feed them yolks after this point because they are high in fat and cholesterol. Egg yolks contain many of the nutrients needed for growth.

Do cockerels need an air pump?

The main reason Bettas don't need air pumps is because Bettas have a labyrinth organ. The labyrinth organ means that bettas do not need to breathe through their gills. Instead, they may come to the surface of the water to breathe oxygen.

How long does it take for betta fry to hatch?

The baby fighting fish will hatch in about three days. When they hatch, the male fighting fish will watch and stay under the bubble nest, catching any eggs that fall. After hatching, the young are called "fry" and are very tiny. Neither parent will take care of the children - they will find their own food when they grow up.

Do male cockerels eat their cubs?

A fighting fish does not often eat its fry (young cubs) if something is wrong with the father. Most often, this only happens when you have a male cockerel that is not suitable for raising cubs.