Guppies have an extensive diet range, and when it comes to food, they tend not to be choosy. Yes, they are a breed who just loves to eat!
That’s why it’s quite common to find yourself in a situation where you just ran out of the “guppy food.” So, what should you do now? Give them the betta food from your shelf or not?
Well, the good news is – we have the answer!
Can guppies eat betta food? Guppies can eat betta food. However, giving only betta food won’t be healthy for your guppies in the long run. Guppies are omnivores, so you need to feed them a balanced diet with vegetables as well.
There are lots of betta foods that happen to be guppy foods too. These are mostly protein-based foods and more suited for guppy fry rather than adult ones.
Betta Food for Guppies – A Closer Look at Different Types
Betta food mainly consists of high protein content as bettas are carnivores. Feeding a high level of protein content regularly to guppy fish isn’t healthy.
So, you may offer betta food occasionally to maintain a healthy lifestyle for your guppies.
Pellets
These are the most common betta food that you can give to your guppies. However, the quality varies greatly depending on the brand.
Even if you feed your guppies betta pellets, you should make sure they have fewer fillers and more quality ingredients that would help your fish thrive.
Usually, betta pellets seem to offer 30-50% protein content along with fibers and fats. Some betta pellets tend to expand when they are in contact with water. This can cause your guppy to have digestive issues.
So, you need to soak them in tank water to fully hydrate them before feeding it to your precious guppy fish. Also, guppies have a smaller mouth, so crush the betta pellets before you feed them to your guppies.
It’s recommended that you only feed betta pallets to guppies when you don’t have any other commercial guppy food left.
Flakes
You can also feed your guppies betta flakes. However, these flakes are explicitly made for betta fish, so they tend to be more geared towards betta fish diet.
That’s why they have more protein content and lack other nutritious elements that you guppy would need.
If you don’t have any other guppy food left, then you can feed them betta flakes, but including it to their regular diet won’t be a healthy option.
On the other hand, flakes tend to be messy and easily dissolve in tank water, decreasing the water quality faster.
You should remove any sunken or excess flakes right after feeding time to maintain water quality. You may also need to change water frequently to avoid any increase in ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite.
Freeze-Dried Food
You can use freeze-dried betta food as a treat for your guppies. These have more nutritional values compared to pellets or flakes.
Basically, freeze-dried foods have very low moisture content and have added fillers to preserve them for a longer time.
Always check out the ingredients from the label before you feed this to your guppies.
It’s recommended that you soak the freeze-dried foods in tank water before you feed it to your guppies. If not, your guppies may feel bloated or have constipation issues later on.
A huge plus point of these foods is that they don’t have any parasites or bacteria. Freeze-dried foods such as bloodworms, brine shrimp, and daphnia are the best choices for your guppy fish.
Frozen Food
You will get a lot of options for your guppies when it comes to frozen betta food. Both fish breeds can eat similar frozen foods such as brine shrimp, daphnia, mosquito larvae, bloodworms, and mysis shrimp.
Guppies love these foods, and these could be a good protein source for them. However, frozen foods always have less nutritional value than live ones.
So, don’t make these their primary source of food if you want you guppy to be healthy and happy.
Plus, you have to thaw the frozen food before you feed them to your guppies. For this, you can warm up some tank water and thaw it in the water.
It’s recommended not to refreeze any leftover thawed frozen food because it might get exposed to bacteria.
Live Food
Live foods are always an excellent choice for guppy fish. There are lots of live betta foods that guppies love to eat, and you can easily introduce them into their diet.
Live foods are a great source of nutrition and have vitamins that help your guppy fish stay healthy.
You can always get live food such as daphnia, brine shrimp, and bloodworm from the local fish store. We highly recommend feeding brine shrimp to your guppies – here is why brine shrimp is so awesome!
You can also run multiple hatcheries at home, to maintain a more sustainable food source. Brine shrimps are actually good for guppy fry as the high protein level helps them grow faster.
Should You Only Feed Betta Food To Your Guppies?
The short answer is – NO! As we mentioned earlier, feeding your guppies only betta food isn’t healthy.
Guppies need a balanced diet consisting of both meat and vegetables. As bettas only eat meat-based food, the foods lack minerals and vitamins.
So, avoid relying solely on meat-based food for your guppy fish.
Veggie pallets are a great choice of food for your guppy fish. These pallets contain a lot of greens such as spirulina, algae, and plankton that are rich in vitamins B, C, D, and E.
They also offer a good amount of calcium and iron for your fish.
You can also feed them vegetables that are rich in minerals and vitamins such as magnesium, calcium, iron, A, B-6, B-12, C, D, and E.
Guppies eat green beans, cucumber, corn, potato, carrots, zucchini, kale, broccoli, and spinach leaves. You can feed spinach, cucumber, zucchini, and potato raw.
Just make sure you cut them into tiny pieces so that your guppy fish can easily eat them. Also, remember to remove the seeds and jelly bits from cucumbers and zucchini.
You should boil peas, carrots, green beans, and broccoli for a minute or two to soften them before you feed them. Also, peel of the shells of green beans and peas. It would help your guppy to digest them better.
What Should You Do If Your Guppy Fish Keeps Eating All Your Betta’s Food?
You might face this issue if you keep your guppies and bettas in the same tank. As both fish have some common food pallet, it’s not uncommon for your guppy fish to keep eating all the food for your betta fish.
Obviously, if you let such acts continue, it won’t be healthy for either of the fish breeds.
You can try out two methods to prevent your guppy from hogging all the food for themselves.
Firstly, you can feed your guppy at one side of the tank and then feed your betta at the opposite side of the tank. You should make sure to drip-feed only a little bit on both ends at a time.
After your betta is done eating enough, you can pour all of the food in.
Secondly, you can separate both fish breeds with a net during feeding to keep your guppies away from the betta food. Once you are done feeding both parties, take out the net.
If you don’t want to go through these hassles, it’s best to separate them into two tanks. That would also mean less stress for the fish.