After not changing the water enough, overfeeding causes more problems than any other betta fish care mistake. Overfeeding will make your betta's bowl much dirtier than it needs to be, and that alone causes a whole spectrum of problems. It can also cause your betta to get constipated, or eat itself into other digestion problems.

Determining if you are overfeeding or not will depend on your fish, it can vary. You can tell most of the time by how long it takes your fish to eat the food and how swollen their belly looks when they are finished.

Your betta should eat what's offered for about 1-2 minutes. After that, all remaining food should be siphoning out. Using a net is OK, too. Leaving that food in the tank is only going to make it necessary to clean the tank earlier.

Most bettas can barely eat a spare pinch of food in that time. Some of them take a bit of time to find the food in the bowl, so starting counting how long they eat from when they actually find the food and start eating.

If you are concerned that your Betta is overeating, you can watch for a swollen belly. Each fish will be slightly different, however you can find images that will give you a good idea of what to watch for.

One way to counteract chronic overfeeding is to just not feed the fish one day a week. This won't hurt the fish at all - you can actually go on a week-long vacation and not feed the fish at all for that week. The one day fast will help your betta's belly clear out and get back to normal functioning. Think of it as a one-day cleanse.

What Wild Bettas Eat

In the "wild" bettas eat mostly insects. They are carnivorous, so feeding them the carbohydrate-laden flake food offered to most aquarium fish isn't going to be well received by the betta at dinner time, or by the betta over time. Poor nutrition leads to poor health. For bettas, we want to feed protein, protein, and more protein.

You can offer your fish several varieties of freeze-dried foods, such as bloodworms and brine shrimp. They also like live food such as brine shrimp, mosquito larvae and daphnia. Of course, if live varieties are not available you can look for frozen specimens.

Bettas may reject the flake variety fish food. When you fish will not eat flakes or pellets you might need to offer fresh brine shrimp as a special treat. It is more expensive but you should be able to switch back and forth between live and flake or pellet food.

Today there are several varieties of fish food manufactured especially for Bettas. When your fish will eat them, this is fantastic. It is still a good idea to vary their diet perhaps once a week. Two or three times a week is even more beneficial. Each food will have different nutritional strengths and weaknesses so varying between them is a great idea. If your budget only allows for one variance go with the freeze dried brine shrimp.

Vegetables in your Betta's diet is a good idea, even though protein is the main necessity. If your Betta is constipated, the mushy insides of a pea are the classic remedy. The problem is most Bettas will have to be very hungry to even consider eating it. Let the fish go without feeding for a few days before giving them peas, remember a few days without food will not hurt your fish at all.