So, as many of you know, I have silly bettas who will ONLY eat flake and peas. The females will try other things and then spit them out... Plato ignores everything else and gives me a long suffering look. He's gone up to 2 weeks without food out of stubbornness. As soon as I put in the flake, he gobbled it down.
So, with my feeding sched... and I personally think bc my tanks are filtered... I do not fight bloat, even with the flakes.
They get a pinch of flake each for the giants, Plato and Beauty,and 2 pinches for the girlies (4 juvie girls Angel, Bella, Stripes,and Jewel) daily M-F. They fast on Saturday and get their crumbled peas on Sunday... 1 for Plato, 1 for Beauty, and 2 for the girlies.
Since, I have not had any bloat problems and Plato and Beauty have grown to be over 3-3.5 inch bodies (Plato's over 6 inches tip to tip) on the flake (both tetra color and omega one cichlid flakes), does anyone know of any other problem with this???

I have never heard of flakes causing bloat.
The problem as I have heard, and that I have had is the bettas don't eat it, and it sinks too fast, causing the tank to be polluted.
But if your guys are eating it, good.

I've never used flake myself. I think the biggest thing is it dirties the water so much and is harder to remove uneaten portions.

meet my friend, the turkey baster. :WOW:

Oh well yes, but even so, flakes deteriorate so fast.

that would be true, but it is a cycled tank so it's not quite as dramatic. and Plato never lets it hit the bottom. Plus you read the my fish think they are cories discussion? They really do.
Also, helps that they get fed little bits at a time until its all gone.

Do you think they are getting decent nutrition, I guess is my question?

Now that is a good question. I guess I'd have to see the nutrition facts on your flake food to know. I'd advise just doing a comparison with the nutrition facts say on Atison's Betta Pro.

if someone can find the nutritional info on omega one cichlid flakes, let me know... i've looked everywhere.

Mmmkay.. I'll check.

Ummm.. Dear Girl... ever heard of a thing called "Google"?
Omega One Cichlid Flakes
Guaranteed Analysis: Min Crude Protein = 44%, Min. Crude Fat = 10%, Max. Crude Fiber = 2%, Max. Moisture = 8.5% & Min. Ash =8%.

I googled it and got nothing... it's been one of those braindead weeks though, so there's no saying i didn't miss it.

and how is that food?

hee hee hee... good question.

It's good :) I feed my females, males, angelfish, shrimp, and even gouramis that. They love it too the max because it has real seafood in it, according to the labels, I suppose. They also enjoy a good mix of FD BW by Hikari, GPs, Hikari Cichlid Gold Baby Pellets, live Flightless Fruit Flies, and live blackworms. A good variety helps :)

Yes, I definitely agree with variety. I try treating mine to some live food fairly frequently too. Brine Shrimp and Daphnia.

Can someone please have a heart to heart with Plato that he is supposed to like variety, not just flakes.

Hee hee hee...

That's so odd - usually its the flakes that they WON'T eat. What a silly boy.
Nutritional variety is ideal, obviously, but if the food you feed is within the nutritional conventions for bettas, I suppose he won't be harmed, per se, by it. Just out of curiosity, will he not even look at other foods, or will he mouth the and spit them out? Some are bothered by the texture of new foods, which can be avoided by pre-soaking. Heck, you could try soaking his flakes in water, then using the water to also soak some pellets, so that the taste and flavor are more in tune with what he wants ;) .

whether he even tries it, depends on his mood.
if i put something in at the same time as the flake, and he gets the non-flake... he'll spit it out and give me a dirty look.

Bettas beauty, their Uniqueness!

OK, so talk about learned behavior. I added two new girls to the sorrority and they taught everybody else including Plato that bloodworms are food.

:OO

Whooo hooo!!!
I love that.
Of course, there was the new girls that taught all the other girls how to jump..
No more open tank for THEM.

Well, funny new food to try... still laughing. Plankton. I cut up a cube into a few pieces... funny, they look like little shrimps. Funny to watch a girlie swimming about with a "shrimp" hanging half outta her mouth till another girlie grabs the other end and it splits in half. Plato tried it. I ended up using the turkey baster for most of his... but the girlies liked it.

Girlies in a community are more likely to eat new things.. they get competative, lol.

LaBella... I just hope they don't teach the jumping thing. After the escape attempt... I think they jump tooo well as it is.

Oh yeah.. I can just see it.
I am lucky, none of the girls in the new heifer tank are jumpers.. YET. I didn't put the girls in that tank that I knew were jumpers for just that reason.

I have neverbeen able to get my fish to accept flake not one ,not sure why they all hate it so much?

Mo,
Does Plato need to have a talk with them???
Ever tried to Omega One cichlid flakes.... Never had one turn it down... but my fish are wierd as previously discussed.