So, I know a lot of you use pellet and that's cool.. But I thought to share a story and hope it is kept as informative purposes only.

Lesson:
Make sure the pellet you are feeding is the right size. Most "betta" pellets are too big and must be mushed for proper size, especially for lil girlies and immature bettas that Wally World sold way too young.

So, I got my BF's nephew a girlie betta, Violet Incredible is her name.
We got her all set up in her new one gal. and decided to feed her betta pellets. HBH brand that I used to feed religiously (before switching to mainly girlies). She went to get it and it got stuck in her mouth. I had to sweep in the tank with my hands and grab her gently and get some tweezers and remove the pellet. Then I got a net and remove the other 3 pellets. She gets cichlid flakes now as do all of my other bettas. That scared me for life. I just thought it needed to be shared. Though betta pellets are generally good.. make sure your fishy doesn't need something smaller or you'll be doing fishy rescue too.

Lots of people use Bio Gold, which is one of, if not the smallest pellet available exclusivly for bettas which is readily abailable. The Guppy bites, and Tripical mini pellets by Hikari are also pretty good for very small juvie bettas.
Atison's Pro is so small, month and a half old babies can eat it. I don't know about the the Atison's regular food, never used it.
I did have a female that I bought who was so young, Bio Gold was too big for her, she used to chew on it, until it got soft enough, before I caught on, and started crushing it for her.

I only use Bio Gold Pellets and encourage others around me to do so as well. Many other types of betta pellets are ill suited for bettas to eat.

I also only feed my bettas 1 pellet at a time after one of them grabbed 4(i had a capfull of pellets and was feeding several bettas and dropped the cap) in seconds then swam around like a thief who got caught.

He eventually coughed up the pellets, I managed to steal one from him, then he ate the rest again.

So I make sure that only 1 pellet hits the water at a time.

Pre-soaking reduces the problem of bettas getting pellets stuck in their mouths greatly, and pre-soaked pellets are easier to break up for smaller fish. Honestly, pre-soaking is healthier anyways as it reduces the chance of constipation. Hikari micro wafers and micro pellets are a good alternative for small fish; I have several mini plakats who are only 1" long and they can eat these just fine. I also feed Atison's, which seems to be an appropriate size for even the tiniest of bettas.
edit: just to be clear, I'm not arguing with your decision to avoid pellets - just giving some advice for others with similar problems who still want to feed pellet ;)

Welcome back Random . We all missed you :hug: :hug:

OK, now ya' got me sitting here grinding up Betta Bites!

I too have noticed that some of our adults (I feed the younger and smaller ones Micro Pellets and Atison's Pro, among other foods) have sort of a hard time with the medium sized pellets. At least we don't feed 'em the HUGE pellets that Walmart and lfs feed them :blink:
But yea, after reading this, I grabbed the Betta bites jars, and am now grinding them up smaller, LOL!!!

My pellets go in this order..
Hikari Guppy Bites
Hikari Tropical Micro Pellets
Hikari micro wafers for carnivores
Atison's Betta Pro, (and regular)
Hikari Bio Gold.

The Bio Gold is the largest of all the pellet foods I feed. Now, only the really big guys get this, though most of the fish can handle those pellets.
For the record, I DO have both Hikari First Bites, and Atisons betta starter, but I have found that in my fishroom, they are only good for feeding to worms to gut load them.

I'm still sticking with the cichlid flakes for my bettas... no matter what.
After having to perform fishy-heimlich... you become a little paranoid.

I use the small 1mm NLS pellets, the same I use for my cichlids. Never had a problem with it, even feeding to two month old fry.
If it's too big for them they just pick it to pieces. Most of my adults can easily get down 10 pellets in one sitting, one of my females once packed herself so full I thought she had lodged one in her mouth and couldn't get it down but the pellets were just packed so far up she just couldn't get the one in her mouth down any further. Kinda hard to regulate pellet-per-fish in a sorority. :rolleyes:
Even so, I have had one fish lodge something in its mouth once. Figured it'd be a goldfish and not food but a piece of gravel. Some careful tweezer work helped me out there but I wasn't too paranoid to put him back in the tank without changing the gravel. lol

I've switched to feeding all my bettas the Hikari Micro pellets. It's great because I can just give each fish a different amount based on the fish's size, and they all have no problem eating them.

I would be... but I'm paranoid... ;)

Actualy that happened to my friend betta. Its a lot more comon than you think I guees. Im glad she is al right.

Forgot to mention, my paranoia about gravel is one of the reasons why all my FW setups have sand substrates. That and it's MUCH easier to clean.

i'm going to start presoaking my pellets now, it makes a lot of sense! i have a small male who couldn't eat pellets when i first got him. the other male i've had would eat anything, even regular fish flakes, since the day i got him.