Although the popularity of keeping good old guppies as pets did fade for around a decade due to other fish seeing a spike in their popularity, guppies are making a comeback and seeing huge spikes in their popularity.
This is largely due to some dedicated guppy breeders being able to consistently produce some unique and rare looking guppies that have been going viral on social media recently getting more and more people interested in keeping guppies.
As the popularity of keeping guppies keeps on increasing, we have noticed more and more questions from the fish keeping community about how they are able to care for guppies.
At the time of writing, betta fish are by far the most common fresh water fish and we have already published an article comparing betta fish and guppies to try and help you decide what species is right for you.
Many people choose to keep both betta fish and guppies in separate tanks and we have noticed a number of people asking if guppies can eat betta food recently.
This in theory can help to save you money if you are able to keep both fish species that you keep on the same food mix and with so many people asking if they can feed their guppies food that has been optimized for betta fish, we have decided to publish our own article on the topic.
Can Guppies Eat Betta Food?
Some guppies will eat large amounts of fish food designed for betta fish whereas other guppies may not touch it at all.
Even the guppies that will eat betta fish food are often better off being on a varied diet of food due to guppies being omnivores while betta fish are carnivores.
This means that betta fish require a diet based on animal foods, more specifically insects with the majority of betta fish food having been optimized for these food types.
Guppies on the other hand have evolved to be able to eat both animal and plant-based food so they can technically survive on betta fish food but some guppies to seem to prefer eating plant-based foods.
This is why a guppie fish food or even a regular fish food is probably the better option for your guppies if you have the budget for it.
Now, there are a couple of variables that you do have to factor in with this due to the amount of algae that guppies can happily eat in their tank taking up a large amount of their diet requirements.
In some situations, your tank may provide your guppies with all of the algae that they require in their diet while the betta fish food, specifically a flake based food can provide your guppies with the protein that they require so testing your guppies with betta fish food to see if they will eat is is usually worth doing.
Can You Feed Guppies Betta Pellets?
Although guppies can eat both flake and pellet based foods, betta fish pellets are often too big for guppies to eat right away and they may have to let the pellet take on water, sink, and then eat it.
This can increase the chances of the pellets polluting your aquarium water due to some guppies just going off to find other food sources so smaller pellets will be a better option.
That said though, many guppies seem to prefer a flake fish food over pellet fish foods with countless guppy owners reporting that their fish show little to no interest in pellet foods but will eat flake based foods right away.
Although it is speculation, we would guess that this is due to guppies being so small and most pellet based fish foods on the market having been designed for larger fish make it harder for guppies to eat the food.
Some people who have already purchased pellet based food for their guppies that their guppies refuse to eat will sometimes soak their pellets in boiling water the night before feeding them to their guppies.
This can work for pellets that have been designed for betta fish too as the boiling water will break their cells and cause their shapes to totally change making it much easier for your guppies to eat them but it is often too much time and effort for most people as you can usually just get new food for your guppies.
What Should You Feed Your Guppies Instead Of Betta Food?
There are plenty of food options on the market for guppies that can work well ranging from specific food designed just for guppies to maintain their bright colors to generic fish food to various live foods.
Guppies will also eat a large amount of algae in your tanks too with this making up a large part of the diet of many guppies reducing the amount of commercial food that they will need to eat.
Live feeding guppies is becoming increasingly popular with both brine shrimp and live daphnia being very popular options as they are both excellent sources of protein for your guppies with both being great options for keeping the colors of your guppies as bright as possible.
Thankfully, both options are very budget friendly too with guppies often really enjoying either option being added to their tanks to add some mental stimulation as they are forced to chase their food.
If you do have a planted tank with plenty of algae available, you may be able to get away with just feeding your guppies live food and leaving them to get the rest of their nutrient profile from the algae in the aquarium.
This path essentially replaces the betta food with live food in your guppies diet with most guppies tending to prefer live food anyway while brine shrimp and daphnia are also much easier for the guppies to eat.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over if guppies can eat betta food or not to an end. We hope that we have been able to help as many of our readers as possible better understand the role that betta food is able to play in the diet of guppies but that is it not essential and often not the best option. We know that many people will keep betta fish in one tank and guppies in another these days but to maintain the bright colors of both fish species, it is usually better to have an optimised food for the diet of each species.
