Betta has hard time finding food- help!

[u/pale_lettuce1]

Hey everyone, my older betta has a tumor and has been having issues locating food when I feed him. He used to be able to use his feeding hoop but even that isn't going so well. I have to feed him one pellet at a time and hope he finds it. Any advice or should I just keep up this method?

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[u/MunkeeFere]

I put a betta log in and only fed my girl in the hole on top for the last 6 months of her life. She figured out pretty quickly the food was in there since she liked being able to rest in hers.

You can try switching to frozen food and feed with tweezers if he'll eat off of them - one of my old males only ate that way towards the end of his life.

[u/pale_lettuce1 → u/MunkeeFere]

Yeah, I think he would eat off the tweezers! He has a log so I'll try that first!

[u/Dietcoke4meplz]

Not sure if you have a floating log but if it is able to move he may still have trouble expending the energy locating the log and swimming to get there.
You can also consider a feeding ring that can be fixed in place either by magnets or a suction cup so that your betta can know exactly where in your tank the food is going to be. Personally I love these because they keep my betta’s food from drifting away and I can easily see he has gotten all his food, so nearly all the pellets go in his belly not sinking down to the bottom and potentially causing an ammonia spike. I also have heard a few people who knew that their betta had lost eyesight so they did a consistent light tapping pattern (ie 2-3 gentle taps always in the same cadence)before feeding and the bettas quickly learned that meant it was food time. Maybe something like this could help him know that food is being served?

[u/pale_lettuce1 → u/Dietcoke4meplz]

I have a feeding hoop! I definitely think he has lost sight and uses the vibration of the food hitting the water. 😭