Sinking food ideas

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Posivated

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
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199
Location
Florida
I need some ideas on what I can feed my bolivian ram, yoyo loach, and black skirt tetra. They all hang out on the bottom together and won't come to top the top for flakes anymore. The tetra used to when he was in my last tank by himself, now apparently hes to cool for flakes. I bought the only sinking cichlid food I could find and its very big, the ram tries to eat it but cant fit an entire pellet in his mouth so it takes like an hour for him to eat one. What are other foods to feed all them?
 
New Life Spectrum small fish formula. It's the highest quality pellet on the market IMO. (many others too) It has some garlic it, your fish will crave it!
 
Got the same problem with my black Skirted tetra and GBR. I take 1/2 of a tubeflex square and then (inside the tank of course:facepalm:) I squish it against the glass till all the bubbles are out. I makes it stick there, low enough for the ram and the tetras eat what ever is floating around the lower and middle of the tank. LFS told me about that. I have even used a paperclip attached to thread and the square attached to the clip. Would lower it, tape it to the outside of the tank and let them feed. Two clips kept it down to the bottom.
 
Thanks for the help, found some spectrum small fish about 40 mins away. Ill try it out tomorrow.
 
Algea wafers are a good sinking food that my fish love but because you have few fish you should break it in half probably
 
If their not eating try freeze dried bloodworms THEY'LL GO CRAZY. sinking food does work two and all fish will nibble at them
 
If their not eating try freeze dried bloodworms THEY'LL GO CRAZY. sinking food does work two and all fish will nibble at them
Got some freeze dried bloodworms for fun and they don't sink :/. It seems they are having problems seeing the little new life pellets.
 
If you use frozen foods and defrost them before putting it in the tank they float all over so it's good for top and bottom feeders.
 
try to get some live blackworms as well. they're aquatic and tend to borrow into the substrate if not eaten immediately. but hey, it will jump-start your fish's natural hunting ability.
 
I have a HOB waterfall type filter and if I put the flakes near there, it forces them down current and the tetras get it that way. The tetras don't seem to like the sinking pellets.
I have zebra danios and a dwarf gourami and they get all the floating food very quickly!!!
 
Weird that your blackskirts don't go after the flakes/sinking food. Mine are pigs and literally jump out of the tank for flakes. They also chase down shrimp pellets and down them whole lol.
 
Weird that your blackskirts don't go after the flakes/sinking food. Mine are pigs and literally jump out of the tank for flakes. They also chase down shrimp pellets and down them whole lol.

Well at the moment I only have 1 black skirt from my last tank, haven't gotten the 4 more that I will be getting soon. He used to eat from the surface but he hangs out with my other guys now. So maybe when I get the other 4 he will hang out with them and eat with them
 
Well at the moment I only have 1 black skirt from my last tank, haven't gotten the 4 more that I will be getting soon. He used to eat from the surface but he hangs out with my other guys now. So maybe when I get the other 4 he will hang out with them and eat with them

Alright, once you get him some more buddies, they will be feeding at the top of the water in no time.
 
Got some freeze dried bloodworms for fun and they don't sink :/. It seems they are having problems seeing the little new life pellets.

Have you tried pre soaking them? I use Seachem's garlic guard, but you can also soak them in a little tank water with some crushed garlic. It piques their interest and stimulates their appetite.
 
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