Fish treats

[newlywed]

Now that my tank is cycled and established, I'd like to give my new fish friends a treat now and again. Here's what is in the tank:

6 Tiger Barbs
3 Gold Barbs
3 Clown Loaches
3 Otos
2 "Julli" Corys
1 Dojo Loach

I found a couple of small fishing worms that had made their way to the top of th soil during one of our Southwestern PA warmups last weekend. The Tigers LOVED those! I may have to make it a habit of digging some of those up. I also have a container of freeze dried blood worms and the fish like those. Other than that, I feed flake food and sinking pellets. I'd like to offer my friends some more variety and am not sure what else I can offer them! I did see baggies full of brine shrimp at the lfs. There must have been 1000 of them in the bag and they were selling them as a single portion. I was thinking...what if the fish didn't eat them all? Are these good to feed to the fish? If so, how many shrimps for each fish. The bag also said that they were good for both fw and sw. How can that be? Wouldn't they die? And if they did die and didn't get eaten wouldn't they mess up the tank?

So....what else can I offer my fish? and, how can I get the fish to the bottom of the tank without the little pigs (tigers) eating everything. I swear those fish act like they never get fed!


TIA

Jim

 

[Chikadee]

Frozen foods would be good, my fish love frozen blood worms, brine shrimp and krill. I also feed them live brine shrimp. When I buy the big bag, I dump it into a vase and pour a little bit out into a net at each feeding. I rinse the shrimp thoroughly under water (to get the salt out) and then put it into another small container with water. I then use a pipette to feed my fishies and they go absolutely nuts for them. It's also really fun to watch them hunt them down. Other than that, my fish also like live blackworms (hard to find sometimes, my lfs usually only carries tubifex worms, but those are super dirty).

 

[Menagerie]

There must have been 1000 of them in the bag and they were selling them as a single portion.

I break up packages of frozen foods and store them in tupperwares. Hmmm, it sounds like those brine shrimp are alive, my LFS doesn't sell them live, I hatch them myself :?

And if they did die and didn't get eaten wouldn't they mess up the tank?

They would contribute to the waste in the tank. Just vac them out of there.
Brine shrimp can be feed to both FW and SW--they are going to die anyway. I don't know how long brine shrimp last in fresh, you need to hatch them in a salt water mixture.
As for digging up worms from outside, I would not introduce anything to my tank that was not meant for the tank. You never know what the worms are carrying.

In addition to flake, pellets, algea wafers, frozen and live foods, you can feed squash and peas (plus other veggies, it just depends on what the fish are willing to eat).

how can I get the fish to the bottom of the tank without the little pigs (tigers) eating everything

Get a pipe and drop the food straight to the bottom if you are worried. The fish will figure it out over time. However, I don't worry about that since the top and mid dwellers never eat ALL the fish--it just looks that way. Whatever gets to the bottom will be eaten by the bottom dwellers usually at night .

 

[Christmasfish]

Scallop tidbits are the "treat" here for most except my knife..spoiled thing uses it as his staple.
the already have hugely varied diets.

 

[newlywed]

The brine shrimp at the lfs were live. They were swimming around in a plastic bag. There were so many of them that I couldn't imagine feeding them all at one time.
I thought I had read somewhere in these forums that some people feed their fish earth worms. So, I thought it sounded like a good idea.
I see different food in the stores that are species specific. i.e. cichlid pellets, goldfish pellets, discus pellets etc... are those good to feed to a community tank like mine? I also have some Betta bites given to me by someone who had one of those Peace Lily Betta things (terrible idea by whoever came up with that IMHO)
They're not that old, can I use those too?
I'll try the peas since I'm having them with dinner tonight. I know to blanch them and then peel the skins off beforehand. We'll see how that goes. I'll also pick up a cucumber for my salad and put a piece of it in the tank. If the fish do not eat it all right away, how long should I leave it in the tank? My Ottos seem clueless and never get in on any of the algea wafers that I put in the tank. The other piggies end up eating it! I hope they find the cucumber before it gets all eaten. Should I blanch it as well? Also, I would assume peeling and removing the seeds yes??

Christmasfish...do you feed them cooked or raw scallops?

Thanks again!!!

 

[Allivymar]

Frozen foods would be the easiest, and most of your fish will LOVE them, especially the loaches.

I feed my guys frozen bloodworm, frozen daphnia and the angel babies also get frozen baby brine shrimp. The bloodworms cause WW3 in my tank every time I put it in LOL we taught the angels to eat from our fingers, and now the clown loaches have gotten into the act. Even the baby angels will eat it from our fingers LOL

I'd be careful of worms from the garden; if any sort of chemicals have been used there, or even near there, it could cause problems.

Almost forgot! Many of the species specific foods aren't THAT species specific. Really most foods can be broken down into 2 groups. Veggie and meat, depending on whether the fish are herbivores, carnivores or omnivoures. Goldies and some plecs are examples of herbivoures, loaches and arrowanas are examples of carnivores. You'll find most fish will eat both, even if they are supposedly one or the other. The biggest prob is feeding all meat to an omnivoure (missing some nutrients then), or too much meat to an herbivoure (their digestive systems aren't set up to handle too much protein).

Feeding Frenzy *grin* :

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi...I have read somewhere also that earthworms are ok; like Allivymar said, just make sure that no pesticides are sprayed nearby, and thoroughly rinse them.

About brine shrimp: My lfs sells live ones. They charge $2.00 per tablespoon. I always get half of that for one dollar, since I only have 2 bettas. See if your lfs will bag up a smaller quantity for you, if the bag is too big. My lfs gives them to you in the salt water, in a little clear container about the size of a margarine tub. I put this in the frig when I get home. To feed the bettas, I get a small cup of tank water, take some of the brine shrimp out of the tub, and put them in the cup of tank water. I then use a plastic spoon to scoop up a shrimp and feed the bettas. They are used to seeing the spoon, and they know it means food! But, I end up dumping a lot of the brine shrimp down the drain, because that's still too many for just 2 fish. They keep for about 5 days in the frig.

Since you have more fish, you probably wouldn't want to take the time to feed each one individually, so you could rinse the brine shrimp out in a cup of tank water, and pour them into the tank. Pour in a little at a time so you don't have too many all over the tank at once. Try to only give as much as the fish will eat. But the fish will probably spend the next hour or two catching all the stray ones!

Some shrimp may die in the tank, but don't overfeed with them, and do your regular gravel vacs, and you'll be ok.

 

[newlywed]

Thanks An t-iasg! BTW where do you do your fish shopping? We're in the same neck of woods and I'm always looking for a good fish store in the area.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi newlywed,
One really good lfs near you is Wet Pets in the Peters Township -- McMurray area. It's on Route 19, in the Waterdam Plaza. They don't have live foods, though (the last time I was there they didn't) but they do have Bio-Spira!

The lfs that gives you little tubs of brine shrimp is Pet Supplies Plus. It's a chain lfs, and there may be one in your area.

But where I go for fish is a hatchery in the Baldwin area (off Carson St) -- www.alloddballaquatics.com