Initial Questions

[xwondera]

I recently got 2 Male Mollie fish and they're doing fine. I feed them fish flakes twice a day (or a little more if they didn't eat, I always fish the extra food out), Morning and Night.

But one of my fish doesn't always eat or spits the food out. He takes to picking up gravel to try and eat that. Should I try something other than fish flakes? like Algae Wafers or some live food?

Another question is I was thinking about getting some bottom feeders to pick up the extra food that gets stuck to the bottom of the tank that i can't quite get to. Which ones would be recommended to get with Mollies? and would they eat Algae Wafers also?

Thank you!

 

[scuba dude]

Clean up crew will really depend on tank size. How big you talking?

 

[HooKooDooKu]

I personally like red cherry shrimp and Malaysian Trumpet Snails for a cleanup crew (toss in a nerite snail for algae control... but you'll get little white snail eggs in the tank).

MTS are great in that they do not eat live plants, and will not over-run your tank unless you're over feeding. You can also get Assasin snails to keep the MTS population in check as well.

 

[Aliray]

Welcome to the forum and what size is your tank? Alison

 

[Andy Sager]

I recently got 2 Male Mollie fish and they're doing fine. I feed them fish flakes twice a day (or a little more if they didn't eat, I always fish the extra food out), Morning and Night.

But one of my fish doesn't always eat or spits the food out. He takes to picking up gravel to try and eat that. Should I try something other than fish flakes? like Algae Wafers or some live food?

Another question is I was thinking about getting some bottom feeders to pick up the extra food that gets stuck to the bottom of the tank that i can't quite get to. Which ones would be recommended to get with Mollies? and would they eat Algae Wafers also?

Thank you!

The 2 main reasons fish spit out food is because either they don't like what they are tasting or they have an internal issue. The fact that your fish is still trying to eat the gravel tends to lean towards the food you are feeding is not to it's liking. I would try to add other foods to the diet so that there is a mixture of flavors for the fish to choose from. You might see that fish #1 likes, for example, yellow colored flakes more and fish #2 likes purple colored flakes more. You just never know which is why variety is better. Mollies do like a higher vegetable diet so you might want to try an algae based flake or pellet and see how they do. If all else fails, enriched frozen foods like Brine Shrimp should get the fish eating something healthy for them.

As for a clean up crew, I would recommend getting one, and there are a number of suitable choices for you to choose from. But you need to remember that a clean up crew is not the answer to a fish not eating. Not eating usually leads to a fish dying and the clean up crew just gets a carcass and you don't get to enjoy the fish. So once you find foods that your fish all eat, make sure you do not overfeed to the point that the clean up crew has a lot of work to do.

Hope this helps

 

[xwondera]

My tank is a 22L tank but the heater and filter take up a little space in it.

I'm thinking of getting some different colored flakes tomorrow to see what they like and adjust accordingly to what they like. I was gonna try some live food too to see if they like them. Its my first time owning fish so i'm excited to learn about them and what they like.

I'll take a look at what my local pet store has in terms of clean up crew too.

thanks for the answers and welcomes!

-Annie

 

[ScotJudd]

Another welcome to the forum.
Some fish, when introduced to a new tank, will not feed well for quite some time. It may be the food and it can be useful to know what food was fed to them at the fish shop. Most fish keepers have their preferred fish food and it can take a while to swap the fish across from their previous diet to their new one.
Referring back to your initial post, you said that you feed more food if they didn't eat the first food. Don't do that. Feed the smallest amount of food and if they don't eat in the morning then wait and feed a tiny amount again in the evening. Unless a fish is sick it won't starve itself to death, don't be too kind. My latest batch of 15 Cardinal tetras in the quarantine tank only got one flake, ground up, twice a day until they started to feed properly. 2 weeks later and the come to the glass when it's feeding time.
I keep red cherry shrimp and Malayan trumpet snails in my main tank as a clean up crew and they do a great job. You will need a healthy amount of cover, moss is ideal, for the shrimp and baby shrimp to escape the fish though. It can take a while to get a decent cherry shrimp colony established but once you do they breed like rabbits
Good luck with your tank.


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