Varied Diet?

[Pugwinkle]

Hi, I am feeding my head and taillight tetras Sera Vipan staple diet flakes. I am wondering what else can I feed them as I have read that fish need a varied diet.

 

[lmw80]

Freeze dried brine shrimp (broken up), micro pellets, anything really....you will learn what they like in time...there are many different types of flake food as well...the micro pellets I feed my neon tetras are designed for smaller fish to be able to eat them whole.

 

[Christmasfish]

My rummy and penguin tetras eat EVERYthing they can. Flake is the least fav now..tubifex, brine, bloodworms is the all time fav of most , micropellets and anything I give my knife that they can carry away and sqabble over like sparrows..paste, scallp, sardine, shrimp. I think rummys are close in type and size to your guys. Pesty things. They also eat off zucchini that I leave for the snails and botom feeders.

 

[Allivymar]

Just as we need a varied diet, so do our fish.

I prefer the Spectrum, BioBlend, OSI and OmegaOne foods. They're a little more expensive, but I like the ingredients (like OmegaOne; the first bunch of ingredients are fresh fish, not fish meal or fillers).

 

[madasafish]

Also, live foods... they're more expensive, but not too bad if you feed them as a treat once a week or every couple of weeks. I tend to feed my main tank black worms once every two weeks or so. Brine shrimp are the other commonly available live food. These go *very* fast in my tank. The fish *love* them!

 

[Menagerie]

The more varied the diet, the happier the fish. I feed flake, squash, peas, algea wafers, pellets, live foods and frozen foods. They eat better than I do!

 

[Pugwinkle]

The more varied the diet, the happier the fish. I feed flake, squash, peas, algea wafers, pellets, live foods and frozen foods. They eat better than I do!

Don't they choke on peas? How do you prefer squash for fish?

 

[Menagerie]

You need to cook the peas, I use frozen and nuke them for a minute, let them cool and them peel them. The peas actually pop out of the skin and are soft. Some fish nibble on them and some take the whole thing in their mouth and chew, chew, chew. Squash is done in the same matter. I use small zucchinis--the seeds are tiny and then you don't have to deseed it. For my cichlids, I put large slices in the tank in a clip that suctions to the side. After an hour, it softens and they eat it. For my smaller fish, I pour boiling water over a slice while I am make tea for myself. The zucchini sits in the hot water for a few minutes, cooled and clipping in the community tank. If you don't have a clip, you can rubber band it to a rock. Whatever the fish don't eat after 24 hours, I take out. You will find the fish will be very leary of the new food at first.

 

[Pugwinkle]

Thanks Menagerie!

 

[Muppeholic]

How often should I give my fish peas to prevent constipation?

My Zebra Danios are eating about twice as much food as the others because they're so much faster. Right now I'm alternating between Frozen Brine Shrimp and Tropical Flakes. We do have Freeze-Dried Blood Worms but weren't sure how often we should feed it to them.

 

[Menagerie]

How often should I give my fish peas to prevent constipation?

I feed peas once a week and that's all the fish get for the day. I can't say for sure this will prevent anything, but it won't hurt and the diet is further varied for them
The freeze dried blood worms have more nutritional value than the brine shrimp. Don't be afraid to cut back on the BS and add in blood worms.

 

[Muppeholic]

I'll do that! I'm gonna give 'em peas tomorrow 'cause some of the zebras look very full right now. . . . the little food hogs.

Is there a way to tell whether or not the zebras have a belly full of eggs versus constipation? What's the best temp for the water in my 35 gal. hex? It's currently set for 76 degrees Fahrenheit. (My QT tank is at 80 and the Angelfish sure does seem to love it.)

 

[Menagerie]

The best thing to do Muppeholic, is to research your fish. I google when I need answers, but there are sites with great basic fish info including www.liveaquaria.com .
It's hard to explain the differnce between a gravid female and a bloated fish! Google for images of gravid zebras and see how they look.

 

[Muppeholic]

I actually took one of the fish in to the LFS and the guy said that the fish looked healthy (no protruding scales, etc.) and appeared to be female. He said to watch the fish closely and that it could be just that they were about to lay eggs.

However, now I have a different diet question. What should we do if we ever decide to go out of town for 3 or 4 days? Should we just get one of those "weekend food tablets" or is there something else? I've heard and read conflicting things on this. One source says don't worry about feeding them at all and another suggests buying an automatic feeder. What do you guys suggest?

 

[Menagerie]

3 or 4 days, don't worry about it. The fish will be more than happy to see you when you get back