Fish food recommendation for micro fish
What kind of fish food are suitable for micro fishes like boraras, CPD, salt and peppered Cory, Hillstream loach(small mouth) and hatchet ?
Hikari Micro Pellets and Micro Wafers are good, ideal for all small fishes.
For small bottom feeding fishes like dwarf corydoras, Hikari Sinking Wafers would be suitable, the fishes will nibble at it as the wafer breaks apart over time.
New Life Spectrum Small Fish Formula is also good, get the Thera+A version for its extra garlic content, helps improve the fishes immune system.
How about tetra bits ? Are they suitable or too big ? Many thanks.
That should be okay too, even if the food is larger it will still eventually break apart after a while into smaller pieces in the water anyways.Originally Posted by Bangwalldie
Most fishes are not too fussy with what they eat, especially when they are hungry.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 1st Sep 2014 at 00:39.
So how do I train those fish (mention above) to eat ? I used to have Hillstream loaches and boraras not eating
I have both types of fishes in my tanks and i guess they will eat when they are hungry... boraras may be abit shy when first introduced into a tank, but once they get accustomed, they will readily eat pellet food from the water surface. They also hunt for food at the substrate level too, so its quite easy to feed them.
Hillstream loaches tend to go more more algae and bio-film/micro-fauna, though if they are hungry they will also eat any pellets that sink to the substrate. They relish grazing on algae and sinking wafers too.
Personally i find it easier to feed various types of fishes with food put into a feeding dish, so that it doesn't scatter all over the place and the fishes know where the food will always be (and i can also easily remove excess leftover food too). Fishes usually learn very quickly and its common to see them hanging around the same place at a regular time waiting for food.
Will they be out complete for food? Like boraras and CPD are smaller fishes compared to Norman lampeye so do I need to feed more ?
I've kept those fishes before and from my experience, boraras and lampeyes have no issues going for food at all levels of the aquarium, they will literally swarm the surface when you approach begging for food... but CPDs tend to be easily outcompeted as they usually hide when there is movement outside of the tank and take more time to come out of hiding to feed from the water surface.
What i do with tanks that house CPDs and other fishes, is feed the surface feeding fishes normally with small pellet food, at the same time i drop a sinking wafer into a feeding dish at the bottom of the tank for the CPDs to feed on (they tend to stay near the substrate level and feed there).
My current daily feed amount is usually 1-2 x NLS 0.5mm micro-granule pellets per boraras (larger sized fishes like lampeyes or tetras are fed abit more) and 1 x Hikari sinking wafer for every 10 x CPD (they will hover around the wafer and pick at it).
In densely planted tanks, i only feed the fishes once every 2 days, the rest of the time they actively hunt microfauna like detritus worms/nematodes/copepods/seed shrimps amongst the plants... every inhabitant has a job to do in my tanks.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 2nd Sep 2014 at 23:05.
Hi I would like to know if it is better to get live food instead of flake food. I've heard good things about NLS Thera A so I'm deciding between that and freeze dried/ frozen food. I read that hikari offers a few choices of freeze dried fish food. I have a community tank of CPDs neon tetra guppies and juvi German blue rams. Does anyone have any advise for me? Thanks for reading
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Live foods are good and some fussy fish species only eat those, but you need to handle and clean them properly, and make sure they don't carry parasites or diseases that may infect your fishes.Hi I would like to know if it is better to get live food instead of flake food. I've heard good things about NLS Thera A so I'm deciding between that and freeze dried/ frozen food. I read that hikari offers a few choices of freeze dried fish food. I have a community tank of CPDs neon tetra guppies and juvi German blue rams. Does anyone have any advise for me? Thanks for reading
I currently use the NLS Thera+A Small Fish formula and its readily eaten by all my fishes, it has color enhancing properties and garlic content, so makes for a good overall feed for community tanks.
The Hikari freeze dried foods are good too, i've tried feeding the bloodworms and daphnia versions and its quite well received by the fishes, though these freeze dried foods tend to stay afloat for a much longer time (even after being soaked for a while to reconstitute them with water) so the mid or bottom feeders may not get a chance to get them if there are quicker surface feeders.
Thanks urban aquaria. I will be having crystal shrimps and Sakura shrimps so will the CPD be outcomplete if the shrimps were to consume the food first ?
CPDs will know how to get their share of food alongside the shrimps... usually when shrimps pick at the sinking wafers, bits of food will detach and start floating about, the CPDs will hover nearby and catch the floating bits.
Thanks Urban for the useful information. I was wondering if there was anyway to obtain those food at smaller quantities. As i only have a 2ft tank with about 20 fishes and the container for NLS Thera+A Small Fish formula is rather large. Im afraid that a lot of it will spoil before i finish the container. Are there alternatives food choices, live food or flake food, that can be obtain in smaller quantities. Currently I'm feeding hikari algae wafers and aquadene tetra food. Even the small bottle of aquadene tetra food has lasted me almost a year. I do want to try better quality and nutrition food for my fishes. Is it possible to share? Anyone willing?
Yeah, i totally agree... most of us only need at most 20% of the amount given in those packs and bottles of food, especially when we are only feeding small fishes. I had to toss out a few packs of unfinished food recently because they were expired.
Maybe you can just post a buy thread at the marketplace section, see if anyone has spare portions to share or sell.
Yup. I will! Better then letting it go to waste.
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But I do have a problem with shrimps. My amano shrimp tend carry the food and bring it to a corner away from the crystal and Sakura. He will have it to himself all. Is there a way to solve this ? (Pardon me for asking so many question, I'm still new to the hobby.)
Amano shrimps do tend to be alot more aggressive with grabbing food during feeding time, mainly due to their much larger size compared to the other shrimps.
You could try putting food in separate dishes positioned around the tank, so that the other shrimps have chance to grab a bite... though i find that even if amano shrimps run away with pieces of food, there will be bits that flake off and scatter around the substrate, which usually end up being found and eaten by the other grazing shrimps anyways.
An alternative is to feed fresh vegetables like slices of blanched zuchinni, those can sit in the tank for 1-2 days and slowly soften up, the shrimps will have lots of time to slowly pick at it so every shrimp gets to eat something.
I see. I do witness my crystal red doing that to the Sakura. They are around the same size or is it crystals are much more aggressive ?
I guess it depends on the shrimp's personalities, and how hungry they are... in my tanks, both the RCS and CRS swarm any food that appears. I usually don't feed my shrimps specifically, as they are meant to be "tank cleaners" to eat algae and clear the leftover feed from fishes which drop to the substrate, so that probably encourages them to be constantly scavenging and actively looking for food.
If you notice certain shrimps not rushing to food immediately, then they might already have enough to eat (especially if you have a planted tank with ample algae and bio-film growth), or they could be molting or just molted, therefore less active during that period of time.
Wow thanks a lot. Rare to find people like you with so much experience and kind enough to guide me.
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