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Feeding tips for slow fish or shrimps

confusedman

Member
Joined
30 Jan 2021
Messages
151
Location
London
Hello.

I have a small tank with two Molly, two Platy, two Honey Gourami and one Swordtail. I have a few shrimps too
I dont know how to make sure everyone eats.
The Gouramis and one of the Platy seem to be very slow and a bit dumb when I comes to feeding.

I try to distract the other ones and feed then in a separate side of the tank but even when the food is right in front if them they struggle to eat it before one of the others race from the other side.

The same applies when one of them is sick so less capable.

I bought shrimp food too but theres no way it reaches them before the fish eat it.
I tried to use the tweezers to put it in the terracotta shrimp dome cave but one of the Molly ended getting in there so I got worried that he might harm himself by getting in and out of it.

Any tips?
 
You can feed the shrimp food when the lights are off, or stuff it in the plants at the back.

If you have really fast eaters then it can be hard to get the others feeding. The live bearers will pick at algae and natural foods in the tank so are happy to take food from the substrate. You might be able to release some food under the water, so it sinks quickly, then whilst the fish are distracted with it try some on the surface for the gourami.
 
You can also get some blood worm, brine shrimp or tubifex and feed a few small portions in several places at the same time. With live put it a shot glass and spoon feed it in, same for frozen just defrost it in a little water first. Oh and only feed the above as a treat.

For freeze dried tubifex, pinch a small piece off and wet it, then qently rub it between your fingers in the tank water.

The trick is to put the food in a few different places, distract the eager ones at one side and then drop a bit at the other end. The slow eaters will soon figure out where they are most likely to find a meal. This also applies to any other types of food.
 
I turn my filter off when feeding. The fish know it's feeding time and gather at the front. You can target feed each fish that you don't think eats enough by slowly dropping food infront of their face, rather than let the filter blow it around.

Also i feed my shrimp at night, i usually drop a few broken up shrimp sticks in the corners of the tank amongst the stem plants, within 10min theres 100s of shrimp eating away without any fish to bother them.
 
Snowflake shrimp food isn't touched by the fish in my tank and doesn't pollute the water. I keep that topped up to make sure they don't go hungry
 
Shrimp feeding dish

Sinking food for the shrimp while feeding fish floating food
Feed them at opposite ends of your tank

Or feed shrimp at night

Live daphnia disperses so all fish have the same chance to catch it

Or you keep feeding bit at a time until all the fish have fed enough


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hi @confusedman

Some good suggestions above. One other thing you could try is feeding through a long clear perspex tube. Position the end of this tube close to the fussy feeders. Then, drop the food into the open end, which you keep out of the water and hold in your hand. The food sinks slowly and, hopefully, ends up in the mouths of the fussy feeders! You can easily obtain perspex tube from the likes of Amazon. The technique works well for granular food but probably not so well with flake.

JPC
 
Gotta give the lazy man's perspective. I check once a week that my fish look plump and happy. If they do, then somehow some food is getting to them. Oh - and I couple this with having fast dropping food at the same time as the more floaty stuff, so that feeders at all levels get a look in. If they look gaunt and skeletal, then I worry. If they are hanging around the tank looking bored between feeds, and not rooting around trying to find those last specks of food that might have been missed, then I'm overfeeding. Also I bought one of those teaspoon-proportion measure sets, as I realised my 'pinch' was hugely variable. I've just dropped my volumes by 1/64 teaspoon per day as my Cherry barbs are looking a bit too complacent :cool:.
 
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