Feeding enough?

[Janeybun]

First time fish keeper. Just set up new tank for first tim with 6 Danios. Shop sold me NTlab probiotic food - saying feed 2 ‘pellets’ per fish every 2 days. But the ‘pellets’ are minuscule grains. Almost impossible to Count out 12 ... and don’t seem nearly enough to feed all 6. Does anyone have experience with this food? Is that correct? Don’t want to starve the poor things - but I’m aware it’s easy to over feed. Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[NickAu]

How big is your tank?
Is it cycled?

Never heard of this food

 

[Janeybun]

64L - didn’t know about cycling ... was just following LFS guidance. Will need to follow fish in cycle process now. Realise now light feeding will be best for now.

 

[NickAu]

Hi

What sort of Danio? If they are something like zebra Danios your tank is too small.

How often are you changing water?
What water conditioner are you using?

I know my questions are not answering your question, But as things stand your fishes health and life are at stake here.

 

[Janeybun]

I appreciate the questions. I understand the reason for them. They are 3 Zebra and 3 leopard Danios. I’m only on day 3 so have done 1x25% change last night. Don’t have a water test kit. Shop said to bring water in, in a few days to test which I will do this morning. Using internet tap safe and quick start.

 

[Essjay]

You need a test kit of your own, you can't rely on a shop. You may need to test when they are not open, and during a fish-in cycle you need to test every day. Liquid reagent testers are better than strip testers; if you don't want to buy a whole set you need ammonia and nitrite testers at the minimum.
Until you have testers you need to change 50% of the water every day. Once you have them you need to do water changes as big and as often as necessary to keep both ammonia and nitrite at zero.


Zebra danios and leopard danios are different colours of the same species. They may be small fish but they are very fast swimmers and need a tank at least 100cm long, with longer being better. They also need cooler water than most fish so selecting tank mates is not easy.
To be honest, the best thing you can do is return the fish, buy a test kit and a bottle of ammonia, and do a fishless cycle (method in How To Tips at the top of the page). This will make things easier for you (no water changes during fishless cycling) and give you time to find out how hard you water is and research fish suitable for your tank size and water. Your water company's website should have your hardness somewhere on it.


And finally, the most important advice in fishkeeping is don't believe the shop until you have researched it for yourself. Yes, there are good ones but they are few and far between. The rest just want your money and don't know or don't care about the fish.

 

[cynic]

+1

Wow, you just cannot believe some lfs's.
If they were cats and dogs they would be in prison.

To help the original question, i also have no knowledge of the food your talking about but i have nearly 20 fish, mainly harlequin rasbora, a mature rtbs and a mature bn plec with shrimp and snails.

Mine get porridge (tropical fish flakes, only a pinch) 2-3 times a week which mainly gets eaten by the harlequins from the surface, with a cube of frozen bloodworm(loved by everything, shrimp, shark,HQ alike) and 2 of frozen veg matter a week, defrosted of course. Which keep the plec and the shark happy, the shrimp and snails do housekeeping. Every so often i will go several days with nothing.

That's it and I'm probably borderline over feeding judging by the increase in the snail population.

A rough measure is the stomach of a fish is about the size of its eyes.