Am I Overfeeding My Fish?

[pbase5583]

I have one asian needle nose gar, a black ghost knife fish, an angelfish, 4 rainbowfish, 1 paratilapia polleni, and a tiretrack eel. i put in 3 cubes of blood worms, the gar doesnt eat them only live fihs, so is that too much for the other fish.

 

[dbanner]

Blood worms should only be fed as a treat around once or twice a week. You should be feeding flakes or pellets as their main food source. Feed your fish a few bits of flake or a few pellets at a time, if they eat this withing a minute or 2 then feed a little more. Take out any uneatten food.

You need to get the gar off life foods. This is easy to do, firstly the easy part... Don't offer live food offer it pellets on a daily basis. He probably won't take them for a while but eventually he will. He won't starve himself to death.

The problem with feeding live is that the fish or whatever you feed may be carrying a parasite or have any other diseases and that will get passed onto the gar. Not only that but there is no real benefit to feeding live anyway. Will do more harm to the fish than good

 

[pbase5583]

i tried for a week, he wont eat em, and the place i buy them is a really trusted place, and i only feed my fish 2x a week, my bgk and eel wont eat flakes or pellets

 

[dbanner]

It may be a well known and/or trusted place but there is no easy way of being able to tell if a fish (feeder fish) will have a disease early on. Feeding your fish live fish is as good as feeding them nothing. There are no good nutrients to support growth and so on.

Many fish won't take pellets or flake for ages, took me nearly 3 weeks to get my piranhas off live and around 2 weeks for my dovii. If its fish your fish like to eat then why not buy them frozen fish like smelt or frozen prawns from the market? No chance of it passing on disease. I feed my Ornate Birchir frozen fish twice a week and prawns once a week. Iv not had a predatory fish that WONT take frozen market prawns or smelt. Even things like aroanas, snakeheads and wolf fish can be taken off live food. Just takes time.

Even with these you will still need to keep trying a quality pellet like hikari massivore or even jbl cichlid pellets or colour enhancing grains. Iv got my fish to the stage where they know they either take it or they don't get food. It will work eventually. No fish will starve itself

 

[pbase5583]

ok but heres the thing, he once killed a fish before swallowing it whole, and just abandoned it because it was dead. nothing dead he will take, but i will try pellets. next concern, what about the rest of the fish, if i feed 2x a week is it ok for the other fish to eat just 3 cubes of bloodworms, ive tried crud protein, beefheart, flakes, and some other type of frozen food and the only one that excites my fish are bloodworms. when i throw in shrimp pellets they eat them. The angelfish cant swallow them, just pick on them. The tiretrack eel wont eat them as well as the bgk

 

[dbanner]

This is your fish just showing its predatory instinct. I can't see any reason why you can't feed bloodworm but like I said only feed it as a treat once or twice a week. If you cut back on it they won't expect it as much. They get excited because they see it as a treat, my fish are exactly the same. If the angel fish can't swallow the pellets just try softening them up in some water first

 

[pbase5583]

like i said i only feed my fish twice a week, you said as a treat once or twice a week. so should i do it like this
day one(nothing) day two (nothing) day three(pellets) day four (nothing) day five (nothing) day six(bloodworms) day seven nothing?

 

[Aqua Girl]

you should feed your fish twice a day not too mention i agree with dbanner about how they are only a treat or for fin regrowth after fin rot

 

[pbase5583]

no i shouldnt, not with ammonia and a nitrite spike right now

 

[dbanner]

I think you are right in cutting back on feeding with the ammonia and nitrite spike. I would be feeding as you said. Day 3 pellets, day 6 bloodworm, fish can go a week without food but this seems fine. Aqua girl was just stating that you would normally feed twice a day (pellets) in an everyday situation.

I would also be doing daily 90% water changes to get the ammonia and nitrites down and top back up as normal with dechlorinated water (I use seachem prime). Also don't forget to check your water readings on a daily basis up until a few days after the tank is clear of ammonia and nitrites

 

[pbase5583]

They people at my LFS told me not to do any water changes because I will be taking away the beneficial bacteria that is trying to be made in my tank.

 

[onidrase]

there is no beneficial bacteria in the water itself. It rests inside of the filter media with some amounts on decorations and substrate. you could change all the water you'd like. Ammonia is being produced constantly by the fish. Not changing the water is just slowly killing the fish you have. Having more than 5 ppm of ammonia will make you grow the wrong kind of bacteria, as well.

I agree 100% with everything dbanner has said in the thread. your gar might also not be eating normal market food because the water quality is stressing him out, aside from being a picky eater.

 

[dbanner]

there is no beneficial bacteria in the water itself. It rests inside of the filter media with some amounts on decorations and substrate. you could change all the water you'd like. Ammonia is being produced constantly by the fish. Not changing the water is just slowly killing the fish you have. Having more than 5 ppm of ammonia will make you grow the wrong kind of bacteria, as well.

This is spot on ^ ^

I agree 100% with everything dbanner has said in the thread. your gar might also not be eating normal market food because the water quality is stressing him out, aside from being a picky eater.

 

[pbase5583]

i know. i am not saying anyone is wrong. and btw the ppm is below 1ppm now there is no aside from being a picky eater. they are picky eaters.

 

[bmonki]

correct me if im wrong - but 1ppm of ammonia is still toxic. iirc anything over 0.25ppm will stress the fish out and could potentially cause deaths. and nitrite needs an emergency 90% water change at 0.25ppm right?

ive had loads of problems with water quality but its sorted now thanks to multiple massive water changes and making sure no chlorinated water gets in the filter and feeding every 3rd day til we settled. my dwarf gouramis wouldnt eat flakes to start with when the ammonia was around 0.5ppm... now the ammonia is 0 they eat.