bug bites… fish love them, but they are too coarse for many of my micro preditors…

[Magnum Man]

I just picked up my 2nd mortar and pestle… I wish the company would do a better job of screening these bug bites, I’ve read complaints about people getting too much dust, likely from shipping and handling… several of my fish love the bites in their proper size, but I also have many micro predators, that prefer them milled to dust… so I do a blended, milled dust, consisting of bug bites, a 50% protein fry food, and a pinch of my flake food mix this has become a favorite of my breeding swords, with various size fish, as well as my Florida flag fish, down to my breeding tiger teddies… I find most fish prefer smaller, easier to eat foods… Silver Dollars get 8mm algae cookies, as well as my acara's eat small to medium pellets, nearly everyone else eats milled blends ( I do also like the super fresh micro pellets, on days I’m not milling…

anyone else out there grinding foods smaller for their fish???

 

[GaryE]

That what old coffee grinders are for...

 

[Magnum Man]

I have one of those on my shelf, that I used to chop up whole black soldier fly larvae, but mine was too difficult to get all the dust out of, I find having a small mortar and pestle in each area, actually easier, even though it requires the manual labor

 

[Magnum Man]

BTW… I saw 3 new baby tiger teddies today… the one pair that survived shipping, has been breeding regularly on this blend, though I still would like to get another couple pairs, to get a sustainable population…

 

[Fishmanic]

about bug bites:
I recently bought a container of smaller sized bug bites.
There was a lot of bug bites that turned into dust like consistency. I have a very small screen type device and I separated the dust from the proper sized bug bites. After separating the dust from the normal sized bug bites, I had at least one third powder and 2/3rds proper sized bug bites.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I feed a variety of the Ebo-Aquarisik foods which includes the veggie sticks. These tend to produce a fair amount of veggie dust in the container. This is actually a good for me. I separate the "dust" and I feed it to shrimp and, when I had them, ancistrus and other fry. Some ot the Hypancistrus plecos I bred need more veggies matter when small, So they got the dust also, But, most new pleco fry are able to eat any food that gets soft and/or tends to fall apart. Tiny plecos can feed on a sinking stick or wafer ones it has softened up as they then can take tiny bites without needing to scrape a dried wafer as bigger plecos can do.

Another non-bottom feeding fish will also go after the dust as it sits on the surface as it get wet or as it sinks to the bottom.

In general I prefer feeding good quality foods and these usually cost more. I buy in quantity and then store foods in the freezer or fridge. Ebo tells one not to freeze their food as it degrades it. They recommend putting it into the fridge.

Also, I tend to feed Repashy and Frozen more than I use commercial foods. I converted in this respect to Ebo, I also mix up my pwn blend of kensfish sinking sticks and my own blend pf his flake.