Feeding Little Fish...

[pixelpefekt]

Now a proud owner of 4 little Zebra Danios. Only had them one day

The only food I have at the moment is dried flake food. The flakes seem huge compared to the size of the fish mouths. Should I be crushing the flakes up before dropping them in the tank?

Last thing.. I'm still unsure on how much I should be feeding them. Any advice?

 

[Dan81192]

Now a proud owner of 4 little Zebra Danios. Only had them one day

The only food I have at the moment is dried flake food. The flakes seem huge compared to the size of the fish mouths. Should I be crushing the flakes up before dropping them in the tank?

Last thing.. I'm still unsure on how much I should be feeding them. Any advice?

i had same problem with my guppy's, i just kept adding a flake until they stopped eating, and yes maybe crush them up

 

[mark.w.jones]

Crush them up a bit, as this will help. You should only be feeding your fish once a day and only enough so that all of it is completely eaten in under a minute. Your danios will also benefit from more variety in their diet. Try and get a few other flake types to feed on other days, you can also get granules. Once a week its worth feeding a frozen live food like bloodworm and daphnia. One day a week you should not feed them at all and let them scavange for food. It is fine to do this bearing in mind that fish will happily live for a week without being fed. So your week may look like this:

Mon: Normal Flakes.
Tue: Algae Flakes.
Wed: Granules.
Thurs: Normal Flakes.
Fri: Algae flakes.
Sat: Frozen Food.
Sun: Don't feed.

 

[doresy]

AquaOne make 'Micro Pellets' which is a complete food for small surface and mid-water feeders.

I find it excellent

 

[pixelpefekt]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Made my first fish-in water change last nigh to discover I must be over feeding the little chaps at the moment. Although I hadn't noticed it, the gravel was covered in uneaten food. As soon as I disturbed the water with the gravel vac, LOADS of food started floating around. Grabbed what I could with the vac and then used a fish net to grab some more. No grub today for the wee fellas.

Something else I noticed was small fluffy looking objects in the tank. I 'think' it was possibly food thats started going bad - am I right? Will this cause problems or is a certain amount of food expected to go uneaten. I guess I need to get a couple of bottom feeders in there soon-ish. Are ghost shrimp okay for the job? or a friend mentioned Bristlenose Plec. I only have a 2foot tank and fancy having a good selection of small fish so don't want anything that's going to grow into a fishy Godzilla.

 

[OldMan47]

The don't feed day on Sunay in an earlier post was intended to help with the food build up. The fish will naturally look around for food when they get hungry and will find some of the food that they missed earlier. Proper quantities of feeding will help much more than getting more fish and then needing to feed them as well. I love my cory catfish but they are just part of the population that I feed. I still need to be careful how much I feed.
The fluffy whitish stuff probably is uneaten food that is rotting. It is no longer going to appeal to the fish no matter how hungry they are. It would be best if you remove it with your siphon.

 

[pixelpefekt]

The don't feed day on Sunay in an earlier post was intended to help with the food build up. The fish will naturally look around for food when they get hungry and will find some of the food that they missed earlier. Proper quantities of feeding will help much more than getting more fish and then needing to feed them as well. I love my cory catfish but they are just part of the population that I feed. I still need to be careful how much I feed.
The fluffy whitish stuff probably is uneaten food that is rotting. It is no longer going to appeal to the fish no matter how hungry they are. It would be best if you remove it with your siphon.

Good advice, thanks. Got more of the rotten food last night and on the whole, the floor of the tank seems much cleaner after another water change.