How Often Can I Feed Tetradelica

[dwarfgourami]

Currently I am feeding TetraDelica jellied "live food" (alternating between bloodworms, brine shrimps or daphnia) once a week to my livebearer tank which mainly contains juveniles. They also get vegetables twice a week, and flakes and babyflakes the rest of the time.
Really, I would like to increase the proportion of veg's and live food, but dont want to overdo it. What do you reckon would be a good ratio?

 

[Annastasia]

I feed my tanks live/frozen food about 3 times a week. But never 3 days in a row. It's not so bad to give juvies more live food, as they will grow faster and be healthier on it. Veggies you could probably up to 3 days.

An example would be:

Monday: Live and Veggies
Tuesday: Flakes
Wednesday: Live
Thursday: Flakes and Veggies
Friday: Flakes
Saturday: Live and Veggies
Sunday: Fasting (If you do that)

Then you'll have live 3 days a week, and veggies 3 days a week. That's just an example, you can plan it however you want. But ideally, you can do 2-3 days of Live, never in a row. Veggies can go whenever you want, and have 2-3 days of that. And then ideally you should have a day of fasting to clear their systems.

By the way, if you just feed veggies as a meal....sorry! Ignore my little calendar example.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Thanks, Annastasia. From now on, Jamie Oliver takes over my tanks, gourmet meals on offer!

I usually feed twice a day, I feel they're still a bit young for a fasting day. So what I might do is to feed one flake meal a day and then alternate between live food and greens six days a week for the other meal.

 

[Annastasia]

Yeah, I was wondering if you fed once or twice a day, since I didn't know exactly how old they were. Your plan sounds fine, however I would fast for one meal on one day. It's better for them in the long run, and especially since you'll be feeding more Live food. I have fasted my juvies one meal a day once a week for a long, long time. Only when they are at least a month or two though. I can assure you, no adverse affects, mine have always been just fine. If they aren't a month yet though, I wouldn't try it.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Problem is they are such different ages. The youngest being a guppy whom I only discovered in the tank the other day, probably 3-4 weeks old. But I will start fasting them for one meal soon then.

Though ideally, I'd like the youngest platys to grow a little bigger first: they are 2 months old but growing quite slowly compared to their elder siblings.
They are in a 15 gallons: 1 mature female guppy, 2 x 4-months-old platys (nice size and sexable), 6 x 3-months-old platys (not a bad size, and just getting to be sexable) and then c 12x 2-months-old platys + 1 x very new guppy. Tank stats are good and I don't think there are any harrassment problems. I gradually move all males into my other tank as the gonopodium starts showing. Perhaps I'm just impatient but they don't seem to be growing as fast as the previous batches, which is partly why I would like to feed them a bit better. Any advice on that?

 

[Annastasia]

If you are worried about their size, I'd start feeding three times a day. And adding more Live food into their diet will help them grow a bit faster too. However, some batches are just naturally slower growing. There are a few things you can do, but it mostly comes down to nature.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Thanks.