Micro foods versus bigger pellets???

[Magnum Man]

So for my blended community tanks, I have tendency to mill almost all my foods to dust, using a dedicated mortar and pestle… I do have some larger foods, for specifically larger fish, in my case, adult Tin Foil barbs, and 3/4 grown Silver Dollars… but in general I’m wondering about feeding larger foods…

For the tilapia I raise, their food is in sizes that go up in size as the fish mature… I’ve often wondered why the need to feed as big a piece as the fish can actually put in its mouth, when 4 of the next smaller size would equal one of the bigger, and insure than the smaller fish get plenty to eat, without struggling to swallow something too big… but in the tilapia case the foods are of different formulation, but they don’t need to be…

Back to my aquariums… I supplement many of my tanks with Bacter AE… which is a fine powder, I mix up in a shaker of RO water… I’ve witnessed my bigger fish swim into the cloud of Bacter, when added, and you can see them sucking it in… so I think they get a benefit from it…

For the most part, I think the “big” pellets are marketed to us as the consumer, not to the fish…

As a side note, one of my coolest things to feed are these disks, I think made for plecos, that are approximately 1/2 inch disks… that I call cookies, I feed to my Silver Dollars… they grab them and eat them like a cookie swimming around nibbling the edges until they are small enough to swallow… aside from “cookies” I’ve gone to smaller foods…

Do you feed as big a pellet as your fish can swallow???

 

[Colin_T]

I have seen silver dollars do that to algae wafers. The catfish get most upset when the silver dollars grab the wafers and swim off biting bits off it.

Most small fish in the wild only eat tiny foods (plankton). Big fish eat bigger foods but they don't normally eat as often and they will take small foods too.

I used to feed my fish microworms and newly hatched brineshrimp as a supplement after other foods were fed and I had cichlids that were 6 inches long swimming arouns snapping up newly hatched brineshrimp and 4 inch rainbowfish that would sit in the swarm of microworms snapping away grabbing 1 at a time. It gave them something to do and they enjoyed it so they don't really need big food. that's more so the fish can get full faster and for people thinking we need big food for big fish.

 

[MaloK]

I personally haven't had much large fish in my life...

But the large one where... Large. And I loved the Nutrafin "large" spirulin Tabs...

They where made like a suction cup and you could stick them to the glass. When adequately moistened they would hold a raging plec.

But still comets gold fishes where able to get them off... And then where turning around in the tank, chewing like mad fish.

With a thick green trail coming off their gills.

Time for a backwash... Loll.

 

[Back in the fold]

I was using pellets from a guy I know in The American Killifish Association and he had them graded in four sizes . My Aplocheilus lineatus Golden Wonder Killifish are able to eat very large food but they preferred the size just under the largest which they could have and did eat . The reason being , upon observation , is that these dried pellets are hard and have to soften up and these fish strike immediately as soon as it hits the water . I suppose that scavenging type fish that are always grazing would have eaten them but my lineatus would not . They are a surface feeder and although they will eat off the bottom they prefer not to . It depends on the kind of fish . Years ago I tried Shrim-Pell-Ett’s for my Corydoras that I had and they weren’t crazy about them . Again , as hard as a rock and take forever to soften and by that time they lost interest but the snails ate them .