Tips on fair feeding

[CV26]

My tetras and guppies are like lightning at feeding time, and Im worried that not everyone is getting a share...especially the corys at the bottom.

For the neons and guppies I have flake food, and I've also picked up some micro sticks for fish with small mouths for variety. Firstly the little neons went for these and seemed to get them stuck in their mouths...blockages cleared within a minute or so but it left the very greedy ones with distended bellies. The corys have a larger pellet food.

So a couple of questions...

1) Even though the micro sticks (Tetra) suggets they are designed for fish with small mouths, are they actually ok for dinky Neon Tetras?

2) This is probably a stupid question but I cant look everywhere at once so is there any way to work out if everyone has had a nibble? Will they just work it out themselves like they would in the wild?

3) It's hard to tell how much the Corys actually get as the guppies will happily go for their food whether sinking or sunk. I dont want to over feed and I use tweezers to practically drop the food right in front of the corys...is there anything else I should be doing?

 

[seangee]

They will work it out for themselves. I feed the staple food - in my case NLS pellets for small fish - while the lights are on. That way any that the greedy little tetras miss are available for the corys.

I feed the pellets (alternate catfish pellets, algae wafers and shrimp pellets) shortly before lights out time. These take some time before they are soft enough for the tetras to eat, which is fine because the corys are "slow" feeders. The tetras will pick them up and carry them around but by the time they are soft enough to eat the tetras have lost interest and its dark so the Corys get to eat in peace.

Not much point in watching them eat because they will take a couple of hours. If there is any left in the morning you have fed too much

 

[CV26]

Thank you.

I never spot anything left...if there is anything it blends into the substrate too well for my eyes.

It does look like the guppies and tetras are eating the cory food...but maybe they just pick it up and I dont spot them spitting it out again later.

At the moment I feed everyone at the same time. We often go to bed before lights out on our timer so maybe I need to think more carefully about the settings so we can feed the corys as we go to bed and have the lights go off at a similar time.

 

[seangee]

To be fair there is no right or wrong way. What I described works for me .

My dog and cats quite like the routine too because the minute the main tank lights go out they make a beeline for it knowing that I'll be watching fish for the next 20-30 minutes and they can be assured of cuddles