feeding questions?

[MDB_fish_newbie]

Im having some trouble trying to find the right foods and feeding correct amounts. Sometimes I over feed, and many of the times suspect that the fish don't want to eat what their being fed.

some details.......

10g BN pleco babies
- have not yet touched cucumber or algae wafers... is that bec they are still very young?

75 rainbow, geo, loach tank.
- in this tank I've tried using different pellets.

+floating, the geo's rarely come up to eat them and rather sift around the substrate
+sinking, the geo's and loaches get to them later after they have saturated, but the rainbows get some and miss most on their quick journey to the sandy bottom.

-sinking wafers are actually great, the loaches love them and same with the geo's. Leaving the rainbows out, they don't compete for ground level food.

-frozen mysis shrimp. Every one in the tank loves this but i feel it is not a good all around diet.
+same with all the frozen worms and such.

Im starting to get interested in either:
1.making homemade food....i was thinking along the lines of beef heat or liver spinach peas and garlic food processed or diced and frozen?

2.high quality better foods? paradigm, or others I am not familiar with many.

3. cultivating worms or daphnia or other creepy crawlies.

All in all i am trying to feed less, and accommodate for all species needs and wants. There seems to be some type of science that differs from 1 fish keeper 2 the next. I know this takes trial and error and research, witch i do all the time. But some tips from the pro's go a long way. Is it realy worth going the extra mile and making home made food or cultivating live food. If so i want to do it

 

[Howie]

Mason,

As a rule of thumb, I feed my fish once a day for as much as they can eat in like 2-3 minutes. Every few weeks I will skip a day of feeding.

I've found that fry and young juvies love the New Life Spectrum (NLS) Grow formula. It's really small with almost a powdery consistency. Remember that fry and young juvies have really small mouths. When they get significantly larger then you can feed them bigger pellets. I highly recommend NLS Ciclhlid formula. It comes in 1mm and 2mm (for when they get really big).

Fry and small juvie plecos and loaches (and all other fry) also enjoy Omega One vegetable micro pellets. As they get bigger then you can feed them algae wafers and shrimp pellets. Bigger plecos love slices of cucumber
and zucchini. Use a veggie clip to secure to the side of the tank.

As far as flake food, Ken's fish has the best IMO. The Ken's Premium Cichlid flake is great and only costs like
$6.55 for a half pound bag. All my fish go crazy for it. There are like 29 different varieties of Ken's flake to choose from. Order at Kensfish.com

I occasionally give my fish brine/mysis shrimp, bloodworms and krill--all frozen. Obviously thaw out the cubes in a plastic container and use a plastic spoon to feed. This frozen food is more of a treat.

Other treats that my fish love are the Tetra Cichlid Sticks, and the Hikari floating pellets. These are for bigger
fish though.

Homemade food is an ambitious goal, but laborious and expensive in the long run IMO. Ive heard that Beef heart will really dirty your water. As many will attest to, Fishkeeping and breeding can be challenging enough and making your own food adds another level of difficulty to the hobby. That being said, I say GO FOR IT!

 

[MDB_fish_newbie]

I occasionally give my fish brine/mysis shrimp, bloodworms and krill--all frozen. Obviously thaw out the cubes in a plastic container and use a plastic spoon to feed. This frozen food is more of a treat.

So I have some more frozen brine, but I'm going to use that as a treat like you suggested. On my way home from worked i grabbed some smaller floating pellets and gave them a try. They seemed to do better. My plan is to also feed a variety of different foods at the same time to try and give them a better all around diet. Most important of all though I am doing my best to not over feed them (witch seems to be the most difficult part to master).

Howie i appreciate your input. I am going to keep trying different approaches until I find what works best for me. If it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't be so fun and gratifying.

Threads like this are cool so i can track my progress on the topic and others can give their 2 cents along the way. One step at a time =P