Food for Apistos

[newworldan06]

This guy told me to feed me apisto borelli live brine for a week then feed them frozen food, since they dont seem to be eating flake. Do you guys think this would be a good idea?

What kind of frozen food would u recommend for me to feed to my fish? Will any of brine or other frozen clog the digestive tract?

They always seem to spit my spirinula and cichlid flakes out.

 

[Apistt_ed]

....

hello,
The thing with frozen food is that it has gotten far better these days to the point where sometimes, and I reiterate "sometimes", it is better nutrition-wise than live foods you can get at your LFS. As for Brine shrimp, I haven't had any problems with my apistos in the "digestion" department. My 5 borellii love brine and I have been feeding them brine since they were young. It's not a strictly brine diet though.

my feeding regime is a rotation of different foods ranging from Hikari frozen bbs (baby brine shrimp), home-made foods (made in a regular blender), blackworms & cut earthworms, freeze-dried daphnia, and a wide range of San Francisco Bay Frozen foods. I start all of my apistos off on live foods like brine shrimp for about a week then cut the brine shrimp portion by about 3/4 and substitute the other 1/4 with any of the foods i mentioned... then the following week i cut the live brine in half again and repeat till I don't need live brine shrimp. Even when this is done, I like to add live brine every now and again to keep their diet different as I've heard that doing so, and personally believe, will keep your apistos healthier and live longer. Of all the things that I have heard that CAN block apisto dietary tracks, i've only heard about white mosquito larvae(aka glass worm larve). i've tried to feed my apistos before by accident and it seems like it's too hard for them to chomp down on and have refused to take it, so I somewhat believe it too. good luck & hope this helps.

 

[newworldan06]

Thanks you. Mine dont like flake food, only half my fish will eat it. Will my other eventually eat it when they get hungry? I Break it down very fine, so they easily could eat it. Any other recomendations of foods i could give to them? I dont really have the budget for always buying the frozen foods.


thanks

 

[Apistt_ed]

...

Sometimes, starvation is a good thing to do, but when it comes to apistos I wouldn't advise it. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is dig up some earthworms and cut them fine and drop them into the tank little by little and hopefully it will be to the liking of your fish. Also, everyday items like rock shrimp found at any food store, for pretty cheap, chopped up real fine works alright to. Remember to not leave any uneaten food though or maybe even changing the kind of flake food will get them to eat it. sometimes it's the kind of flake food that they don't like. There are some pretty good cichlid flakes out there that are made specifically for apistos. MarineLand Labs makes a Bio-blend cichlid-small pellet food which is ok but, what I've found my apistos to like better, maybe because it's not in a crunchy pellet form is made by Penn-Plax called Pro Balance cichlid flakes which I bought from the local petshop chain. After about 2-3days of two feedings a day(once in the morning/ once at night), they accepted the flakes. First it was one flake taken and one spit out but eventually they accepted it. hope this helps a little more. keep us posted. [/i]

 

[tjudy]

Apistos are mostly insectivorous, so the bbs shells will not hurt them. I was having trouble getting my fish to gain weight on a variety of frozen foods, so I started feeding crushed, soaked cichlid pellet with the frozen and bbs. What a difference! My njesseni are HUGE now and the females have started to lay again. I use a variety of pellet, but the staple is Hikari Cichlid Gold. I also use small cichlid pellet I get from Ginger in bulk (they are wholesale only though). The pellets are about 1 mm dry and 1.5 mm after soaking. The Apistos can grab them easily.

 

[newworldan06]

Ok thanks. My Male borelli opal and female are eating my spirinula flakes now. My male Borelli is eating them also, but my 2 female Borelli wont even try it. I see them trying to pick food of the ground, but dont know if they are actually getting it. What should I do about them?

Is there any side effects to getting the earthworms, or rock shrimp? Will everyday feeding of these types of foods clog their digestive tract, because i have heard worms can. Are there any other foods to use just for a treat every now and then that I cant feed regularly?

thanks

 

[farm41]

My apistos really go for live daphnia and CBW. They get daphnia and blackworms several times a week, I have 3 tanks of daphnia going right now. So theres plenty for every tank.

 

[Apistt_ed]

..

sorry about that... i the rock shrimp and cut earthworms are what i meant to be more of like a treat. The rock shrimp and earthworms won't hurt your borellii at all. just make sure they are prepared so the apistos can take them easily. cut the worms into very very small pieces and pretty much shred the shrimp. It's great to hear that they are accepting food now. keep at it and the other's will come around. good luck

 

[newworldan06]

I fed them some frozen brine today. They all took it. I just hope that my females will soon take the flake.

 

[newworldan06]

How would I start a live daphina or brine shrimp tank? Could I do it in a 2.5 gal?

 

[cootwarm]

Start the greenwater first. The method that seemed easiest to me is to use 7 one gallon cider jars (1 for each day of the week). This is supposed to be a good amount to feed a 10 gallon tank of daphnia. Each day you drain 1 gallon through a net and feed to fish, replace that gallon with 1 cider jar of greenwater. Refill it with used aquarium water, add a pinch of miracle grow and 7 days later it's ready to use again.

You can mix some yeast if your greenwater fails. But with yeast it's easy to over feed and kill your culture. If you use it sparingly there is no problem. Greenwater is safer because I don't think you can over feed with greenwater. I bet greenwater is healthier for the daphnia and they'll probably be more prolific.

Also I learned from personal experience to keep a smaller backup culture in case you have problems. I kept just 1 culture and when I had problems I lost it all. Now I have to order more and start over. This time I plan to keep a main culture in a 10 gallon and a backup culture in a 1 gallon pickle jar.

Here are a couple websites I learned about on this forum:
http://petfish.net/ the live food info is toward the bottom of the webpage
http://www.livefoodcultures.com/grindalworms.html look under "more about"
http://home.clara.net/xenotoca/foods.htm

Michael

 

[farm41]

I have two 29g tanks and a 10g with daphnia going. I feed 'roti-rich' and yeast. I change 25% of water every other day, I drain the change water through a brine shrimp net and feed what I catch at that time.

always have a backup culture, if you go the yeast route, it is real easy to overfeed and crash it. Best way I found to not crash one is to change lots of water. I use my tap water, but I am on a well, most city water will kill the daphnia quickly, always use aged water when on city water supply.

 

[tjudy]

Charlie Grimes showed me how he does daphnia several years ago. He used green pea soup mix. Just dumped it in the tank with the daphnia... about 1 teaspoon every other day or so in a 20 gallon tank. He kept large ramshorn snails in the tank too. He was not sure if the daphnia ate the soup mix or the snail excrement.

 

[newworldan06]

I think I am just goin to make a brine shrimp hatchery. And feed them BBS and keep trying with the flake.