frozen food for sub-adults

[edwliang]

i have got a pair of sub-adult form bitaeniata.

i want to know which frozen food has got higher nutrients:

1. frozen blood worm;
2. frozen brine shrimp;
3. frozen daphnia.

i havent decided which frozen food to buy for better growth of my bitaeniata.
any advice please?

 

[danbb]

My advice is to use all, in alternation.

 

[gerald]

+1 Danbb -- the more variety the better, and give them some veggie foods too (cooked peas, sweet potato, squash)

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

1. frozen blood worm;
2. frozen brine shrimp;
3. frozen daphnia.

I honestly wouldn't use any of them unless the only other option was dried food. With frozen Daphnia & Brine Shrimp you end up with mainly exoskeleton, with little nutritional value, and frozen Blood worm is implicated in quite a few cases of unexpected death. Daphnia cultures are a bit of work, but quite possible, and in warmer climates mosquito larvae are another good option. I keep Grindal and California Black worm cultures*, although there may be problems with feeding too large a proportion of these <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/1st-d-maculatus-spawn.12389/>, which I found out to my cost when I didn't follow Gerald's advice.

Would "decapsulated brine-shrimp" be an option?.

*I've now found the perfect low maintenance way of culturing California Black-worms (Lumbriculus variegatus). I introduced some Asellus and Black worms into the bottom of a canister filter (Eheim 2224), and when I came to clean it, there wasn't much mulm, but the introduced livestock had done really, really well.

When I clean the filter I just take and handful of worms out now, put the rest back in and store the ones for immediate use in a 2 litre margarine tub 1/3 filled with water (with a small amount of Ceratophyllum). When I want to feed the black worms I take the Ceratophyllum out of the tub, swirl it around in a beaker and the pipette out the Black-worms (which congregate in the Ceratophyllum) with a transfer pipette (below). You can "store" the worms almost indefinitely like this, and by the time you need some more plenty more will have bred in the filter.

cheers Darrel

 

[edwliang]

Hi all, I honestly wouldn't use any of them unless the only other option was dried food. With frozen Daphnia & Brine Shrimp you end up with mainly exoskeleton, with little nutritional value, and frozen Blood worm is implicated in quite a few cases of unexpected death. Daphnia cultures are a bit of work, but quite possible, and in warmer climates mosquito larvae are another good option. I keep Grindal and California Black worm cultures*, although there may be problems with feeding too large a proportion of these <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/1st-d-maculatus-spawn.12389/>, which I found out to my cost when I didn't follow Gerald's advice.

Would "decapsulated brine-shrimp" be an option?.

*I've now found the perfect low maintenance way of culturing California Black-worms (Lumbriculus variegatus). I introduced some Asellus and Black worms into the bottom of a canister filter (Eheim 2224), and when I came to clean it, there wasn't much mulm, but the introduced livestock had done really, really well.

When I clean the filter I just take and handful of worms out now, put the rest back in and store the ones for immediate use in a 2 litre margarine tub 1/3 filled with water (with a small amount of Ceratophyllum). When I want to feed the black worms I take the Ceratophyllum out of the tub, swirl it around in a beaker and the pipette out the Black-worms (which congregate in the Ceratophyllum) with a transfer pipette (below). You can "store" the worms almost indefinitely like this, and by the time you need some more plenty more will have bred in the filter.

cheers Darrel

thanks Darrel, btw, do you know the nutrition facts of cherry shrimp. i have a tiny tank breeding and raising cherry shrimps. and i have been feeding my bitaeniata with them. i found my apisto is in a good shape and very aggressive and gains a lot of colour(red). i think feeding cherry shrimp may be a very good source as supplement.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

do you know the nutrition facts of cherry shrimp.

I don't, but I would imagine they would be pretty similar to commercially caught/farmed and eaten shrimps, with the advantage of being fresh and "shell-on" <http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/4609>.

i have a tiny tank breeding and raising cherry shrimps. and i have been feeding my bitaeniata with them. i found my apisto is in a good shape and very aggressive and gains a lot of colour(red). i think feeding cherry shrimp may be a very good source as supplement.

Yes I found the same, details here: <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/otos-vs-cherry-shrimp.11808/#post-63977> & <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/i...you-feed-your-apistogrammas.11325/#post-61308>.

In either "South American Dwarf Cichlids" Author: Hans J. Mayland & Dieter Bork or "American Cichlids I - Dwarf Cichlids" Author: Horst Linke & Dr. Wolfgang Staeck (<http://dwarfcichlid.com/Book_reviews.php>) it talks about Apistogramma eating "crayfish" in black-waters where there were no mosquitoes. I was intrigued by this, and eventually found that it is poor english translation, and "crayfish" were actually Macrobrachium spp. shrimps.

cheers Darrel