Slow growers

[MonteSS]

I have 5 about 3/4" Borelli blue in a 10g and a trio of Trifasciata in a 26G. Weekly water changes and Nitrate is around 5. PH is 7.2.

I feed frozen brine shrimp every other day and flake or crumbles the other days.

Live food is not available to me. Can I feed BS every day? More than once a day? Any other frozen or dry to try?

They eat well and are active but just wont grow for months now.

Thanks...Bill

 

[DBlauj]

The main diet for my Apistos is frozen BS. They love it and I have not seen any problems from it.

 

[dwarfpike]

Is it baby brine or adults?

 

[MonteSS]

Adult BS. They really gobble them.

BTW water temp is 78*. Should I raise it?

Also the Trifasc are always in the front of the tank and never hide. They go up in the water column and look to be fed when I walk by

Thanks...Bill

 

[MonteSS]

Plastic jungles but they seem to be content. The Borelli are camera shy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DHPGQPZZzE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svW3p93dUo0

 

[dwarfpike]

I don't know if they fixed it with new techniques, but I stopped using adult frozen brine years ago when I noticed a lot of ruptured shrimp. Thus the fish were just eating the shells and not much of the innards of the shrimp, thus not a lot of nutrition.

 

[regani]

I feed freshly hatched BBS from the start and mix in crushed flake after the first few weeks. This usually makes the transfer to dried foods easy. When they grow up I feed mainly dried foods (mix various good quality flake and micro pellets) with BBS or other live food a few times a week. That usually gives decent grow for me.
I also feed smaller amounts 2x a day rather than one big feed. Temperature has an effect on growth rates as well.
But I have also found borellii fairly slow growing, so patience may be required

 

[uberape]

I get home made food from uk ebay, they give you the % protein and fat. if you want them to grow the higher the better. also the miracle of really clean water.