What are people feeding their Apisotos?

[Noddy65]

As the subject suggests...what are paople actually feeding their apisotos at the moment.
This sort of follows on from a previous post.

Mike

[sharn]

im not sure how good they are for apistos (mine are agassizi flemengo) but when i was feeding my discus worms today they stole a few and seemed to LOVE them... mine also get flake and discus bits, and occasionally beefheart mix (probably not good for them but they only get a bit, its for the discus but theyre greedy fish hehe)

[arjay]

I was actually going to ask this the other day because I was having a little trouble feeding mine... They'll eat brine shrimp (live and frozen) and blood worms but they're not real keen on flakes or pellets. I bought some Hikari cichlid gold baby pellets yesterday to try out but they weren't at all interested...:( I might try Azoo's dwarf cichlid food next if I can find it... Any other dry processed foods worth giving a go?

[Th0mas]

Mine are fed with Hikari frozen bloodworm (some species may not be suitable), Hikari frozen BS (again, some species dislike this and leaves it to rot), Sera discus granule (all seems to like it), and live BBS.

Tried live blackworm, but can be problemistic due to a possibility of introducing parasite. They also like Tetra bits.

[sammigold]

My bolivian rams eat most of what my discus eat which is flake, pellets, superbits, frozen brine shrimp and beefheart... I notice they especially like the frozen brine shrimp...

[Noddy65]

Thanks People
Im going on holidays in June and have a friend staying in the house to look after the fish (ad teh cat and dog). I currenlty feed live bloodworms and frozen daphnia but that will be a hastle for her so im trying to get them used to artificial foods.
Is the tetra bits the Tetra Colour Bits...what type exactly?

Thanks
Mike

[Th0mas]

Not sure, it was the Tetra Bits before they introduce the colour variant.

That was the days when I used to keep discus (at least 4 years ago).

Thomas.

[fishgeek]

mine eat tetra prima quite happily, aswell as all the usual frozen and live offerings

andrew

[steph]

Mine eat tetra colour bits or atm Im using Sera discus granules.

Anything live like misquito larvae or brine shrimp disappears real quick :)

Steph

[parkap]

The staple diet for my tank and all it's inhabitants are Tetra Bits (yes, from memory they are the colour bits - will have to check tonight when I get home) and flake food (vegetable flake).

At least once a fortnight they also get the scraps of the live crickets that float down that I feed my butterfly fish, angels and rainbows. They seem to enjoy picking at the remnants.

Also, I feed them live adult brine shrimp once I've raised a new batch. Each batch usually last about 3-4 weeks with a once a week feeding.

[Robdog]

My staple is probably the Fish Fuel Community frozen. Just give it a defrost, mash it around and pour into the tank. Black ghostknife gets one whole cube to himself once a week plus scraps every other day. Stops him snacking on cardinals.

They also get frozen BS, live blackworms. Very occasionally I'll chuck in some floating and sinking granule food. They eat these for hours because they have to forage for it and soften it up. Unless the ghostknife comes out and then I get water everywhere from the inch and a half swell he creates as he skims around the surface 8-)

[catfishbone]

I only fed mine with tetra color bits only ...

had few of apisto before and feed them with live black worms and always end up with not good result aka kaput ... so will never to feed mine with any more live worms ... :)


andrie

[Th0mas]

I only fed mine with tetra color bits only ...

had few of apisto before and feed them with live black worms and always end up with not good result aka kaput ... so will never to feed mine with any more live worms ... :)


andrie

Feeding live food can always introduce unwanted parasite, so I've given up on them unless they're cultivated in a controlled environment (brine shrimp, mircoworm, etc). Little fish like apisto doesn't take much to knock them over, so any infection can become fatal quickly.

Thomas.

[catfishbone]

Feeding live food can always introduce unwanted parasite, so I've given up on them unless they're cultivated in a controlled environment (brine shrimp, mircoworm, etc). Little fish like apisto doesn't take much to knock them over, so any infection can become fatal quickly.

Thomas.

That is very true ... i learned it the hard way .... :)

andrie

[Robdog]

Chopped up a live earthworm and popped it into the tank yesterday. Discus and kribensis loved it but a bit big for my little male aggie.
Also bought some sinking shrimp pellets. They seemed to be a hit with everything in the tank coming out and having a go from peppermint bn's to large ghost knife to cardinals when the pellets expanded and broke up.
All good until this arvo. :( One discus floating dead with bloating the size of a large marble. Also long(10cm) stringy poo strung all over the tank and driftwood seemingly from the BN's.
Don't think i'll be using the live earthworms again and not so sure about the shrimp pellets.

[Th0mas]

I used to feed sinking shrimp pellet without any problem with discus or apisto. However never tried the earthworm. Just simply don't trust what's in them.

In this incident, I don't think your drama is completely over as yet. If one discus has coped it, so may all other that had any nibble of the worm. Just look out for any sign of problem and have some anti-parasite/bacterial treatment ready.

Good luck.

Thomas.

[fishgeek]

i feed live earthworms all the time to my apisto's

not everyone who eats a dodgy kebab succumbs to fatal food poisoning
in fact most of us just get diarrohea for a day or two and recover

wild fish dont just drop dead from exposure to live foods

i dont know the answer to this kind of live food myth though i cant see any logic too it either

andrew

[catfishbone]

I now give my apistos a treat once a week with live brine shrimp ... so that they have different type of diet ...

but will not touch live blackworms anymore .... :?

andrie

[Robdog]

Well after reading quite a few posts on the discus food threads, everyone there seems to feed their discus earthworms with no dramas whatsoever.
One possible scenario is that the discus scoffed a few whole shrimp pellets before they had expanded only to regret his hastiness. :? I don't know :? It's a shame though as he(?) seemed to be pairing with another discus recently and he was the dominant one of the group.

[Th0mas]

i feed live earthworms all the time to my apisto's

not everyone who eats a dodgy kebab succumbs to fatal food poisoning
in fact most of us just get diarrohea for a day or two and recover

wild fish dont just drop dead from exposure to live foods

i dont know the answer to this kind of live food myth though i cant see any logic too it either

andrew

That's true, but they won't get hold of the earthworm from our backyard (god know what they've been feeding on).

These days, I only feed live food when I know what they've been fed with (eg, BS). Apistos down here are too precisous to take such risk.

Thomas.

[fishgeek]

thomas my whole point is that i do not believe that a healthy fish will die from eating some bacteria
yes the fish that have been captured and then transported to australia via europe or asia or where ever their appropriate quarrantine station is are certainly going to be weakend from the journey and lack of feeding and repeated water parameter changes
temperature fluctuations

remember fish are polkiothermic and depressed body temperatures greatly reduce the effectiveness of the body's immune system

once fish are acclimatised and healthy they should be able to cope with most things
for instance i have recently given 3-5 cm long small earthworms whiole to my fish , they dont appear to chew them well and i worried that they may cause physical problems , as yet i cant say i see any differenece's

there are other keepers whwho will only feed earthworms after 'cleansing ' them ie they put the worms into a tub of oats or some non soil media for at least 24 hrs before feeding to the fish in the hope that this will allow the gut to be purged and reduce any possible bacterial counts associated with the worms

i dont find there is enough scientific data to support live food as being specifically dangerous , yes there is heaps of ancedotal evidence but this doesn't stack up in my experience's

andrew

[Th0mas]

I think it's my poor English that caused the confusion. I really cannot make any judgement on earthworm in Sydney versus from other places of the world.

In Sydney, most people have an annual chemical treatment for pest. This doesn't account for other stuff some people may use in their yard (friendly neighbour may think they're doing you a favour by spraying, etc).

On top of it all, apistos availability and prices aren't great here. Most of the fish we have here are pretty poor quality (import of new blood isn't regular - only starting to occur lately with various LFS, but $$ is high and quantity is extremely limited). So replacing a good quality apisto can be extremely difficult, therefore taking any risk with a humble earthworm isn't something I would consider.

Hopefully this explains a bit more on the situation down here - stock availability and quality.

Thomas.

[fishgeek]

i forgot about all the termite treamnets in residental area's!!

[Waldo]

We feed ours a homemade brew.

Cyclop-eeze, boiled egg, garlic, salad shrimp. Good for temperarily keeping fish. It cleans their intestines, however if used as a staple can impact the fish.

[pete]

Tetra ColourBits versus Sera discus granule: which would you recommend for apistogramma?

Also, has anyone tried HBH Super Soft Krill Fish Food? Is the "small pallet" version the right size for apistogramma? Do they take to this food, and are you getting good results?

cheers
pete

[TW]

I have one apisto tank that is really easy to feed. I mainly feed that tank with Spectrum pellets for small fish. These apistos sometimes even come to the surface for their pellets.

My other apisto tank is really fussy & will not touch any flake or dry food at all, no matter how hard I try to trick them into it. They are only fed frozen Hikari brine shrimp, blood worm & daphnia. Will not touch frozen cichlid dinner either.