How do I know if my bottom feeders are eating enough?

[gscorvette]

Hi,

This probably seems like a retarded question but I just don't see my sharks eat. How do I much sure they are getting enough food? Right now I am feeding them TetraPro (i think) flakes.

Gretchen

 

[wethead]

I try to keep a eye on thier appearance, if they look too skinny we have trouble. Some cats are strictly nite feeders & really hard to keep tabs on......Rich

 

[lilfishy]

If they seem active and happy

then I would not worry about it.

 

[ArkyLady]

A couple of times a week I take a glass with some tank water in it and drop some flakes in there for a few seconds so they get water logged, then dump it into the tank. The flakes will go quickly to the bottom before all the faster eating fish have a chance to gobble it all up and my bottom feeders seem to get a good meal instead of just the scraps that ended up down there for them.

You can also use sinking pellet foods for the bottom feeders.

 

[geKo]

Make sure you feed them some type of pellet food because if you have other fish beside bottom feeders in the tank chances are very little flake food will ever touch the bottom.

Buy some pellets and throw 1 in each night.

My recomendation for corys would be wardley's shrimp pellets formula. It comes in a orange can with a cory on the front. I like to feed my corys bloodworms also 1 time a week

 

[revfred]

I use ArkLady's method of soaking some flakes just for the cories. When I am feeding tubifex worms, I usually drop a few outside the worm feeder and the cories love them!

Have never used sinking pellets and never seemed to have any problems. I've kept red-tailed sharks as well, and although I never saw them eating when the others did, they remained healthy. I suspect they usually feed at night.

Fred

 

[KMyshrall]

i use sinking pellets for my bottom feeders too. Although the danios try to race around gobbling them up a bunch of them always end up on the bottom and my tiger tetra and my algae eating shark rush around and gobble them up.

 

[catfishmike]

just because a fish feeds from the bottom doesn't mean you should trust them to live off of scraps.feed your bottomfeeders a good varity of foods such as sinking wafers shrimp pellets,frozen bloodworms,daphnia,brineshrimp,tubifx worm.

 

[wethead]

Absolutely Mike, i also try to feed my nite feeders just before lights-out.....Rich

 

[wayne at home]

This is tricky - most fancy cats that die, die of starvation over a 6 month period. Are they growing? I use big pieces of shrimp tat sink to the bottom, and pull them out if they're there the next day - they're usually gone