my platies seem ravenous!

[fishiwish]

Hi all. This is my very first experience with an aquarium. We have 3 platies and 1 swordtail in a 14 gal. for 1 week now. I am familiar with the guideline of not feeding them more than they can eat in a few minutes. But mine jump on the food whenever it is offered and it only lasts maybe 20 seconds! I have been feeding 3 times a day, because they are always hanging around the front all eager every time I walk by. I feed them flakes, brine shrimp and bloodworms.

Can someone be a bit more specific first of all on how much I should feed?
Flakes: a few flakes maybe 3 or 4 crushed up??
bloodworms: 2 pinches? 3 pinches??

Also, when would I see signs that I am feeding too much? Do they get fat? Lethargic? Die in a day or two of overfeeding? I am kinda in the dark here so thanks for the help.

 

[zigzag131]

i feed my all my fish usually once every day like around 12 or so except for my koi and my oscars get it twice a day SOMETIMES and my fish seem quite happy.

just think the more food the more poop the more amonia. and more cleaning.

have you only had the tank running for 1 week?

 

[fishiwish]

yes, only 1 week so far. One platy at least looks preggo. They all get along fine except for the occasional skirmish, especially when feeding. I do daily small wc.

 

[zigzag131]

you should get some test kits and test your water because your tank isnt cycled yet at all and there is a good chance your fish wont make it. but about the feeding matter i would cut it down to once a day maybe twice and your fish will be fine

 

[fishiwish]

Thank you. Yes, I know it is still cycling. We actually waited 3 weeks before putting any fish in the tank, and I test every day as well as doing about a 10-15% water change every day. I add Prime with each water change to hold down the ammonia and nitrites and it also de-chlorinates and I believe has stress coat in it.

 

[zigzag131]

oh ok when i said running i meant to ask if you had it without fish at all. well thats good and its a good thing you know what your getting yourself into.

check out the stickies around the forum they are extremely helpful.

 

[fishiwish]

thanks sooo much. wow you guys are fast to respond, lol. that was my very first post ever although I have been lurking for quite some time. I am sure I will be back with lots more questions as things progress. FOr now we are thrilled to have made it thru the first week, lol.

 

[DesignsOnYou]

When you didn't put fish in the tank for 3 weeks, were you adding some sort of ammonia? If not, it wasn't cycling. So now you're doing a fish in cycle and that's what you should read up on. As far as the fish begging, every time I walk in the door my fish swarm over to that side of the tank hoping they'll be fed again. It usually doesn't work, but I occasionally give in. If it helps, as a point of reference, I normally feed once a day, a medium large size pinch of flake, and a medium pinch of pellets. Some hits the bottom, but I have slow and fast feeders together and it all seems to be gone within a minute or so. You can check my sig for how many fish I have in my tank. As far as overfeeding, mine do get fat bellies when I put too much in, and any lying around on the bottom for more than a minute or so is probably indicative of over feeding as well.

 

[fishiwish]

Yes I have kind of messed up our cycle. I tried some supposed bio product that jump starts your bacteria but it didnt do much. Then I "fed the tank" every other day with flake food. When that didn't do much either I added a live plant and ammonia for about a week. I finally began to spike. We did a big wc and added an ammonia lock product before we got fish. I am guilty. I did not intend to do a cycle with fish. Impatience got the best of us, especially my girls. But I am keeping on top of the water changes. In all honesty everyone seems very healthy for the time being. Fingers crossed.

 

[DesignsOnYou]

No need to feel guilty. It happens, and it sounds like you're remedying the problem by keeping an eye on water parameters. Hope it all goes well for you. Post if you have more questions and welcome to the tank.