Marine pellet food?

[BlueKoran91]

All of my fish are currently on a diet of frozen brine shrimp cubes. I want to switch them to a pellet food so they can be fed by a feeder through Christmas. Any suggestions?? Is one type better than another??

[Scutterborn]

That's something that's really up to your finned friends. I'd start them on it way ahead o time to see what they prefer. Try supplementing 1 or 2 meals a week to see how we'll they take to it. It would be bad to find out when you get back that they didn't care for the cuisine. :(

On a more specific note, I combine new life spectrum pellets and ocean nutrition formula one flakes in an eheim auto feeder when I go out of town. My guys like it. That won't mean your will.


- Ben -

[Bill S]

At Bob Fenner's suggestion a few years ago, I use Spectrum almost exclusively, and have for years.

[BlueKoran91]

Ben- I'm wanting to start them ASAP and I've heard the spectrum pellets are pretty good so I think I'll try them first. Hopefully I will find what they like soon :)

[Scutterborn]

I see your thinking ahead and that's a good sign!
Spectrum pellets are indeed groovy. Just make sure your delivery system (autofeeder) is up to snuff and adjusted properly.
When I went to MACNA, I guess I had bumped the little feeding gauge door doo-hickey and it over fed one of my tanks. Not eheims fault, just mine. I got the feeders at petsmart for about $40 each. They're worth every penny.


- Ben -

[BlueKoran91]

Which feeders do you have?? There's SO MANY out there lol and I have 3 tanks that'll need feeding :/

[Reef Valley]

I have tried a few feeders and the one I trust the most is the Eheim 3581 automatic feeder(the square one). On pellets I have used spectrum most of the time, but the ELOS food is great as well. At MACNA I got some pellets from Reed Mariculture to try them out and my fish loved them, you might want to take a look at those as well. Here's a link from their website:

http://apbreed.com/product_tdo_top_dressed_oto.html

[350gt]

+2 for eheim

[Scutterborn]

I use exclusively eheim feeders


- Ben -

[allan]

What fish do you have?

I've got almost all of my fish eating pellets, and Todd had an angle fish eating them as well.

I've NEVER been able to get any of my Cardinals or Chalk Basselette to eat them.

Placed my feeder as far from the overflow as possible to limit the floaties from making it that far. I thought about rigging a 3" PVC pipe (about two inches in length) beneath the feeder to keep the floaties stationary until they start drifting down.

[BlueKoran91]

Allan- I have a coral beauty, 2 fire fish and 2 clownfish

[350gt]

Allan..... I used one of those floating fish feeder rings.... Keeps the food in the ring.

[allan]

Very cool, Tony... I didn't know they had something like that... or course I grew up in a trailer park. We tend to look at things a bit different than you high faluting dudes do. As long as no one bumps the trailer, thus causing a spill if you have a rimless tank, you tend to find a solution for just about anything inside or in the yard. :)

My clowns were good with it... my firefish eat it as well. The coral beauty... no idea. I've had one in the past, but not during the time I used the pellets. Todd had a coral beauty in his tank, and his tank was exclusively pellet fed.

[BlueKoran91]

I haven't heard of the ring feeder either. That's pretty nifty ill have to look for some :)

[350gt]

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/feedingfis1/a/feedingrings.htm

with 2 overflows close the the center of the tank, the feeder would dump the flakes and pellets just to be sucked up by the over flow....
I bought one of the rings and placed right under the feeder,
keeping the flakes in place till they soaked up and sank. My vlaminigi finally grew the courage to swim up and feast on the food in the ring before anyone else... It was a kick to hear him chomping....

[allan]

That fish is timid... until he's not. He comes up and chases me around when I try to put in nori... but someone else comes in the room and he hides under the overflow.

[rrasco]

They also use those feeder rings in ponds. A little bigger though.

Funny about the trailer Allan. Someone was posting on RC last week about setting up a big tank in a trailer. The responses were hilarious.

[Scutterborn]

That fish is timid... until he's not. He comes up and chases me around when I try to put in nori... but someone else comes in the room and he hides under the overflow.

It's due to my commanding presence and gallant stroll, Allan.


- Ben -

[allan]

ha ha