prairielilly

In my 20g I have 4 cherry barbs, 3 panda cories and one dwarf gourami. I feed them twice a day, a whole variety of stuff, but at each feeding I've been adding one Hikari bottom feeder pellet to make sure the pandas get their share.

The troublem is the gourami is the biggest fish in the tank and he definitely knows it - he takes possession of the pellet as soon as it gets in the tank and pecks at it til it's gone. He chases away any other fish who tries to eat it. I don't think the pandas are suffering at all but the gourami is getting fat and constipated. Is there a better way to make sure they all get fed - should I add more flakes and forget the pellets say?

Thanks for any suggestions!

agabr123

i'd try feeding them after lights out, and also break the pellet up into pieces and spread it around the tank some. its inevitable that at least a few pieces he won't be able to grab right away and the cories should be able to get it

prairielilly

I'll try that tonight, thanks! (I had thought of giving two pellets or just overfeeding the flakes but then was concerned about phosphates - I like this a lot better!)

agabr123

you're welcome let me know if it works or not, you may want to get a little flashlight or something to see if the DG actually gets it or if the cories get it

prairielilly

It's been pretty amusing to see the DG so kerfuffled...he can't figure out why the piece is smaller

What's not so amusing unfortunately is he's 'defending' his piece I think...two of my three pandas have DG-sized bites taken out of their fins. I'm pretty sure it's not the cherry barbs that have attacked them. I know their fins will grow back and I'm confident now they're all getting enough food, but I'm definitely going to look into getting some sort of decor they can hide in that the DG can't get into. Might be a challenge, he's pretty persistent...