Best diet for my platies?

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Hi, I was wondering what the best diet for my platies would be. I currently have a base of aqueon tropical flakes, and a weekly treat of bloodworms. I feed once a day before I turn out their light (whenever sunset is). Should I feed more often? Also, I am looking into buying Fluval Bug Bites (Spirulina Formula) since algae doesn’t grow often in my tank and the algae would be good for them. Is that a good product? I would also like to add more variety in their diet, so I want to buy hikari spirulina brine shrimp. Is there anything else I should get, like pellets? I have bottom feeder shrimp pellets from when I had cories, but they’re too big for my platies. Does anyone have suggestions or is this diet good?

 

[A201]

Omega One small grain floating Veggie pellets would be a good addition. The Bug Bites are good as well, but anything Aqueon probably isn't of very good quality.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Omega One small grain floating Veggie pellets would be a good addition. The Bug Bites are good as well, but anything Aqueon probably isn't of very good quality.

I agree with the aqueon not being good quality. The second ingredient is wheat flour, so not a good flake. Thankfully I bought a small one. I’ll try to get the omega one veggie pellets as well. Do you have any other tips on how often I should feed my fish certain stuff? Thank you!

 

[A201]

New Life Spectrum Thera + A & Tetra Min, would be good additions.
I mix all three of the noted foods together in one container & feed once or twice per day.
I keep a lot of different species of fish. This mixture of foods keep them all healthy & happy, if a fish can truly be happy. Lol.

 

[SouthAmericanCichlids]

In my opinion aqueon is the second worst, right after tetra. The best, I find are bug bites and Cobalt. Bug bites being the better of the two, I’m also going to leave a link to the study I did on a variety of foods, also read the comments afterwards, an extremely useful discussion to overall fish nutrition, more valuable than the study I did. I’ll leave a link:

Fish food comparison | Fish Food Forum | 499888

 

[Noroomforshoe]

I second new life spectra thera +A! Bug bites are great.
I dont recomend dried shrimp, And I dont recomend Hikari.

If your platties are not going to the ground to eat the wafers, consider puting the waffer in a fish net that has holes so they can peck at it for a couple hours.Suspend the net near the top of the tank. you might even want to purchase a net just for this purpose, and bend the handle to create a hanger.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

So no freeze dried brine shrimp? I ordered the omega one pellets today, and am planning to pick up bug bites either from a cheaper place or at petco. I’m pretty sure I mentioned this earlier, but I feed freeze dried blood worms already. I just thought brine shrimp would be good to add to their diet.

 

[Noroomforshoe]

blood worms are iffy food. The more i hear the worse it sounds, they are super cheap to produce, and that is why you see them everywhere. , they are fed super cheap garbage and kept in dirty garbage water. I am still feeding my fish the frozen bloodworms that I have, but I may not buy any more ever again.
If you feed freeze dried stuff it is important to soak it in water for a full 2 minutes before feeding. And if your food comes in cubes, you likely only need a piece of the cube, don't feed them a whole cube of frozen or dry unless you have a large amount of large fish. and don't use it as a stable diet, and you should be ok.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

blood worms are iffy food. The more i hear the worse it sounds, they are super cheap to produce, and that is why you see them everywhere. , they are fed super cheap garbage and kept in dirty garbage water. I am still feeding my fish the frozen bloodworms that I have, but I may not buy any more ever again.
If you feed freeze dried stuff it is important to soak it in water for a full 2 minutes before feeding. And if your food comes in cubes, you likely only need a piece of the cube, don't feed them a whole cube of frozen or dry unless you have a large amount of large fish. and don't use it as a stable diet, and you should be ok.

It’s freeze dried food, no cubes. I do soak it in water for 2-3 minutes before feeding once a week. Main diet is currently aqueon flakes (not nutritious but only thing at store) and I have omega one veggie/super color floating pellets coming in next week. Planning to head to petco witching the next month or so and pick up spirulina Fluval bug bite flakes. I was also thinking about brine shrimp. Is it better to get spirulina brine shrimp or just brine shrimp?

 

[Noroomforshoe]

Spirulina is great, i gues like gutt-loaded crickets, spirulina-fed shrimp would be a little more nutritious.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Ok thank you!

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

I already ordered pellets for my platies and I’m hoping they aren’t too big. The pellets I ordered are omega one veggie + super color pellets (small) off Amazon, not worrying about the size. I now realize that they are 3mm. My platies are relatively young as well, just got 2 a week ago, 3 a month ago, and 1 a couple months ago. Is 3mm pellets too big for my platies? If so, is there any way to make them the appropriate size? I heard you could just get an unused salt/pepper mill that never had salt or pepper in it and grind pellets that way. Does that work? Thank you!!!!!

 

[Noroomforshoe]

you could add a few of the big ones and let them pick at it as it dissolves it will give then some exercise too.
I never had a pepper mill either, You could just smash them. But the problem is all the tiny crumbs. I suggest you buy bug bites for small fish. That is what its called you can get a small bottle, offer both foods for the variety of nutrients. Try 2 or 3 larger pellets once and a while. and the smaller stuff more often if that works better. A variety of foods is important, especially for growing fish.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Thank you!!!! I’m feeding them bug bite spirulina flakes but I could also get the pellets, but I was thinking to go for new life spectrum Thera + a, since I already feed them bug bite flakes.

 

[PeterFishKeepin]

I use hikari micro pellets mainly for my community tank with Tetra and platy

 

[SparkyJones]

Yeah the micropellets are likely the right size. 3mm is a little big for a platty. 0.5mm-1mm ok I think. You don't want a pellet getting stuck.

 

[Noroomforshoe]

Thank you!!!! I’m feeding them bug bite spirulina flakes but I could also get the pellets, but I was thinking to go for new life spectrum Thera + a, since I already feed them bug bite flakes.

New life spectrum Thera plus A micro pellets are great, good ingrediants, and the right size for smaller fish. even my 5 inch Geophagas tries to eat them after his bigger cichlid food is eaten.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

I already made a post similar to this, I bought omega one veggie + super color floating pellets, but they are 3mm. I was told that I could occasionally feed them big ones and then buy a smaller pellet like new life spectrum Thera + a or bug bite granules.

Anyways, I wanted to know if there was a easy way to crush my pellets so I wouldn’t have to buy more. Is using a pepper mill a good idea?

 

[FishDin]

Sure, a pepper mill should work. I used to just use a couple spoons. Place pellets in spoon 1 and then place spoon 2 on top and crush the food between them (make the spoons "spoon")

Now I use a little porcelain mortar and pestle. Makes me feel like a mad scientist.

 

[Rose of Sharon]

Instead of crushing, could you soak them instead? If you have some garlic juice on hand, you could soak them in that until they are very soft, and then try feeding. The garlic gives a boost to the immune system. You can find cut garlic soaking in water in a jar in most gorcery stores, or you can make it yourself.

 

[Flyfisha]

A teaspoon inside a tablespoon. Inside the kitchen sink.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Instead of crushing, could you soak them instead? If you have some garlic juice on hand, you could soak them in that until they are very soft, and then try feeding. The garlic gives a boost to the immune system. You can find cut garlic soaking in water in a jar in most gorcery stores, or you can make it yourself.

no, I don’t think I have garlic juice. I know garlic is great for fish, but thanks for the advice. I’ll try to find some and try your method.

A teaspoon inside a tablespoon. Inside the kitchen sink.

Sure, a pepper mill should work. I used to just use a couple spoons. Place pellets in spoon 1 and then place spoon 2 on top and crush the food between them (make the spoons "spoon")

Now I use a little porcelain mortar and pestle. Makes me feel like a mad scientist.

I can try the spoon method when I feed my fish later. I’m most likely going to end up using a pepper mill though since I think that would be more precise and have less powder. Thanks again for all this advice!

 

[SouthAmericanCichlids]

What I did was smash the end of an empty spice container that has a crusher on the end, and crush up my pellets that way. I have a few spices that work like that. Like this: allspice crusher - Google Shopping

 

[Motherlovebetta]

Pill crusher or mortar and pestle should do the trick.

 

[BradleyH2O]

I use the bottom of a measuring cup