Diet For My Current Fish Stock.

So I currently house 12 cheery barbs, 1 male bolivian ram, and 4 false juliI cories (2 juveniles and 2 adults).

And I was wondering if the diet I'm feeding them sounds reasonable and well balanced as I want to avoid any issues related to an unbalanced diet in the future. Anyhow heres the dry foods I feed them in a picture below.

I feed them as follows:

Monday- fluval bug bites + 2 shrimp pellets and 1 carnivore wafer.

Tuesday- omega one marine pellets + 2 carnivore wafers and 1 shrimp pellet.

Wednesday- frozen bloodworms.

Thursday- omega one veggie pellets + half a cobalt algae grazer.

Friday- omega one marine pellets + 3 shrimp pellets.

Saturday- frozen brine shrimp

Sunday- fast day

Then I repeat pretty much each week. Any suggestions or concerns? Does this diet seem pretty balanced or should I add/change something?

 

I'd just do some flakes for the barbs and some sinking pellets for the ram and cories. No need to overcomplicate things.

 

Looks good to me. Variety is the key to a healthy fish. Also, is feeding marine pellets safe for freshwater fish?

 

Looks good to me. Variety is the key to a healthy fish. Also, is feeding marine pellets safe for freshwater fish?

It is as long as your don't feed it everyday as a staple food as it is higher in protein than freshwater fish food typically is.

 

It is as long as your don't feed it everyday as a staple food as it is higher I protein than freshwater fish food typically is.

Ah okay. As long as you're feeding different types of food each day, then you'll be fine in terms of the health and well-being of your fish.

 

Sounds like a lot to me! I feed my fish like, 4 times a week. I feed my ADF like, twice a week.

 

Wow, that's a list all right.

Just like clock work. A couple of friend's stick to feeding schedule's as if they were in the Army. I tried that, ... once. I couldn't remember any of it and found it to be to restricting making feeding take forever 22 tanks along with outdoor tub's. Now, ... I have 2 plastic totes full of everything under the sun. All Tetra, Sera,, Hikari, Omega, Cobalt and a few other's. I just randomly grab whatever my hand reaches and fed a couple of tank's then grab another can and so on. The fish just get random top quality food's making every meal a surprise to them, ... and myself.

The more different kind's of food's the healthier the fish will be. Maybe someday if I downsize I might try the scheduling thing again, ... who know's. Maybe I'll hold a menu up to the glass and let them pick.

Now, if only I could feed myself quality stuff...

Regards
Bill

 

Wow, that's a list all right.

Just like clock work. A couple of friend's stick to feeding schedule's as if they were in the Army. I tried that, ... once. I couldn't remember any of it and found it to be to restricting making feeding take forever 22 tanks along with outdoor tub's. Now, ... I have 2 plastic totes full of everything under the sun. All Tetra, Sera,, Hikari, Omega, Cobalt and a few other's. I just randomly grab whatever my hand reaches and fed a couple of tank's then grab another can and so on. The fish just get random top quality food's making every meal a surprise to the,m, ... and myself.

The more different kind's of food's the healthier the fish will be. Maybe someday if I downsize I might try the scheduling thing again, ... who know's. Maybe I'll hold a menu up to the glass and let them pick.

Now, if only I could feed myself quality stuff...

Regards
Bill

Haha yeah that's a heck of a lot of tanks to meep track of! I only have two rn so its not bad. But I would definitely do something similar if I had as many.

 

I was curious on this too. I just put in some false JuliI cories yesterday and am trying to figure out the best foods. I do flakes too and they will suck those up as they fall to the floor. I haven’t picked up shrimp pellets yet, but I hear they love those.

Are you planning to add anymore cories? Since they are schooling fish they like to be in larger groups like 5-6+. Judging by the care you are taking with their food regimen I would also look to add a couple more to make sure they feel secure. Plus they are pretty cool to watch as a group of them swarm around the tank ha.

 

I was curious on this too. I just put in some false JuliI cories yesterday and am trying to figure out the best foods. I do flakes too and they will suck those up as they fall to the floor. I haven’t picked up shrimp pellets yet, but I hear they love those.

Are you planning to add anymore cories? Since they are schooling fish they like to be in larger groups like 5-6+. Judging by the care you are taking with their food regimen I would also look to add a couple more to make sure they feel secure. Plus they are pretty cool to watch as a group of them swarm around the tank ha.

See that's a funny story, I got into corys as an impulse buy(whoops hehe but most aquarist do this) I went to get some cardinals for my tank and ended up bringing home two adult false JuliI cories as well. I didnt know much about them as it was an impulse buy so I didn’t know they were schooling fish. Anyhow they were the only two corys in the tank for about eight months and they did fine, pretty active all the time honestly and they never really hid from me as much as I know some due.

Eventually after everything got settled down with my tank again (since I switched from non planted to planted and had a minI cycle that I had to take care of) and I finished the spring semester from college I decided I was gonna change my tank from danios and cardinals to tiger barbs (which I didn’t end up getting anyhow). I first got two more false corys from petsmart (I wanted 3 but they only had 2) and they are great and super active and schooling with the other two during the day and after lights out everybody does their own thing it seems. So I gave those cardinals and danios to my LFS and kept only the two juliI cories and went to get some tiger barbs from him as he said he would have some, but he hadn't got them in yet. I was worried about having an empty tank for another couple weeks waiting on the barbs as I knew I would loose a lot of BB in my ceramic media from the decreased bioload.

So I went to another LFS and bought 7 cherry barbs instead and added it to two others I hadn’t been able to get out of the tank and had planned to give away later on. So I had 9 cherry barbs in the tank and decided to keep those instead so that way I could get some bolivian rams as cherry barbs are peaceful fish. I ordered them from liveaquaria and the first two bolivians arrived dead while the 5 cherry barbs I ordered from them were fine and I added it to my tank making a school of 13 cherry barbs (one of the cherry barbs from the LFS was sick as that LFS is really bad and has just so many sick fish and I honestly won't be buying from them ever again).

Then I also got a juliI cory from them but it died the next day, too much stress I think as it was a juvenile. Then I ordered another one after they refunded me the money for the cory and the Bolivians. I got them and one of the Bolivians made it and hes looking really good and happy but the other one died despite all my efforts of trying to save it (I think it just couldn't handle the shock and possibly got bullied by the other ram during transport as the surviving one was the more dominant ram.) it passed after about three days in a hospital tank.

Then again 2 days after I got them the cory died and I pretty much gave up on ordering from them and looked into an LFS that's 1 and a half hours from me and I called them and I'm going to pick up a female bolivian from them friday and hopefully another cory if they have any.

I do want to get one more cory for them to be even happier but I just haven't found any more at petsmart and I really don't want to pay another $30 online for shipping just for it to die in my tank so I hope this lfs has some if not ill go back to petsmart one of these days and see if they have any.

Also I recommend you get carnivore wafers or cory wafers if you have gravel as your staple food for them as it often gets stuck between the gravel in my tank and I have to sometimes reach in with my aquascaping pliers and move the rocks out of the way so they can get to it to avoid them hurting their barbels (thankfully none of them have as my gravel is not very corse) but if you have sand or dirt then no worries lol whatever sinking food you feed should be easy for them to get to!

P.S. sorry for the rant before didnt mean to go off on a tangent.

 

I do have sand although I’ll check out the wafers too for variety. Sad story on the fish ordering. I just purchased 10 cories from liveaquaria and I am already down to 7, which breaks my heart. The three that died were the youngest (or at least the smallest) and I think the stress was too much and they showed signs of ammonia poisoning. I didn’t follow LiveAquarias acclimation guide - chose to do a plop and drop because my waters pH is on the high side and didn’t want to spike Ammonia in the shipping bag- so I didn’t submit them for a refund, but yeah the $30 shipping is crazy. I get why it is so much, but the cories themselves were on sale for $4.50 a piece so buying 10 and including shipping you almost double it to $7.50 per fish. Still cheaper than my other hobby which is building up my gaming PC. That hobby kind of slowed though once I added kids to the mix ha.

Hopefully this other LFS is a better store and has good stock. I’m in a similar boat. I have only one local in town. So, I originally asked them to order me Panda Cories and the lady said she only orders twice a month and I had to wait a week and a half. That was fine with me, because my tank was catching up to the fish I had just added, but then when I came back the place she orders from didn’t have any so I was out of luck. I was a little irritated and will give her another chance later, but I wasn’t waiting another two weeks for her to maybe order some cories for me ha. The next closest is an hour away and I haven’t made it out there to see what they have yet.

 

I do have sand although I’ll check out the wafers too for variety. Sad story on the fish ordering. I just purchased 10 cories from liveaquaria and I am already down to 7, which breaks my heart. The three that died were the youngest (or at least the smallest) and I think the stress was too much and they showed signs of ammonia poisoning. I didn’t follow LiveAquarias acclimation guide - chose to do a plop and drop because my waters pH is on the high side and didn’t want to spike Ammonia in the shipping bag- so I didn’t submit them for a refund, but yeah the $30 shipping is crazy. I get why it is so much, but the cories themselves were on sale for $4.50 a piece so buying 10 and including shipping you almost double it to $7.50 per fish. Still cheaper than my other hobby which is building up my gaming PC. That hobby kind of slowed though once I added kids to the mix ha.

Hopefully this other LFS is a better store and has good stock. I’m in a similar boat. I have only one local in town. So, I originally asked them to order me Panda Cories and the lady said she only orders twice a month and I had to wait a week and a half. That was fine with me, because my tank was catching up to the fish I had just added, but then when I came back the place she orders from didn’t have any so I was out of luck. I was a little irritated and will give her another chance later, but I wasn’t waiting another two weeks for her to maybe order some cories for me ha. The next closest is an hour away and I haven’t made it out there to see what they have yet.

Yeah its a real pain for me as well as one of my LFS is super crapy, the one I mentioned. And the other one is great and supplied me with some the cardinals and corys but he is currently rebuilding and so they are closed for now as he is expanding the store to include more freshwater stuff as he mainly only sells saltwater so id have to wait all the way till july to try to get any fish from him which sucks so I decided to give this guys a try since they have a good reputation and quarantine the fish before selling which is always a good sign, hopefully they have some false juliI as id rather get them there than from petsmart anyhow as our petsmart here is “meh” in quality for fish. The pertco is honestly pretty good but they don't have false juliI sadly.

 

Gotcha, well good luck. Hopefully this other store has a whole bunch to choose from!

 

And yes my corys and even the bolivian love the wafers, they are gone in like 2-5 minutes when I feed that while the pellets take about 30 mins to an hour because they take a while to soften up tbh they are a bit tough for them but they do really love them, they won't stop pecking at them till they're gone.

Also sorry to hear about your cories, that sucks as well I think the reason they don't make it ia due to the high stress at such a young age specially since corys are sensitive to toxins.

 

Alright that is good to know I’ll definitely grab some wafers.

Yeah the ones that died looked like they had red gills where the ones still living definitely don’t so I think it had to be ammonia poisoning. My tank had a small jump in ammonia after adding them. I did a WC and treated with prime, but if I remember right they didn’t look great when they first arrived. Because of that small spike in my tank and not following the acclimation guide it didn’t feel honest to report them dead to LiveAquaria. I’ll just mourn silently and keep closer tabs on the water quality ha.

 

Good list offering great variety. I didn't know it was ok to feed marine pellets to freshwater fish, something new you learn in this hobby.

I would maybe just swap frozen brine shrimp to frozen daphnia. Daphnia is a great protein source and also works as a natural laxative for fish.

 

Then I also got a juliI cory from them but it died the next day, too much stress I think as it was a juvenile.

Corydora Death's:

When purchasing Cory's one MUST remember, Cory's ARE TOXIC. They produce a toxin that is secreted by their skin. When threatened, they excrete the toxin in hope that it won't get swallowed.

The Double Edge Sword:

We know that Cory's love numbers for safety and social reason's. We also know they get stressed when not in groups of at least 6 or more. So if we know they stress easily and we know they release a toxin when stressed, it see's like that's a recipe for disaster, ... and it is. If one of the fish in your bag releases it's toxin, ... it's game over for most if not all of them as they poisoned themselves. Sometimes it's a mild poisoning but most of the time, it's a game over situation but there is a way around this and this is how I bring home my Cory's.

I have them individually bag the Cory's so now if one is stressed, I will only have that one fish die and not an entire bag making the transfer 99.9% effective. Since Iv'e been using this method, I have not had any issues with dead Cory's

Regards
Bill

 

Corydora Death's:

When purchasing Cory's one MUST remember, Rory's ARE TOXIC. They produce a toxin that is secreted by their skin. When threatened, they excrete the toxin in hope that it won't get swallowed.

The Double Edge Sword:

We know that Cory's love numbers for safety and social reason's. We also know they get stressed when not in groups of at least 6 or more. So if we know they stress easily and we know they release a toxin when stressed, it see's like that's a recipe for disaster, ... and it is. If one of the fish in your bag releases it's toxin, ... it's game oder for most if not all of them as they poisoned themselves. Sometimes it's a mild poisoning but most of the time, it's a game over situation but there is a way around this and this is how I bring home my Cory's.

I have them individually bag the Cory's so now if one is stressed, I will only have that one fish die and not an entire bag making the transfer 99.9% effective. Since Iv'e been using this method, I have not had any issues with dead Cory's

Regards
Bill

Wow I had no idea. Thank you for the insight on that. I'm planning to grab some more from the LFS that is an hour away so if they have any False JuliI in stock I'll make sure to specify individual bagging. Thanks!

 

Sounds pretty good.

Any specific reason you are using Marine Pellets? Omega One makes some of the best fish food in the industry and the Marine Pellets just appear to be a bit meatier than freshwater food. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, a varied diet is just very important for your fish. So it's good you're also feeding them veggie pellets. I might also give them a bit more veggie pellets. Maybe feed them the marine pellets and veggie pellets at the same time so they get protein and veggies.

Also, why are you using algae wafers? I'm just wondering. Is it for your cories? I ask because I personally only give my albino pleco algae wafers, not my cories. If it's for them, I didn't know they enjoy algae wafers and I'll have to try that.

You're using good brands of food too so stay doing that when it comes time to re-supply. I personally only buy Omega One, Fluval Bug Bites, HikarI (Frozen and Algae wafers), NLS, and Zoo Med (for Spirulina 20).

 

Sounds pretty good.

Any specific reason you are using Marine Pellets? Omega One makes some of the best fish food in the industry and the Marine Pellets just appear to be a bit meatier than freshwater food. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, a varied diet is just very important for your fish. So it's good you're also feeding them veggie pellets. I might also give them a bit more veggie pellets. Maybe feed them the marine pellets and veggie pellets at the same time so they get protein and veggies.

Also, why are you using algae wafers? I'm just wondering. Is it for your cories? I ask because I personally only give my albino pleco algae wafers, not my cories. If it's for them, I didn't know they enjoy algae wafers and I'll have to try that.

You're using good brands of food too so stay doing that when it comes time to re-supply. I personally only buy Omega One, Fluval Bug Bites, HikarI (Frozen and Algae wafers), NLS, and Zoo Med (for Spirulina 20).

Well I bought a 3 gallon for my betta a couple months back (I didnt even end up using it and hes now in a 10 gallon anyhow) but the pellets came with it and so I noticed it said it was for marine fish and before throwing them out I searched it up and everyone I talked to said it was fine to feed this to my freshwater fish as long as I didn't feed it too often.

Also yes the wafers are for the corys to allow a little bit of green in their diet but it definitely isn't their favorite food, they’ll still eat it but not as readily as he shrimp pellets or carnivore wafers. I only feed them a very small amount of veggies since they can't retain very many nutrients from them.

Corydora Death's:

When purchasing Cory's one MUST remember, Cory's ARE TOXIC. They produce a toxin that is secreted by their skin. When threatened, they excrete the toxin in hope that it won't get swallowed.

The Double Edge Sword:

We know that Cory's love numbers for safety and social reason's. We also know they get stressed when not in groups of at least 6 or more. So if we know they stress easily and we know they release a toxin when stressed, it see's like that's a recipe for disaster, ... and it is. If one of the fish in your bag releases it's toxin, ... it's game over for most if not all of them as they poisoned themselves. Sometimes it's a mild poisoning but most of the time, it's a game over situation but there is a way around this and this is how I bring home my Cory's.

I have them individually bag the Cory's so now if one is stressed, I will only have that one fish die and not an entire bag making the transfer 99.9% effective. Since Iv'e been using this method, I have not had any issues with dead Cory's

Regards
Bill

See I did read about this as well but the weird thing is the cory was alone in his/her bag. aren't they immune to their own toxin and it would only have effected a second cory, had one been in the bag with them?

But then again it was almost 24 hours before I got them here so its possible being around the toxins for so long (even its own) hurt it in such a way.