Food just dropping to substrate

HI all,

I've glanced through this forum and come across some relevant threads but I am hoping for more tips so I thought I would start another thread.

I feed flakes and pellets to my neons and guppies. The guppies seem to like to eat off the surface and the neons wait for the food to drop. I crush up the flakes for the neons since it seems they would benefit from it being smaller and dip them in the water so they start sinking right away.

I find the problem is most flakes or pellets will simply sink to the substrate. Watching the neons go at the food, they seem to maybe get 1 piece while it all sinks. A lot of the time, I find they put it in their mouth and spit it back out. So I find most of the food hits the substrate. And the neons rarely go after the food after it hits the substrate. In the end, I feel most food just sit at the bottom and cause water quality problems for me. I do have some corys to go after stuff at the bottom but they don't clean up very well.

Does anybody have suggestions on how to better feed the fish? I'm thinking my substrate doesn't help since some pieces fall between the cracks and the fish can't get at it. Don't know if combining some smaller substrate will help.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

What are you feeding them? Alison.

 

NLS 0.5mm Pellets and flakes (tetramin I think; but just flakes anyway)

 

Definitely feed less if you have food falling to the bottom. It's possible they're not very hungry because you're overfeeding.

You can also try switching food brands to see if they like another brand better.

 

What's your feeding schedule. My guppy would only eat what was floating it was a pain as I had to slowly put in tiny flakes, hope he found them, and then hope he got them before the filter flow sunk them. Ended up leaving a large flake on top. It would sink but stay together and he would eat it as it got kicked up or swirled around. If you look at the shape of their mouths, they are adapted for pretty much surface feeding and that's it.

 

I was feeding twice a day. Yes, the Guppies take the food from the top. So I drop some flakes up top and I sink some for the neons. For my HOB, I slowed the water impact by placing a sponge where it flows out. As a result, the HOB doesn't immediately sink the flakes anymore.

Given I should feed less because the food is hitting the substrate, how much food should be fed to 5 guppies + 8 neons? are we talking about just a pinch a day? E.g. crunch up 3-4 pieces of flakes?

 

As for your water quality. Do you gravel vacuum with your weekly water change?

 

Yes I do gravel vacuum. When I do so, I can see how much food was left over.

 

As long as you do you don't have to worry too much about water quality.

 

You still shouldn't over feed. These fish really only need a small amount of food. A very small pinch twice a day sounds like a good idea.