Foods for 3-4 week old fry

[Sena Hansler]

Yikes! So, yes I have been feeding BBS (and microworms culture did not work out all that great) only thing is I can't pump out what over 150 mouths want!! Ive tried decapsulated BBS but they spit it out. Any suggestions?

We only have a pet store here, no fish stores. Big Al's in the city does not have any cultures. The store here has "tubifex" dried worms, and reptile food (butter worm, meal worm, Phoenix worm, etc). I do have baby fish food pellets but don't think they would take it (or are big enough)

[Mo]

Honestly at that age BBS is what you need. That fits the criteria that you are looking for. It's easy to culture. You can culture it in big amounts for your spawn, etc. maybe you aren't hatching them the right way if you aren't getting enough to feed to your spawn. Or you just aren't adding enough eggs. Most fry at that age won't accept dried foods so I would slowly acclimate them to eat decapsulated BBS. Just put a very tiny amount in there each time you feed and then slowly add more

[Sena Hansler]

Thing is I have swarms of BBS every time, and most of them hatch - so that's not the problem. I put in a generous amount because BBS can live in there for a while - they usually cloud the side of the tank!!

[Mo]

Oh. I thought that you had meant that you didn't have enough since you said you are having trouble feeding 150 mouths

[Sena Hansler]

Hehe that IS the problem I'm actually almost down one bottle (small bottle) of BBS need to grab some along with aquarium salt. I have enough for now though. They've just been downing every last bite - when it should last at least half a day for them. I was just wondering if there was a secondary food source... There WAS daphnia - but that was gone in a day or two.

Anything you recommend for the BBS maybe? Hours set apart for each culture?

[indjo]

I feed mine daphnia and live tubifex. . . . but I'm not sure if that's available to you.

Mo's method of acclimating sounds good.

[inareverie85]

I have one spawn that is 1 month old today and one spawn that is almost 3 weeks.. I am starting to wean mine off of BBS and on to dry foods. :)

I have GP powder (tiniest GP available) and decaps.. I feed these two things about 2 minutes before giving them BBS. I've been doing this for about 4 days now, and most of my fish (except for the ones that still feed at the bottom of the tank) eat both the BBS and the dried foods now.

I plan to slowly decrease the ratio of BBS to dry foods until I am only feeding dry.

Going to try and get my hands on some grindal worms though, just to mix things up for them.

[Sena Hansler]

Sadly where I live is rather pathetic. I may check this "pet valu" place out firstly. But the only live foods are even too large for my adults (mealworms) I wish I had grindal, tubifex, etc readily at hand! daphnia I got in the tank by adding plants. (So accidentally). But they are all eaten

Inareverie, that sounds good - I may do that! At least introduce non-live foods. ;)

[Maddybelle]

My spawn got walter worms for the first 2 weeks, but the culture mysteriously crashed. =( So now my 2.5 week olds are on instant BBS (BBS in a jar) and 200-300 micron GP. The GP are just barely not powder, and are the same size as BBS. I didn't have any problem transitioning, even at this age.

[Sena Hansler]

Well, before I only ever used either egg yolk, or powdered. Mainly because no one around here carried BBS, and my spawns were a LOT smaller