Feeding Tips Please: Hungry, Hungry Endlers

[Finnegan]

Hi guys, I'm a bit of a newbie trying to slowly build up my second ever tank and first community (first one is dwarf puffers.)

The idea was, and is, to build up to keeping a betta. Taking advice from a few different YouTube channels (including Cory's and Irene's) and social media platforms, we're going with Endlers, Celestial Pearls and Otos to live with it. 

The Endlers went in first and the plan is to add the smaller fish in a species at a time with a couple of weeks between, partly to let them settle, partly so the bioload grows gradually and partly to give us chance to learn how to care for each as we go along. 

So, the Endlers have had the new tank diatom / algae bloom to deal with and they seem to have absolutely loved it. It seems to be like living in an all you can eat buffet, they've been gorging themselves. Because we're a little bit new at this and because I've not been entirely sure what the right balance is, I've still been feeding them some crushed up flake most days as well. 

Problem is that slowly but surely a couple of them have gotten, well, "fat." They look a little over fed and possibly constipated. I've tried blanched pea but the difference has been a bit minimal. 

Now, probably a bit naively, before getting this completely under control, we've added the CPDs and I've kinda realised the problem I've now got and this is where I could really do with some advice. I need to somehow balance feeding so that the CPDs get enough without over feeding the Endlers. 

Obviously, one option is to go a bit nuclear fighting the algae and scrub everything off to take the food source away but I'm partly concerned about that cleansing also wiping out beneficial bacteria on those surface areas and also, it would be nice for some of it to still be there when the otos arrive so they aren't entirely reliant on wafers and can enjoy some natural foraging. 

Attached below is a picture of the the one that won't stop eating the most. I'm extremely anxious I'm stuck between either over feeding them to death or starving the CPDs. 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Finnegan

[Grassypeak]

Hi Finnegan,

First of all, I would take a deep breath and relax.  Constipated fish will not eat like pigs.  Endler's are quick and aggressive feeders, so feeding other fish with a tank full of Endler's or even guppies can be a problem.  For instance, I have noticed that Daisy's rice fish fry and Indian rice fish fry do not do well with guppy fry.  This is because the guppie fry out compete the rice fish fry.  I haven't tried raising anything with my Endlers.  They never stop eating.

It may be that the Endler's will not be good tank mates for your CPDs.  Although I think they should be fine.  I would start by feeding enough to allow the CPDs to eat what they need and not worry about the Endler's.  You may eventually have to bring the Endlers back if they are too competitive.  You may have to bring some of them back when they start having tons of babies anyway.  It may just be the case that you need to try a different food.  Repashy foods sink and offer the fish a bit of grazing time.  They also offer ottos a good food source.  By the way Ottos are not an easy fish to keep fed.  I would guess that many more ottos die within the first few weeks than ever make it past the first two months.  I think Repashy is definitely the way to go, once you get them.  When you get your betta, I highly recommend Ocean Nutrition Betta Pellets.  They will be a bit large for your Endler's and everything seems to like them.  I use them for many of my killifish and killifish are notoriously finicky about dry food.

You didn't tell us how big your tank is or how many CPDs and Endler's you have.  That info is always helpful.

Good luck with your adventure,

Chris

 

[Finnegan]

Thanks for that, @Grassypeak.

It's a 70L tank. There's currently eight each of the Endlers and CPDs. The Endlers are all male, so population growth isn't a problem. There'll be 6 otocinclus.

The Endler I'm most concerned about eats pretty much non stop, the photo I posted above is about par but on occasion he's even larger than that and looks pretty much about to pop. 

I'm not really sure at what point over feeding becomes critically dangerous and at what point I should interfere. 

[Grassypeak]

In 45 years of fish keeping I don't think that I've ever seen a fish eat itself to death.  The thing that I worry about with fish that look fat is something called bloat. This is usually caused by a bacterial infection that destroys the kidneys, causing the fish to fill up with water. Bloated fish don't typically eat at all so this in not your problem.  Over eating will make your fish fat but you have to make sure that the CPDs get enough food.  If that one fish is going to be a pig there isn't much that you can do aside from giving him his own tank.

[Guppysnail]

I keep my cpds  with my guppies. When cpds were small I fed northin fry food at the same time as flake releasing the north fin in water flake half on top half in water release. Guppies and endless are piggies and go for the big bits so cpds get the small. Now I crush all flake food and do 50/50 in out food release as cpds are full grown. Cpds are faster so they eat plenty. They also adore Hikari fancy guppy food now same 50/50 release and I have very well fed cpd. They get along splendidly with my guppies. Great tank mates. Endlers are near identical to guppies so you should enjoy both in the same tank. They are fun. 

[Patrick_G]

You can try feeding frozen brine shrimp. It tends to spread out in the water column so all the fish get some.