I turned my cory bottom feeders into top feeders

[KittenFishMom]

If you remember my bottle trap feeder:

I used it without the cap on the left end for about a week as a feeder.  The fish quickly learned that if I monkeyed with it in any way, it was worth swimming in the right side and checking for yummies. This first time I wanted to trap, I left the cap off for a few minutes to let the water current through the bottle leave a yummy tail up to the right side of the bottle. I screwed the left cap on and in 10 minutes I had 45 calm cory fry munching away. Of course they panicked when I picked up the trap, but the 2 litter bottles diluted the toxins enough until I poured them into a bucket. Not one acted the least bit dizzle.

I still use it open as a feeder. I often pop frozen bbs cubes in from the left as the bottle sits on the bottom of the tank. I have found it easy to pop dry tubifex cubes in from the left as well. The yummy food only makes it out of the bottles inside a fish, keeping the filters much cleaner. (No this may not be "display tank" quality, but I'm sure someone could hide it behind plants, Or paint a few mermaids or mermen on it. depending on you taste)

Next time my photogragher spouce is awake when I feed cubes, I'll ask him to get some pictures.

Anyway. the tubifex worm cubes float in the bottle. The corys can smell them and work their way up the side of the bottle and hang upside down nursing from the cubes. I am sure they would not find them in open water, but in the bottle trap, they find them quickly. Some find them so quickly, the swim in the small left opening.  Others when they realize they swam out the left opening, turn around and go back for more.

For my next experiment: I am going to make one out of square gallon water bottles to see how quickly the hillstream loaches figure it out. My smallest one has figured this one out, but is not as good as finding the exit as the cory fry are.  The square gallon bottle have a nice wide flat opening and a much larger cap, so I think the bigger loaches should catch on quickly.

Note: I use 2 ceramic bio rings to hold this stedy on the bottom. I'm sure some chunks of substate or such could be the same. Make sure the cap is off before you tip the trap into the bucket so the weight doesn't bump into you fish.

 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:43 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Of course they panicked when I picked up the trap, but the 2 litter bottles diluted the toxins enough until I poured them into a bucket.

Did you see white stuff get released into the water?

On 5/27/2023 at 8:43 PM, KittenFishMom said:

Anyway. the tubifex worm cubes float in the bottle. The corys can smell them and work their way up the side of the bottle and hang upside down nursing from the cubes. I am sure they would not find them in open water, but in the bottle trap, they find them quickly. Some find them so quickly, the swim in the small left opening.  Others when they realize they swam out the left opening, turn around and go back for more.

That's awesome. 🙂

[KittenFishMom]

@nabokovfan87 I didn't notice white stuff, there were all those fry and fish food and bbs in the water. There might have been white stuff, but I didn't notice. I just wanted to get them into the bucket as fast as I could.