Feeding tiny fish large foods

[Zeaqua]

Recently, I saw both Dansfish’s video and Cory’s members only video on how they both feed tiny fish large pellets meant for monster fish. I really want to try this with my CPDs (which Dan showed) and Limia species, but whenever I drop in anything larger than their mouth, they ignore it. Have any of you tried this technique, and how did you try it?

[Tlindsey]

On 5/22/2024 at 12:56 PM, Zeaqua said:

Recently, I saw both Dansfish’s video and Cory’s members only video on how they both feed tiny fish large pellets meant for monster fish. I really want to try this with my CPDs (which Dan showed) and Limia species, but whenever I drop in anything larger than their mouth, they ignore it. Have any of you tried this technique, and how did you try it?

I personally crush the pellet until it's almost like dust. @Zeaqua

[gardenman]

CPD's, at least mine, tend to be mid-water feeders, so dropping in a pellet is not very practical unless they're starving. Mine get finely crushed flake food, micro-pellets, and frozen baby brine shrimp. Bloodworms and adult brine shrimp just get ignored as being too big. I have one of seven CPDs who will go to the bottom and pick at any food that drops, but he's the exception. The rest just stay mid-water all the time and eat what floats past them. They won't go to the surface to get floating flake food or go to the bottom for sunk food. They just stay mid-water to eat. 

[jwcarlson]

"Starvation" is a great motivator for fish.  For instance, I feed my CPDs live BBS twice a day.  If I drop pellets or flake in... there's very little interest and they're not going to go to the bottom to eat something sunken.  I will say that my CPDs seem to go where the cover is.  In my 29 with about 50 of them, they are in the floating mat of hornwort.  Normally I don't even see any of them.  But when I feed them they come out of the woodwork.  In the 10 gallon with my original colony + a handful of babies they've had they're near the bottom because that's where most of the cover is.  

Get them hungry and "train" them to eat what you want them to eat.  Even though I feed BBS twice a day to pretty much everything, I still mix in some flake and pellets because there are times when I get a bit bored with fishkeeping and it's easier to start paring down work, even though BBS is a very minimal time commitment to hatch/feed.  It also helps to have other fish that eat "anything" to help with the training.  My discus were fairly picky eaters in their tank alone.  I recently moved them into a 125 with like 50 sterbai and a single gold ram and guess what... the discus eat EVERYTHING now and they'll chase the corys off to get at things they wouldn't even sniff before.  

[Little Guys]

I ran flakes through a food processor to powder them for my baby shrimp.  I have found that the Tetras like them even more than the nano pellets.

 

[lefty o]

honestly most fish can tackle food that is what we would consider way too big for them. once they jam it into their mouths, as long as it doesnt stop the water flowing through their gills, they will most likely manage to get it down.