memorywrangler Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 On a bit of an impulse [1], I ordered 5 Indostomus paradoxus from Dan's fish. I was wondering what experience anyone has feeding them. I know they need live food and several sources say daphnia (which I have in good supply), but it seems like daphnia might be too big. If you've kept them, what did you feed them? Scuds? (maybe baby scuds) Daphnia? Moina? Brine shrimp (I assume these would work, but I find hatching brine shrimp tedious) microworm? Black worms? White worms? something else? Thanks! [1] What was I supposed to do? There was soooo much space left in the shipping box after I ordered the apisto I was actually there to order. Obviously I needed to spend $50 on fish to make sure the $40 in shipping didn't go waste, right? 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 You can teach most natives to take some servings of frozen bloodworms. I cut frozen cubes up with a scissors for very small fish. Just don’t overfeed. Grindal worms would be great. @Guppysnail can help direct you to a reliable seller. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memorywrangler Posted August 30 Author Share Posted August 30 On 8/29/2024 at 6:52 PM, Fish Folk said: Grindal worms would be great. @Guppysnail can help direct you to a reliable seller. That would be really helpful. The Grindal worm cultures I get from my LFS always seem to be infected with some nematodes, and they crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tlindsey Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 On 8/29/2024 at 3:25 PM, memorywrangler said: On a bit of an impulse [1], I ordered 5 Indostomus paradoxus from Dan's fish. I was wondering what experience anyone has feeding them. I know they need live food and several sources say daphnia (which I have in good supply), but it seems like daphnia might be too big. If you've kept them, what did you feed them? Scuds? (maybe baby scuds) Daphnia? Moina? Brine shrimp (I assume these would work, but I find hatching brine shrimp tedious) microworm? Black worms? White worms? something else? Thanks! [1] What was I supposed to do? There was soooo much space left in the shipping box after I ordered the apisto I was actually there to order. Obviously I needed to spend $50 on fish to make sure the $40 in shipping didn't go waste, right? That is a very unique looking fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beastie Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 sadly, no bloodworm, no grindal in my opinion. Also no mosquito larvae. Mine were fed microworms, bbs, paramecium and that was it. I always struggled with bringing in more microfauna for them, and after a year and a half, out of 8 I have one and I have zero ideas what happened to the others, found only 3 dead, stuck in a filter hose... Check out my journal, I mention my indostomus tank from page 1 and sporadically on other pages , use the search, I always call them indostomus 🙂 My last one is still in the same tank, but now housed with boraras and darios. I saw when feeding frozen cyclops, how they would let it hit their head and never eat it. No movement, no interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 @memorywrangler Microworms might be to small if your new friend is adult size but may still work to add variety. Grindal worms, moina and live bbs are going to be your staples. I will message you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beastie Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 On 8/30/2024 at 1:17 PM, Guppysnail said: @memorywrangler Microworms might be to small if your new friend is adult size but may still work to add variety. Grindal worms, moina and live bbs are going to be your staples. I will message you. You have seen my feeding videos right? Microworms are ideal size in my opinion, the mouth of that fish is so damn small!! like oh so much small. I doubt they will eat adult grindal tbh. Didnt test though, didnt have a culture yet Moina was ok but fast, shrimplets are good food source I think 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOtrees Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 I keep a couple cultures of daphnia, and something I regularly do when I collect and feed them out is divide them by size. It’s basically a process of finding a net that has the right size mesh and pouring the collected daphnias in a small cup of water through that a few times until you end up with all the medium and big daphnias in the net and the small ones passing through or passed through. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 On 8/30/2024 at 7:37 AM, beastie said: You have seen my feeding videos right? Microworms are ideal size in my opinion, the mouth of that fish is so damn small!! like oh so much small. I doubt they will eat adult grindal tbh. Didnt test though, didnt have a culture yet Moina was ok but fast, shrimplets are good food source I think I did see it but could not remember what you fed. This is still a someday species for me so I did not have first hand experience. I feed grindle worms to baby fish not long after they can eat bbs so I was thinking it would be good. The babies run about with the grindles in their mouth for a bit but do manage to slurp them down. I would say it’s worth a try. I get gobs of baby grindle with each feeding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memorywrangler Posted September 5 Author Share Posted September 5 @beastie I have a little detail question: I'm going to set up a little species tank for the these guys on my desk so I can actually see what they are up to, since they are so tiny. Do you have a suggestion about whether they'd look better on light or dark substrate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beastie Posted September 6 Share Posted September 6 Well, I cant comment on what they will look better on, I only ever had them on a dark substrate. Based on what is mentioned in seriouslyfish, they inhabit black clay/mud waters, so I dont think they will be comfortable on a light substrate. TBH if you had the time to properly set it up, my advice would be to make something that you never have to gravel vac. They are not overly great at avoiding the hose and you will keep breaking your setup apart with it. I would read up on some sort of father fish method layer of leaves/dirt/something. Tank to be pretty to look at and tank where they will be visible is not in my opinion a tank where they will be happy/thrive. Do not make the tank too big. I moved them from my 40 liter to a 25 liter, cause smaller means better hunting. They are not active swimmers and they wont travel too far for food either. What is a must is the tubes of some sort, they spend their whole lives in them, except females who roam the tank a bit more Here are some pictures of mine to help you imagine it this was my first tank, full of moss that became full of gunk, newish black substrate rolled up leaves also work as tube If you provide branches, they will hover alongside them and try to be invisible. They are not about being seen. They are about the hunt 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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