Livebearer Feeding

[Kirsten]

Lots of great discussion around fish food these days and it's gotten me curious about the best way to feed my livebearer tank(s) (an ever-increasing number!).

1. Livebearers are champs at eating algae and dead plant matter. So in a heavily planted tank, is it okay to feed them mostly protein-rich foods like BBS, the Co-op's Easy Fish and Fry food, and sometimes some Vibrabites for fun (my pea puffer doesn't care for them, so I have a lot extra)? Sometimes I'll throw in a sinking algae wafer or veggie round for fun and they'll go nuts for it, but they go nuts for everything!

2. Another feature of livebearers is the liveborn! Several dozens at any given time! While I know all of them probably won't make it to adulthood, I'd still like to give them a fighting chance and at least not have them starve to death. But the more you feed everyone, the more they reproduce, and so on. How do you balance the needs for several high-protein meals per day for the fry without overfeeding your adults?

3. Another complication is my bamboo shrimp, Norma, who needs a good supply of food in the water column. Probably wasn't the smartest idea to put her with livebearers who gobble up every morsel they can find and turn it into more hungry mouths to feed. But there's that.

4. With all the feeding going on, of course I'm overrun with ramshorn snails. Right now, I'm considering it a boon and a free food source for my pea puffer, but I know it's a sign that I'm overfeeding a bit. How do I safely cut back on feeding without starving all my babies (or having them resort to eating live plants)?

[KaitieG]

I'm certainly not a pro, but I ended up with WAY TOO MANY guppy fry just by leaving them with the adults and feeding the adults crushed krill flakes or Repashy once a day.  I wasn't trying to raise fry to sell or grow fast, but they did just fine and turned out to be nice, large adults.  I'm sure there are plenty of better ways to do it.

Now that I'm trying to get more fry again (gave away all those extras and now starting a larger tank) I'm feeding 3X a day mainly to keep the adults not-so-hungry so they don't go hunting.  We'll see how that goes.  I've seen the day-old fry eat crushed flakes, Hikari Fancy Guppy, and the Coop Fry food so far.

[Kat_Rigel]

On 2/18/2021 at 6:56 AM, Kirsten said:

Lots of great discussion around fish food these days and it's gotten me curious about the best way to feed my livebearer tank(s) (an ever-increasing number!).

1. Livebearers are champs at eating algae and dead plant matter. So in a heavily planted tank, is it okay to feed them mostly protein-rich foods like BBS, the Co-op's Easy Fish and Fry food, and sometimes some Vibrabites for fun (my pea puffer doesn't care for them, so I have a lot extra)? Sometimes I'll throw in a sinking algae wafer or veggie round for fun and they'll go nuts for it, but they go nuts for everything!

2. Another feature of livebearers is the liveborn! Several dozens at any given time! While I know all of them probably won't make it to adulthood, I'd still like to give them a fighting chance and at least not have them starve to death. But the more you feed everyone, the more they reproduce, and so on. How do you balance the needs for several high-protein meals per day for the fry without overfeeding your adults?

3. Another complication is my bamboo shrimp, Norma, who needs a good supply of food in the water column. Probably wasn't the smartest idea to put her with livebearers who gobble up every morsel they can find and turn it into more hungry mouths to feed. But there's that.

4. With all the feeding going on, of course I'm overrun with ramshorn snails. Right now, I'm considering it a boon and a free food source for my pea puffer, but I know it's a sign that I'm overfeeding a bit. How do I safely cut back on feeding without starving all my babies (or having them resort to eating live plants)?

I don't necessarily see any issues here. I have a planted 55gal with many, many guppies. I feed them a range of foods, although I like feeding the krill flakes cause they enjoy it so much (too bad it has made them fat! lol) But I also feed spirulina flakes, algae wafers, and for some reason everyone in the tank loves the Xtreme shrimp food. As long as you have a planted tank, some of the fry will survive. If you are looking to breed, obviously you would want to look into making a new place for them. Fry will nibble on the edges of the flake foods, I have never had an issue feeding them and I do not feed them specifically. Lastly, I have successfully kept two bamboo shrimp in the tank with all these guppies. Since they are filter feeders, they are going to eat the very very tiny stuff that guppies might miss. I never had an issue with my shrimp starving.

[Koi]

Hi @Kirsten, as far as a definitive way to ensure your guppies won't eat their fry, I don't really have a solution  as I am struggling with that myself. But I can offer some methods that I employ to try to curb that and I'll share share issues that I'm running into. Hopefully there is something in here that at least will spark an idea for you.

As far as your concern for using higher protein based dry foods, I wouldn't worry about that too much but definitely keep an eye on the overall body conformation of your fish. In general the amount of grains used to bind the fish foods should be sufficient enough as roughage for your fish. Now I do mix a higher veggie based food at least  one of my feedings during the day but it isn't something that I really fixate on. I think maybe something of concern for high protein would be only feeding something like blood worms but even then I'm not sure how crucial it is but then again I have never tried strictly only feeding bloodworms. Other live/frozen foods like adult/baby brine shrimp or daphnia are some of my favorites as it is good protein and the calcium from their shells serve as a form of fiber for the fish.

I'll preface that currently at the moment I have no more space to hold anymore guppies and I'm mostly just getting them through the season till I can put them back outside. This first one isn't so much as a suggestion but a failure on my part which is decreasing the temperature. Currently my tank stays around 68-70 degrees and my thought process behind this was to slow down their metabolism so that they aren't as hungry. Being that my tank is pretty overstocked I think I've created a feast or famine situation just cause of the sheer numbers I have in a relatively small space. I'll also mention I have noticed that although I haven't seen a change in my fish appetite. they definitely aren't growing as quickly as some of the same fish I keep at 80 degrees. Wether which one is healthier overall for the fish, I don't really know.

Depending on how much time in the day you are allowed to see your fish I think spreading out the meals does help. On my busy days I will feed 3 times a day. But for weekends I will even spread the feedings to 6+ times a day or try feeding every 2 hours. Note that I am suggesting increasing the number of feedings not increasing the amount of food. Instead of bigger meals, I'll just try to have the fish "snack" ensuring that most of my guppies at least get a bite or two. Another option I like is having a slow release type food. As @KaitieG mentioned repashy is a nice option especially if you can't be at home all day, you can put down a block and have your fish graze on it throughout the day. I like using green beans as well, but it seems like only my biggest females will tend to pick on it and most times it may end up as snail food. Since you said you already having a climbing population of snails this may not be feasible for you, but you could always use the green beans to gather all the snails to one side and you can remove them as such.

As far as probably the best option I agree with @Kat_Rigel that separating would ensure the highest amount of fish and you could maximize growth.I'll share an idea i consider somewhat of a "wives tale" that bigger fish produce produce a hormone that prevent other fish from growing within a tank, do what you will with that information haha I figured it was at least something worth sharing. If you aren't looking to have more tanks and if you can stand having floating plants. Having dense cover at the top will allow fry to hide within the roots and they can pick off the microorganisms growing on it as well.

I feel like there was something else I did, but I'm drawing a blank. If I can remember it, I will add on to it here if you are interested. If there is anything that you've tried please share I'm always looking for different ideas/methods to try!

[Kirsten]

Thanks!

Just to clarify, I don't mind my livebearers eating their fry. I'd actually prefer if they ate a few more of them, as I have approximately a million billion at the moment! But neither do I want the fry to totally starve to death (or eat my plants because they're so hungry, if they'd do that).

But it's good to know that these high-protein foods aren't too rich and fatty, necessarily, for my adults. I'll keep trying to chuck in pieces of vegetables until I take the plunge with repashy. Hard to tell if they're fat, though, because they might all be pregnant! (males are all trim and sporty, though)

[Koi]

What kind of livebearers are you keeping? If it’s just guppies I would say generally they don’t eat plants if anything they are picking off the stuff growing on the plants. For instance, when ever I treat some bba with hydrogen peroxide I never get to see it turn red, usually my guppies will clean it all off. 
 

Ive been the same way with repashy, I like the utility of it but knowing myself I won’t use it as much just cause of the extra steps. Even if it’s only like 2 steps haha. I don’t mind having big mommas in fact I love pulling giant females out of my pond at the end of summer. I only have a problem is my males come out looking pregnant haha

[Kirsten]

25 minutes ago, Koi said:

What kind of livebearers are you keeping?

Endlers and platies, and I'm starting up another tank with guppies and swordtails, so all the major ones! 😄 I'm seeing some pretty large chomps out of my crypt lately, but I think that's probably the ramshorn snails and maybe the leaves had soft spots that I didn't know about or something.