New neon blue dwarf gourami

newby

Got him last night. He ate alot. About 6 freeze dried boodworms. Is this excessive? Will he over feed? Never had a gourami before. He is beautiful with personality! Any advise would be appreciated.

BarbH

As with all fish you will want to provide them with a balanced diet. Blood worms are good for an occassional treat, once or twice a week, but you will want to make sure he is getting a good quality flake food also. I myself personally use frozen blood worms instead of freeze dried. With freeze dried I have heard of problems of them expanding once eaten by the fish and can cause issues. If you are going to use freeze dried soak them first in a small glass with some aquarium water. I find a shot glass works well for when I am thawing out frozen foods, and would work well for soaking the freeze dried worms before feeding.

newby

Is there a risk of overfeeding? He seems hungry all the time.

BarbH

Yes you can overfeed your fish. A healthy fish will act like it is hungry all the time. Feeding your fish once a day with what it can eat in a couple of minutes is suffiecent. It is also okay to fast your fish once during the week, a lot of people will actually not feed their fish on the day that they do water changes.

newby

I read where you are to do a 25 % water chage every week. Is this accurate? I only have done 10% and from top, not vaccum.
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BarbH

Depending on where you look you will hear different thoughts on water changes and how much or how often. When I started I orginally was doing 25% on my tank. After being here on the forums for awhile and reading others experiences, and the reasons why larger water changes are more benificial I have increased my water changes to 40 to 50%. With the larger water change you are removing the waste and the chemicals that build up in the water, and keep the water cleaner for the fish. There are many members here who have been keeping fish longer than I have and have been doing 50% water changes. They have healthy tanks and fish, so it is from their examples and experience that I base what I decide to do with my tank. With vacuuming the gravel, do you have live plants in the tank? If you do than doing a deep vacuuming on the gravel is not necessary and actually is not good for the plants, when distrubing their roots. If you do not have plants in your tank than definitly you will want to vacuum the gravel. Some people will vacuum all the gravel with each water change while others will vacuum one half one week, and then the other half the next week. With vacuuming the gravel this will help in keeping you from having a build up of gunk in the bottom of your tank, and will help to keep your water parameters good.

Byron

Read through this thread and I concur with everything Barb has suggested.