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Angelfish

4K views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  Arash 
#1 ·
We bought some angelfish from Walmart the other day. Now we knew it was risky because most of the time in their tanks there are as many dead as alive but the angels are only 2.97$ cdn so we decided to take a chance. Anyway we got 5 and 2 died before the next morning. The other 3 are still alive but I've read that they are supposed to be voracious eaters and they pick at the food at best. We bought 5 more today and are waiting to see how many we're left with out of those. There is no competitiveness between them, they are rather small though.No bigger then an inch tall. What should I do to get them to start eating more. So far I've just offered flake food. I know they do well on a meaty diet so they can't stay on that but I'm sure they weren't getting anything fancy at the store. I was thinking of breeding some brine shrimp to offer them to at least get them interested. But any ideas would be great. They don't look sick but I know that they didn't have the best conditions at the store.
 
#2 ·
Frozen brine shrimp are a much easier alternate to hatching and raising baby brine shrimp (which are the staple of angel fry).

If your water parameters are OK they may just have been overfed at Walmart or are adjusting their new environment.

One additional item:

Flakes will probably not generate the growth rate and vibrant colors of your angels.

The staple for my angels (which I acquired at nickel size) has been my beef heart mixture (and variations thereof).

TR
 
#3 ·
my params are ok so that shouldn't be the problem. could i get your recipe for the beef heart mixture? we were planning on using one but if you have a mixture that works good i'ld be grateful to get it from you. I tried feeding them some roe just to see what happened. I put a little in so it fell where they all were and the biggest one went over and tried itand started picking at what had fell on the bottom, then the others seemed interested. So I put in some more and they all ate some. So at least they ate. I saw them picking at the bottome later on in the day were there was a piece of flake food left that the cories and ottos hadn't got. How old do they have to be before i can start them on a diet of homemade food? I've read it can make the water dirty, is that true? Excuse all the questions but as always i want the best for any of my fish. Thanks for the help.
 
#4 ·
1) The following should answer most of your questions.
http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2101&highlight=beef+heart
Please note that I no longer feed the quantity set forth in the posts and rarely does uneaten food now stay in the tank longer than approximately 6 hours.

2) If their bodies are the size of a nickel or larger then they can eat this mixture (mine did).

3) One of the "keys" to "cleaner feeding" of the mixture is to blend the ingredients such that the ingredients are particles sufficiently small such that the fish can eat them but not pureed.

TR
 
#5 ·
1- do you cycle your tank

2 - what is the size of it
3 how many angels you have now ?

4- did they finish the food after maximum of 15 minutes?

5- did you tried frozen blood worms . it's the wow

you will get the point try it


after feeding about one or two hour cycle your tank
wish you luck
 
#6 ·
by "do you cycle your tank" do you mean is it cycled, as in ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? If so then yes it's been up and cycled for a while. It's a 45g tank. We plan on doing an amazon biotope so we're going to put lots of plants in there, we just haven't got the lighting yet, all it has now is a single florescent. It has 2 ottos, 2 chinese algae eaters and 4 spotted cories. Right now there are 5 angels, we had more but they died off, we got them from 2 different walmarts and all the ones from 1 store died off. But we knew we were taking a chance with them by the other occupants in the stores tanks. :( I haven't tried frozen blood worms yet, though they seem to be a popular choice for many fish, we just don't have any right now. I plan on giving them a homemade diet They seem to be eating good now, they'll eat the flake food and the roe when I put it in. We plan on getting the ingredients for the homemade stuff this weekend.
 
#7 ·
squiggles1 said:
We plan on getting the ingredients for the homemade stuff this weekend.
Squiggles:

Three Items

1) After you have the beef heart cut up I recommend that you only blend "about a half a cup" in just enough of the liquid from a can of spinach to cover the beef heart in the blender. I "slobbered up" on several complete batches "before I got it down" and wish I would have tried the half cup method for experience.

2) I will be in town and at home this weekend and will check for messages at least three times a day if you have any questions.

3) If you "come up with" any better methods than mine for controlling consistency of the mixture please let me know.

TR
 
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